What will happen to the US and UK ‘special relationship’ with PM Starmer in charge?

For Sir Keir, maintaining the commitment to Ukraine will be the biggest challenge if Donald Trump wins a second term, writes Jon Sopel

As with so much else, there will be a ton of reading for Starmer to do on the flight over to Washington (Getty)

In British elections, things happen at warp speed. There is no languid two-and-a-half-month interregnum from the close of polls to the taking up of the reins of power, as there is in the US. Prime minister Starmer will move into Downing Street imminently, and before he’s worked out how to use the remote control or found out where the loos are, he’ll be on a plane to Washington for the Nato summit next week.

There, the most newly minted Western leader will take his first baby steps on the world stage. But – to put it mildly – it’s going to be weird. There’s going to be Keir Starmer, with his whopping, great big mandate, shaking hands with Joe Biden who – how can one put this gently – is looking a touch past his sell-by date. In November, as things stand (and it is my belief this might change), Keir Starmer will be either spending his premiership dealing with a US president who appears mentally compromised or one who is morally compromised.

Never mind, as the politicians are wont to tell us, they will deal with whoever is the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and from the grand Lutyens House a mile or so away on Massachusetts Avenue, the British ambassador, Karen Pierce, will be doing her best to smooth the path of the new PM and his fledgling administration.

It would be conventional now to talk about the “special relationship” but it is a phrase I came to hate in my eight years in the US. It is something the British – and our press – obsess about but which the Americans don’t think twice about. The travelling British press pack when Starmer goes will be on high alert for anything that could be construed as a snub. Will there be a bilateral? Or will it just be a corridor brush past? How long will it last? Did Macron get more? And on and on it goes; a totally meaningless confection.

What’s so silly is that Downing Street often plays up to it – purring with delight when the meeting goes on longer than scheduled, or becoming brittle and defensive when the president says he’s too busy for a photocall.

Look, in certain areas, the special relationship does exist and is absolutely real and vital: national security, intelligence sharing and defence. But America has interests and will do what it sees as being in its interests at any given time. And remember, the transition from Trump to Biden in 2021 made no difference in terms of the UK getting a post-Brexit trade deal with the US. Trump wasn’t that interested in giving Britain one, and neither was the Biden administration. Further, if there is to be one, remember who has the leverage. It’s not us.

At the end of Barack Obama’s term, I had breakfast with his press secretary and he confided the tricks of the trade: when the Brits are in town, you talk about the “special relationship”; when it’s the Canadians or Mexicans, you talk about the “closest relationship” (which geographically of course it is); and when it’s the French, it’s the “oldest relationship” – two republics born at around the same time. Everyone wants to feel they are important when they go to Washington.

David Cameron had it right when he acknowledged openly that Britain was the junior partner. Starmer should do the same – whether it’s Biden, Trump or anyone else, for that matter, in the White House. Arguably, the two in the last half century that had the closest relationship were Thatcher and Reagan, but that didn’t stop the US from completely blindsiding the British with the invasion of Grenada – a Commonwealth country – and not telling Downing Street anything about it until it happened.

Obviously, the relationship will get more tangly if it is Trump back in the White House: just ask our former ambassador Lord Darroch, who was effectively fired from the job by him. It is hard to see Starmer and Trump kicking back and having a laugh together over burgers and fries at Mar-a-Lago. Theresa May had a dreadful relationship with him but arguably, she got a commitment to Nato from him which the British saw as a big and important success. And Trump and Macron had a brief love-in but that quickly soured. So don’t judge the relationship on atmospherics.

For Sir Keir, maintaining the commitment to Ukraine will be the biggest challenge if Trump wins a second term. But it will be a concern shared by the rest of Europe and the new Nato secretary general. And that is where the British have been putting in a lot of spade work, with Lord Cameron visiting Trump to discuss this in the spring.

As with so much else, there will be a ton of reading for Starmer to do on the flight over to Washington. But I do think the best description of British foreign policy is this: find out what America is thinking and do a little bit less. I have no reason to think that will change under Prime Minister Starmer.