When Sir Keir Starmer was asked how he felt on his flight back to London after a 24-hour whirlwind trip through Washington, he left it simple: “I’m happy,” the Prime Minister said, accompanied by a thumbs-up.
If it was a victory, it was one a long time in the making. From the moment Labour took power in July last year, ministers and their chief aides have been seeking to butter up Donald Trump’s camp in order to ensure they did not get left behind by a potential – and, it turned out, very real – Republican revolution.
Starmer’s visit to Washington on Wednesday and Thursday was no routine foreign jaunt.
In a highly unusual move, some of the Prime Minister’s most senior advisers made an advance trip to the American capital to ensure that everything would go without a hitch, and among the entourage who eventually made it to DC was Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s rarely seen but all-powerful chief of staff.
The Prime Minister had leant in hard to the idea that Trump is all about personal relationships, according to UK Government insiders. After a promising first meeting last year and handful of phone calls, Starmer was quietly optimistic he could continue to build on that personal link.
It was also marked by an astute piece of political theatre – Keir Starmer in front of the cameras reaching into his pocket to pull out a letter from King Charles inviting Trump for a historic second state visit.
Such invitations and the choreography around them are normally kept well behind closed doors. No 10 says such matters are for Buckingham Palace, but the King will do what No 10 asks, particularly in his role as chief diplomat and cheer leader for UK plc.
What is unusual however is the King’s apparent invitation to Trump to essentially pop in to Balmoral when he is next passing, so they can discuss the details of a future state visit.
The letter – held up by Trump – seemed to suggest that if he was visiting his golf course in Turnberry a “detour to a relatively near neighbour” may not be too inconvenient – suggesting perhaps the King’s estate in Dumfries House in Ayrshire, which is a 45-minute drive.
Charles added that “an alternative might be Balmoral”, which is near Trump’s Menie estate. He adds: “Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to plan a historic second State Visit to the United Kingdom.
“As you will know, this is unprecedented by a US president. That is why I would find it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for location and programme content.
“In so doing, working together, I know we will further enhance the special relationship between our two countries, of which we are both so proud.”
Second-term presidents are normally invited for tea rather than a full state visit, but it is likely Trump would drink his preferred tipple of Diet Coke and the King, demurring to his teetotal host, would refrain from his whisky.
Hosting the US President in Balmoral or Dumfries House is likely to take on more of a personal flavour – more like a country-house weekend visit perhaps – than the formality of staying at Buckingham Palace. A great opportunity to forge personal relationships, and discuss – informally – world problems such as international trade, tariffs, and the importance of Scotland’s whisky industry.
Charles, as a “political King” has not shied away from playing his role in international diplomacy, notably in meeting Ursula von der Leyen for the signing of Rishi Sunak’s Windsor Framework. But he has also dabbled domestically, hosting Deputy Prime Minster Angela Rayner and Starmer at his housing project in Nansledan, Cornwall – a rare joint visit – a day before the announcement of Labour’s new towns project.
Officials were remaining tight-lipped about the planning behind the letter stunt, refusing to be drawn on the discussions between No 10 and the Palace and whether or not Trump was forewarned.
An insider suggested the letter flourish came after months of planning to ensure talks between the PM and President were a success.
No 10 and Britain’s diplomats put considerable time and energy into ensuring Starmer and his team delivered the right messages on the day, while a state visit has been under consideration since Trump won the US election.
“The importance of this meeting has been at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds,” a Whitehall source said. “The efforts to ensure it was as successful a meeting as it could possibly be was through hard yards.”
The President did seem genuinely surprised at the gesture, however, and No 10 was not perhaps expecting him to hold up the King’s letter to the cameras so the whole world could read it.
But it was an undoubtedly effective piece of political diplomacy, with Trump seemingly delighted. It is one of the few things Washington insiders believe he truly longs for – closer ties with the Royal Family and the old-school view of British life. And it is in Starmer’s gift.
“What Trump loves is a lot of pomp and circumstance, and nobody does that better than the British,” a DC source told The i Paper. “He may not know much about soccer or football or whatever, but put him in front of a big cheering crowd where he doesn’t have to do any work – he’ll have a great time.”
In the end, things did get more personal than the Prime Minister could have predicted: at the start of their big meeting, Trump lavished praise on Victoria Starmer, saying: “We’ve met a couple of times and I’m very impressed with him, and very impressed with his wife. I must say, she’s a beautiful, great woman.”
