JD Vance’s ascension to the Republican ticket as vice-presidential candidate gives this 39-year-old Ohioan senator the power to shape a future Trump administration. This puts Vance second in line to the presidency, and the heir-apparent if Trump leaves office. Vance now has power. Labour will have taken this appointment with mixed feelings.
Vance is not the most diplomatic politician. Last week he said the UK could become the first “Islamist” country to have nuclear weapons after Labour won the general election. This invited muted disagreement from the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. But it should be seen as a jibe, in line with alt-right online jokes about the alliance between the Islamists and the left. Vance was trying to make his audience at the National Conservative Conference chuckle. It could also be explained by a mistaken interpretation of the UK general election: that Labour was elected because of its position on Gaza, not despite it. Labour lost five seats to pro-Palestinian independents as well as only scraping over the line in Shabana Mahmood’s and Wes Streeting’s constituencies.
The joke may have been tasteless but it matters less than the relationship Labour, particularly the Foreign Secretary David Lammy, has built with Maga Republicans in preparation for a Trump victory in November. The party’s foreign policy team has been conscious for a while that Vance was likely to be crowned as Trump’s running mate. Lammy appeared alongside him at the Munich Security Conference in February, where Vance described the then shadow foreign secretary as his “English friend”. Lammy saw Vance again for a private meeting in Washington DC in May, and repaid the compliment. This new Labour government will be hoping its prior friendship with him will bear fruit.
That a personal relationship has been built is undeniable. But diplomacy can only take two parties who fundamentally disagree so far. Vance has been strident in his calls for the US to curtail its support for Ukraine, something that Keir Starmer and Lammy have committed to maintaining. Vance represents a populist, isolationist Republicanism that is sceptical about using American power overseas. The US defensive umbrella that protects Europe could become more precarious with him in the White House. For all the bluster and rhetoric the US campaign will inevitably throw out, it could be the substantive differences between Labour and Vance over which this special relationship eventually falters.
[See also: Can Labour end our national addiction to prison?]
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