If Britain made the slightest bit of sense, we would not be sending King Charles to the US. There wouldn’t even be a conversation about it. It would simply be assumed that it is completely unsuitable for him to be sent to a country that is actively trying to undermine Britain. But this country does not make sense, so he is going.
The argument for the visit going ahead – almost certainly voiced in the Foreign Office and Downing Street last week – is as follows. Britain is too deeply ingrained in the American defence ecosystem for us to tear up the alliance. We need to stem the bleeding and King Charles is better placed to do that than Keir Starmer.
At the moment, the UK-US relationship is clearly at a low point. Last night the US President wrote that the UK should “build up some delayed courage” and take oil from the Strait of Hormuz. “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore”. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke sarcastically about a “big bad Royal Navy”. These guys spend more time verbally attacking Britain than they do Iran.
Concerns are that cancelling the royal visit would turn a diplomatic spat into a full-blown crisis. At the moment, it’s all just bad-smelling wind from a blowbag President who changes his mind as often as he changes his clothes. But if you escalate and in particular if you involve the royals – the only aspect of British culture Trump seems to admire – things become existential. Charles’s visit keeps things ticking along.
And besides, they’ll have told themselves, the King will give a speech to Congress in which he can issue some partially-veiled arguments about Ukraine and climate change and the rules-based order. We’ll get to speak truth in the heart of power.
This analysis sounds sensible and pragmatic. It is wrong on nearly every level.
As a first order offence, it is insufficiently respectful of the Royal Family. We are sending the King into a situation where we cannot ensure his dignity. It’s really not very different from ushering him into a circus and setting the clowns on him. In fact, just like real clowns, figures like Marco Rubio are currently walking around the White House wearing oversized shoes because they think having small feet is a comment on their masculinity. This is a thing that is actually happening. It is a place that has lost all contact with reason.
What will they say when the King is at their banquet? What recourse will he have if one of these thug Neanderthals – Hegseth perhaps, or JD Vance, or Trump himself – says something disparaging about Britain? None whatsoever.
These are not just questions about the King’s personal dignity. They are practical questions about the deployment of a foreign policy asset. The monarchy is not making its own decisions here. It is being sent by the British government as a little bouquet of flowers to flatter the mad emperor in Washington. But if he is demeaned or humiliated, the asset degrades. Its perceived value is reduced. Only an extremely short-termist assessment of the national interest would countenance sending that asset into such a dangerous environment and reducing its use in future, especially when its only function is to flatter a man with no medium or long-term memory.
Quite apart from our national interest, the royal visit is flawed as a point of geopolitical strategy.
We are at a uniquely dangerous moment in world affairs. This statement is made so often, in such mild circumstances, that it has lost its force. But it is undeniably true today. Trump started a war almost by accident which unfolded internationally in a way he did not expect. With lightning speed it has expanded to now include Israel, Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar, Houthi rebels and many others.
Until now, Trump believed this stuff was easy. That was the disastrous lesson he learned when he kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela – that you can get involved in aggressive foreign policy actions with minimal consequences, satisfy your sense of machismo, and experience no ostracisation from fellow world leaders. And because he thought it was easy, he did it again. Now he is embroiled in probably the single most dangerous global conflict of our lifetime outside of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We have tried to placate him. We have tried royal visits and flattery and demonstrations of fealty and fawning praise. It does not work. If anything, it has encouraged him. The best approach now is ostracisation. At the very minimum – if we’re all lucky enough to survive this war – we might stop him from doing it again.
The Royal Family actually has a bearing on Trump. He can live with a rejection by Starmer. He will be more affronted by a rejection from the King. That will serve as an effective demonstration of his falling international standing. Would it work? Who knows. Probably not. His mind is like a box of frogs. But it is our moral obligation to at least try.
There is one final reason to cancel the visit, which is not practical but emotional. It is about the preservation of national integrity. Trump has now abused us in every way there is to do so. He disparages us as a country. He insults our elected government. He has denigrated British troops and the sacrifices they made in US-led wars.
How in God’s name will we now send out the King to flatter this man? What has happened to our sense of honour and self-respect that we would degrade ourselves in this way?
It is past time to recognise the situation we are in. The old ways do not work. We must now – finally, when all other options have been made impossible – behave with some trace element of pride in our country. We have to distance ourselves from the US ceremonially as well as politically.
The King should not be anywhere near that madhouse.
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