Forget Mandelson, Starmer holds the key to the special relationship

Until Labour knows what it wants from the US, the diplomats don't matter.

The appointment of Peter Mandelson – former cabinet minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and former EU trade commissioner – as ambassador to the US has divided opinion. Supporters commend him as an experienced heavyweight. While sceptics question his judgement (he called Donald Trump “a bully” in 2018) and his advocacy for closer ties with China (at odds with the position of the Trump administration). There are countless reasons to believe that he is not the right person for the job – not least when candidates with an established relationship with the new American right were eschewed for a politician with considerable baggage.

It is, however, exceedingly rare that a diplomat’s character itself would damage a relationship between allies. Trump may well hold Mandelson in contempt: reports have emerged that he gave his aide explicit permission to call the incoming ambassador a “moron” earlier this week, for example. But until Keir Starmer gets his story straight on the future of the so-called special relationship, Mandelson’s personality, baggage or no baggage, matters little.

Trump, for a start, has managed to have relatively good relations with all manner of people he has previously disliked. His embrace of former foe Marco Rubio is evidence enough of that, not to mention his friendly posture with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. And as we can see from his September dinner date with David Lammy, Trump (the self-proclaimed anglophile) is perhaps particularly keen on winning over those who have called him things far worse than a “bully”. It would be a surprise to the entire diplomatic world if the incoming president’s distaste for Mandelson turned into a geopolitical assault on the birth country of his mother.

Of far greater concern for those wondering about the future of the so-called special relationship should be Starmer. It is not clear what the Prime Minister wants from the US. This would have been the case even in the event of a Kamala Harris presidency. But with disruptor-in-chief on the horizon, the stakes of Starmer’s equivocation are higher.

The government’s top priority, economic growth, will be hampered if Britain feels the full force of Trump’s isolationism. But Britain’s future, now that it is outside of the European Union, is closely tied to the global interests of Trump too. And in this reliance, Starmer faces a series of complicated trade offs.

What meaningful position can the UK take on the Middle East crisis if it’s at odds with American policy? Can Starmer convince Trump to remain engaged in Ukraine and NATO without committing to buying more weapons from the US? How does a president who is demanding Europe buys more American oil and gas fit into British plans to decarbonise the grid? And can Britain get any concessions on trade from a protectionist Trump unless it follows the American line on China and Iran?

Navigating the reality of Trump 2.0 while outside of the European Union will be hard. We are the junior partner in this relationship and Trump’s administration knows it. If the British government wants things from him, Starmer will have to cosy up, kiss the ring and pay whatever the political price for doing so is back at home. Alternatively, Starmer could attempt to insulate Britain from Trump’s whims and move closer to other partners – the most obvious choice being the EU, which comes with its own political costs. Most importantly, he has to make a choice. Before then, whoever sits in the British embassy and however good a relationship they have with the Maga right makes little difference.