Keir Starmer was already finding life tough as a center-left leader in a world of populist anger.
Now enter Donald Trump — Starmer’s worst nightmare writ large.
The British prime minister is a moderate legal nerd who prizes deliberation and the rule of law. The right-wing Trump — with his shoot-from-the-hip approach, criminal convictions and attempts to subvert the 2020 election — could hardly be a more contrasting figure.
“I don’t think you will find a leader around the world less like Donald Trump than Keir Starmer,” said Tom Baldwin, biographer of the British PM.
Downing Street is braced for fireworks.
Trump defined his first stint in the White House by piling almost as much strain on allied nations as he did on U.S. enemies — over trade, defense spending and, in the British case, Brexit. Some expect Trump 2.0 will be even more aggressive in dealing with international counterparts, and there are now significant added tripwires given the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“He butted heads pretty good between 2016 and 2020,” said one Republican staffer in Washington given permission to remain anonymous in order to speak freely. “But I feel he thinks he gave way a little bit too much.”
Starmer, elected on a landslide in July, is standing increasingly alone as a powerful center-left leader on the world stage. Both France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz are struggling, but Starmer has a sizable majority and time on his side.
The British PM already has a few tricks up his sleeve to meet the challenge of dealing with the unpredictable and thin-skinned presidential returnee.
Starmer worked hard to cultivate a personal relationship with the Republican leader in the run-up to the U.S. election. He should also be able to trade on his own landslide election victory over the summer, since Trump respects winners. And if things get too rough, there’s an emergency handle he can pull: roll out King Charles III.
“Last time around the queen [Elizabeth II] was the secret weapon used by the U.K. to woo Trump,” said Luke Coffey, a former U.K. Conservative special adviser, now at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington. He explained how Trump was a sucker for regal pomp, and more open to engagement when it was dangled — albeit never as an explicit quid pro quo. “I think a similar thing can be done now,” Coffey said.
Others urged Starmer to be clear and honest with Trump about policy disagreements, while resisting domestic pressure to criticize the U.S. president in public. And if the much-vaunted “special relationship” takes a few knocks, the damage is not expected to be permanent, British officials argue.
“The relationship between the U.S. and U.K. is so important it doesn’t matter which political stripe is in Downing Street or Pennsylvania Avenue,” Coffey said. “If we do enter a difficult patch, we just have to ride through it.”
Putting the graft in
Even before his election, Starmer was aware that getting a head start on courting Trump would be a sensible investment in the event the former president returned to the White House.
The president-elect thrives on the personal relationships that lubricate his transactional politics.
Starmer was one of the few world leaders to call Trump following the assassination attempt at an election rally in Pennsylvania in July. The pair spoke for around 10 minutes — their first ever conversation.
The two later met in New York, over a two-hour dinner, while Starmer was in town for a U.N. summit in September. Numerous people briefed on the meeting insist it was a great success, with Trump describing the British PM as a “friend.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has been courting Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance, and U.K. Ambassador to Washington Karen Pierce, who has nurtured close relations with Camp Trump, helped make both interactions happen. Lammy had some sucking up to do after criticizing Trump in the past.
Some reckon Starmer will keep Pierce on longer than her scheduled departure in the coming months, to draw on her valuable access. “It might only be an extra year or so,” said a Washington consultant focused on U.K. issues. “The start of the administration is just so critical.”
But all the interpersonal efforts can end up counting for nothing with the haphazard Trump. Despite being the first world leader to meet him at the White House after his 2016 win, former Prime Minister Theresa May found the relationship tough to navigate, with Brexit a particularly thorny area.
“Theresa made a proper effort to engage,” said a former Downing Street aide who worked for May and was also granted anonymity. “History would suggest some of that set-piece diplomatic engagement, when it comes to support on particular issues, doesn’t matter that much.”
The same person noted, however, that Trump was there for Britain when the biggest crunches came, such as over the novichok poisoning in Salisbury, which he responded to by expelling 60 Russian diplomats.