At the start of this week, the PM laid the ground for his visit by pledging a rise in UK defence spending would happen much quicker than expected. Privately, British officials admit the timing was no coincidence: the whole idea was to persuade the President that Britain is serious in leading an upsurge in Europe’s military firepower.
The Prime Minister has drawn scepticism for his strategy of hewing close to the President at almost all times – but his inner circle say that it is justified by the extreme importance Trump attaches to good personal relationships.
They mischievously contrast Starmer’s “bromance” with the President to the loathing that Trump clearly has for Canada’s Justin Trudeau – and the “theatrical” relationship between the American leader and Emmanuel Macron.
The Prime Minister kicked off his Washington jaunt with a short speech at the British embassy where he jokingly compared Trump with the new UK ambassador, Peter Mandelson.
Starmer said: “I’ve only just arrived but already I can feel there’s real buzz around Washington right now. You can sense that there’s a new leader. He’s a true one-off, a pioneer in business, in politics. Many people love him. Others love to hate him. But to us, he’s just… Peter.”
Though the PM is not known as a great comedian, his gag tickled many. One Washington dignitary at the party said: “Keir was very funny! I thought he was just a boring kind of guy but that was genuinely funny.”
The actual meeting on Friday appeared to have gone without a hitch, as the pair chomped through a White House meal of sea bass – a significant concession from the meat-loving Trump towards Starmer, a pescatarian.
For No 10 aides that was an enormous relief. They were not surprised that the President would accept the invitation for a state visit to the UK, extended by the King in a letter that Starmer extravagantly brandished in the Oval Office, but other issues were seen as more hazardous tripwires.
The dangers of dealing with Trump were made clear less than 24 hours after Starmer’s apparent triumph in the Oval Office, when the very same room witnessed an angry shouting match between the US President and Volodymyr Zelensky, with JD Vance weighing in.
The Prime Minister’s argument that Kyiv must always have a seat at the table in negotiations – which he sums up as “no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine” – looked less likely to succeed with the US administration following the extraordinary scenes on Friday.
No 10 insiders emphasised they would take time to put together a response to the latest developments, which could raise the stakes for Sunday’s meeting of European allies in London.
Meanwhile, talks about the future of the Chagos Islands – which are due to be handed over from the UK to Mauritius but which host a American naval base that complicates the geopolitical equation – were thought to be going well with the US administration, The i Paper understands.
But British officials were not aware whether or not the issue had yet crossed the desk of the President himself, or how he would respond to the idea. So it was an extreme relief when at the Oval Office meeting he said he was minded to approve the handover deal.
However, it is one thing making friends abroad; British premiers have often found that it is harder to keep the friends they already had at home.
Starmer’s decision to fund the rise in defence spending – from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 – by cutting the international aid budget, attracted brickbats within his own party.
A Labour MP, representing a broad-based backlash, said: “Hundreds of millions of people across the globe are in dire need of humanitarian aid. The world’s poorest and hungriest need more support, not less. Labour in government is a humanitarian and development leader. That position must be sustained if we are to combat global poverty effectively and to prevent the world from becoming more unstable and insecure.”
Others are more supportive – whether from conviction or from political opportunity. A Labour councillor in an area where the party is vulnerable to Reform UK backed Starmer’s decision to cut aid to fund defence spending, saying: “Leftie colleagues are crying. Importantly my constituents love it and so do I so.”
Asked whether it was a gamechanger, they said: “Somewhat, although I think it is going to be overtaken by Reform. They could always go further and say cut aid completely, Trump-style.”
A Labour backbencher insisted there was no point improving public services only for them to be put at risk by Russian aggression.
They said: “We’re literally talking about an enemy here who sticks conventional missiles into children’s cancer hospitals in Kyiv, so you can have the best NHS and new roads but we have to be able to protect them. This is about: do we have the wherewithal to survive existentially as a nation with a very unpleasant neighbour?
“The other premise that I think is wrong is the assumption that all of it is a cost. Actually, you’re buying equipment, and if you buy it from the right manufacturers in the UK, you’re generating jobs and economic growth.
“In the same way that the green investment fund is going to generate green growth, this would generate defence growth. And it would generate growth from a regional point of view, outside London and the South East.”
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