Politics / Has it all gone wrong between Trump and Starmer? |
‘The Special Relationship only exists when the Americans want something,’ a former Downing Street aide observed after Donald Trump rejected the Chagos Islands deal. There are profound differences between London and Washington over military action against Iran while the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine this week has exposed further fault lines. The result is that Anglo-American relations are at their worst point since the general election.
Starmer’s team argues he should not be ousted at a time of huge international instability. But the reality of the Anglo-American relationship raises three questions. Where did things go wrong? Does the PM still have some kind of relationship with Trump? And would it matter if he were replaced by Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting or anyone else?
The PM apparently hates the way Trump calls him at random when he is with his family
The PM apparently hates the way Trump calls him at random when he is with his family
During the first 18 months of his premiership, it became accepted, correctly I think, that one of the few areas where Starmer excelled was foreign affairs. He seemed particularly good at handling the often capricious President. But it is also true that the two great cleavages of recent weeks – Iran and Chagos – are intimately tied to Starmer’s personal fetish for subordinating the sovereignty of parliament to international law.
If the Prime Minister believes in anything, it is that the web of international treaties constructed to constrain rogue states after the second world war overrides domestic law. His appointment of Richard Hermer as his Attorney General........