Sir Keir Starmer faces a week which may define his premiership, as he travels to Washington DC to meet President Donald Trump with an agenda nothing short of war and peace.
Starmer is seeking to both defend Britain’s economic interests and offer himself as a bridge to Europe. It’s a continent struggling to catch up with Trump’s decision to negotiate directly with Russia to end the war in Ukraine while potentially sidelining Kyiv and its allies from the process entirely.
In a world where former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is no longer the dominant European politician, a vacancy has arisen to be the voice of the continent. German elections this weekend and the ensuing weeks of coalition negotiations have left a space for Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron to become the first European Trump-whisperer.
Macron will meet Trump in Washington on Monday making him the first European leader to travel to the US capital since Trump’s inauguration. Starmer will arrive three days later, on Thursday. They have very different styles.
I remember watching Macron at a G20 summit in Cornwall in 2021. Unlike the other leaders who behaved more conventionally, he was the one who hugged then-president Joe Biden for too long and who slung an arm around the reluctant US president. The French President couldn’t have made his feelings clearer, short of kissing the American.
This week Macron is likely to appeal to Trump’s ego and strongman complex. During a Q&A on social media on Thursday, the French President said he will try to convince Trump that sidelining Ukraine would be seen as caving in to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands and would portray him as weak in the eyes of China and Iran.
By contrast, the more emotionally restrained Starmer is likely to make a more rational argument when he meets the president.
The message UK diplomats and politicians have been sending both publicly and privately is that it’s time for calm alongside cool heads. “A lot of work has been done to try and roll the pitch in conversations,” a Government source told The i Paper. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is likely to accompany Starmer to the White House.
“There’s a going to be some tough messaging,” another insider agreed, pointing to the fact No 10 made it abundantly clear Starmer disagreed with Trump calling Zelensky a dictator.
But once the cameras have withdrawn from the pastel-coloured Oval Office, just how tough is Starmer prepared to get? So far, the softly softly approach has been his hallmark, but as a strategy it appears to have reached its limit. Trump’s statements are just getting more and more outlandish. If next week isn’t crunch time, it’s hard to see when it is.
While the French government may spin that it’s a win for their diplomacy and primacy in Europe that Macron is first to the White House next week, British diplomats are privately relieved the French are being ushered in first.
“From our point of view that’s actually not a bad thing,” a UK government source told The i Paper. That’s because the meetings planned between No 10, the Foreign Office and the National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell early next week to prepare for their own visit can take lessons from how Macron is received by Trump and recalibrate accordingly. The war-gaming in London will be determined by what comes out of the first round of French-US diplomacy.
Officials are also planning how to present Britain as the better claimant as a strong ally, to emphasise the “special” in the so-called Special Relationship. Part of that is drawing up a list of benefits.
Starmer can make the claim that the UK is a better ally to the US than the French when it comes to defence and security. Britain is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence community, whereas France sits outside it. Meanwhile, Britain is part of the AUKUS defence alliance centred on nuclear submarines. Starmer could also remind the US that while Britain offers up its nuclear deterrent for Nato’s use, France does not. France also spends 2.06 per cent of its GDP on defence, compared to the UK’s 2.33 per cent.
And it may sound flippant, but Starmer can also play the royal card, which France famously can’t. Trump, with billions in the bank, now only hankers after what he can’t have: the approval of people whose position can’t be bought.
Meanwhile, complicating the discussions is the jockeying for position in Trump’s top team, with contradictory remarks on Ukraine coming from Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Marco Rubio and Ukrainian Envoy Keith Kellogg. That’s made calibrating what Trump says and what Trump means even more difficult, Government sources suggested. “We’ve been scratching our heads a lot. Who is speaking for the administration when they are talking over each other?” one official queried.
That’s why seeing the top man is so important. But even as Macron and Starmer jostle for Trump’s ear, as fellow Europeans they know enough to show solidarity on Ukraine as they seek future American security guarantees.
Where the pair differ is in how they protect their domestic interests. Since November Starmer has dodged the questions over whether he will choose between the US or EU on trade. Part of the discussion with Trump is likely to focus on securing an opt-out for British industries from tariffs. France, locked into the European Union trading bloc, can do no such deal.
Another fundamental question dogging Starmer is whether he will provide some clarity on defence spending. Barring a new policy announcement early next week, the Prime Minister will travel to Washington as the only major UK party leader who has not backed calls to hike the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of Britain’s GDP by 2030.
An open question in government is how long Starmer can hold the line and keep saying he will announce a timeline for hitting the spending target when a strategic defence review is published before the summer.
At home, a perfect storm is brewing next month when the Office for Budget Responsibility will release its latest outlook for the UK economy and public finances and will detail what headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves has against her financial rules. With reports now suggesting £9.9 billion in “fiscal headroom” has been wiped out by a combination of low growth, higher-than-expected interest rates and higher borrowing costs, Reeves faces having to raise taxes before she even thinks about increasing the defence budget.
The Chagos Islands are likely to come up next week in discussions, The i Paper understands, but it is unclear whether the US administration has yet to come to a fixed position on the deal. This is another moment of danger for Starmer.
Back home, the Conservatives have repetitive messaging which kicked off with the controversial Chagos deal. The Tories argue that “when Starmer negotiates, Britain loses.” If Starmer is humiliated by Trump, that narrative could take wings and fly.
Trump has hitherto, to everyone’s slight surprise, been fairly nice about Starmer. This will be the week to see if that holds.
“Fundamentally, it’s the total acceptance that this is big-power diplomacy” between Trump and Starmer, a Government source said. “It’s all about the two men eyeballing each other and whether one blinks first.”
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