Time’s arrow is moving at formidable speed in dealings with the White House, something Keir Starmer is experiencing as he plays a diplomatic “Trump” card with the US: inviting the President on an “unprecedented” second state visit to the UK.
The first visit, Starmer underlined, was a “tremendous success”. His host broke with an excoriating tone towards European powers to describe his excitement at the prospect of meeting King Charles – “a beautiful man” – for a second time in Blighty, “a fantastic country”. We are all hyperbolists now.
So far, the “golden coach” tactic of inviting a bling-loving US leader who adores royal trappings was proceeding to plan. That changed abruptly – as things that involve Donald Trump tend to do – during his meeting in Washington on Friday with Volodymyr Zelensky.
The meeting was scheduled to agree the broad terms of a deal between the US and Ukraine on mineral rights as an element of any peace deal in the war unleashed by Russia, but it veered into a bitter argument between the two men, with additional dressing-downs added by the fiery Vice President JD Vance.
As a result, the UK state visit has pitched from smart tactical move to get Britain to the front of the queue in terms of trade and defence favours from the US, to a contentious example of how much leeway to give a president who has fundamentally different views on how to end the war and treat Vladimir Putin’s aggressive Russia.
At the weekend, Starmer had to swat aside objections from the Scottish National Party to a visit that would include Trump showing up at Balmoral. SNP leader John Swinney has said the visit should not proceed unless the US administration is “absolutely full-square with us” in protecting Ukraine.
More predictive of the capacity for this visit to cause domestic strife was an objection aired by the Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who had to be slapped down by Kemi Badenoch on Sunday for arguing that Trump’s let-down of Zelensky made him an unwelcome guest in the UK. Badenoch disowned comments by her shadow minister for national security, saying: “Personal views of individual MPs are not official Conservative Party positions. In practical terms, the state visit is a matter for the King who extended the invitation, and not for MPs.” It is, however, a foretaste of how divisive the actual event will be.
Badenoch and Starmer are broadly aligned on the need to be nice to Trump, in the hope of avoiding the fate of European powers like Germany or the Nordics, targeted by the administration for being laggards on defence spending.
Starmer basked in revived UK glory on Sunday while hosting a summit of key European leaders, and held soothing talks with Zelensky. But how to manage an occasion that will inevitably rile much of the public is worrying those who will have to deliver a flawless event for it to rate as a success.
For one thing, the monarch has views of his own and they are in many ways the antithesis of Trump-ism on matters from internationalism to climate change. They are both instinctively “anti-woke” with traditionalist views on, for instance, education and curriculum, but that is not the subject of the enterprise. King Charles feels strongly that the defence of Ukraine is a moral as well as a practical issue.
One adviser to King Charles makes pointedly clear that while state visits are aligned via the Foreign Office and No 10 with government objectives, the King is the official invite-giver and the shape and terms of the visit are also his to command. That trade-off has already begun: Zelensky was granted a short-notice audience with King Charles to underline UK support after his bruising encounter in the Oval Office. The two men get along “very well”, says a source who has seen them together. The strong implication is that, whatever the portion of humble pie that has to be consumed at the state visit banquet, it will not be at the expense of support for Kyiv.
Timing the visit is now the primary task of the Foreign Office and Palace teams who need to figure out options that will not lose momentum in Washington, but also ensure that not too much time elapses from the recent rapprochement with Britain for Trump to move on to other priorities. And while the undertaking has the potential to go well in cementing dealings between the two countries, jeopardy is inevitably attached. “Soon, but not in haste,” is the take of one No 10 adviser on timing, which will be decided in the coming weeks.
The other aspect Starmer needs to be wary of is looking like all of this is happening on terms useful to the US, including the quick hike in Britain’s defence spending as the price of admission to a new “special relationship”. Some form of trade deal with the US would help, but the contours of that in the Maga era remain sketchy. It is a fine line between a prime minister benefiting from the halo of cosy relationships with strong-minded US leaders and looking like their puppets – as many British leaders, including Tony Blair, have discovered.
When covering the visit of the authoritarian Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan under Theresa May in 2018, a senior Foreign Office official observed: “Gritted teeth on parade.” Amped up in the era of closer ties between Trump and Putin, that looks like an understatement. This state occasion is going to be a wild royal ride and a high-risk venture for the PM who has backed it.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor of ‘POLITICO’ and host of the ‘Power Play’ podcast
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