“The lesson of Theresa May is you can muddle through when you need to,” the former aide said.
Indeed, despite the perception that personal relationships matter most to Trump, those who know him well argue he’s more interested in competing or converging national interests.
“He views the personal aspect of diplomacy as being very important, but I think observers can also overstate the importance of personality in this stuff,” said Alex Gray, former deputy assistant to Trump and ex-chief of staff of the White House National Security Council.
“The personal touches are nice, but in the end it’s going to be much more substantive things that define the relationship.”
The winners take it all
In the immediate aftermath of the U.K. election in July, Trump reserved praise for his old pal Nigel Farage, whose upstart Reform UK movement won five seats in the House of Commons. But he paid Starmer his dues when he met the British PM in New York in September.
Shortly before they sat down to dine in Trump Tower, the then-presidential candidate praised the Labour boss for being a winner, having kicked the Conservatives out of office with a substantial majority.
It was an example of the respect Trump reserves for successful people, regardless of their political stripe.
“Trump respects strength,” said the former Downing Street adviser who struggled with the White House while a politically weak May ran a minority government. “Keir Starmer now has the best political mandate of anyone in Europe from a center left perspective.”
Ed Owen, a former Labour adviser and now a visiting fellow at Washington think tank Third Way, agreed. “Trump is famously transactional, and Starmer’s landslide election win in July gives him kudos and respect with the incumbent commander-in-chief,” he said.
But there’s a risk, in particular as Starmer’s standing in Britain fades, that he could use Trump as a means to shore up domestic support, by criticizing the president to please the Labour base, even on issues that have nothing to do with Britain, as other nations have done.
“I hope the Starmer government really tries to find areas of continuity and agreement, rather than playing to its domestic audience,” said Gray, the former Trump aide.
The temptation to attack the controversial president will be high, in particular when Trump himself thrives on attacking global counterparts. But it can end up counterproductive.
“The worst way to deal with Donald Trump is to be like Donald Trump,” said Baldwin, Starmer’s biographer.
How to deal with a problem like Donald
Nevertheless, disagreements between the U.S. and U.K. are inevitable, and the incoming president is difficult — if not impossible — to win round. The Ukraine war, the Middle East conflict, the British agreement to cede control of the Chagos Islands to the Maldives, plus trade and defense spending, are among the issues which could flare up.
Sometimes a controlled spat can be an asset to the U.K. prime minister to send signals to the British public. “It’s not always going to be to Keir Starmer’s detriment to have occasional public disagreements with Trump,” said the former May aide quoted above.
Baldwin said Starmer should be well placed to take Trump on in private over areas of divergence, because he’s calm and thoughtful and not prone to getting sucked into confected rows.
He showed he could hold his nerve when a diplomatic bomb exploded during the presidential election.
The Trump campaign launched a legal complaint about Labour activists campaigning for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, despite this being standard practice engaged in by sister parties around the world.
While many in Labour circles saw the move as a classic Republican bid to score a domestic political point, Starmer told reporters the row would not jeopardize his efforts to court Trump, insisting the pair had “established a good relationship.” There will likely be numerous similar moments when Starmer has to hold his tongue in the coming months and years.
“Starmer will need to deploy his best diplomatic skills in order to protect the essential elements of the U.K.-U.S. alliance and prioritize issues that Britain can bring most influence to,” said Owen, the former Labour adviser. “To do so, he will need to work hard to avoid the noise and controversy that will accompany the next president’s every move.”
When the disagreements are real, Starmer should deal with them person to person and not beat around the bush, Coffey, from the Husdon Institute, said. “If you bring your side of the argument to the table, he engages with that.”
Gray, the ex-Trump aide, agreed. He said the president respects those who have “the courage of their convictions” and will listen when counterparts make evidence-based cases for positions diverging from the American approach.
And if all else fails, Starmer can always call Buckingham Palace to placate Trump. “All you have to do is get the royal family involved,” Coffey said. “He loves the trappings of the state.”
The post Why Donald Trump is the British government’s worst nightmare appeared first on Politico.
