“Absolute moron” or ruthlessly effective “prince of darkness”? It’s safe to say that our new man in Washington divides opinion — almost as much as the president to whom he’ll be paying court.
There’s never an easy time to take on the most coveted job in the diplomatic circuit. But with Donald Trump’s inauguration to a second White House term, Peter Mandelson is becoming the UK ambassador to the United States at a particularly dicey moment.
It would be enough to tax the most seasoned emissary. But the 71-year-old Labour peer is hardly a diplomat, by training or temperament, as he starts a remarkable new chapter of his long and chequered career.
Mandelson has previously described Trump as ‘reckless and a danger to the world’, nothing short of a ‘racist’ and a ‘bully’
It’s a nakedly political appointment by Sir Keir Starmer, who is taking a novel approach to engagement with the most unorthodox of US presidents: less glad-handing over platters of Ferrero Rocher, more fox-like cunning to further the “special relationship” with our most important ally and single largest trading partner.
Former World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy is among Lord Mandelson’s admirers. The Frenchman, who preceded him as EU trade commissioner, notes the controversy that has often dogged the Labour politician, observing that he’s an arch-networker who likes money and to party with the well-heeled.
"I worked with Peter in various capacities. Brilliant, creative, hard working,” Lamy said. “Not exactly a traditional kind of diplomat. But maybe that's what's needed in Washington from January 20th onwards."
Mandelson has fences to mend first, after previously describing Trump as "reckless and a danger to the world", nothing short of a “racist” and a "bully". He’s not been invited to the inauguration, although the Foreign Office denies any snub. Protocol dictates that outgoing ambassador Karen Pierce is the proper person to represent Britain until her successor has been credentialled.
Dame Karen has the right to feel aggrieved that her term isn’t being extended by the Prime Minister, having worked assiduously to court Trump and his entourage well before November’s election. Her efforts saw Sir Keir granted dinner at Trump Tower in New York in September, the first time they had met.
Lord Mandelson "should stay home", Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita said when the appointment was announced last month. He accused Sir Keir of replacing a "professional universally respected ambo [ambassador] with an absolute moron".
The new ambassador will also have to contend with a noted China hawk in the secretary of state-nominee, Marco Rubio, and the Maga Republicans now running both houses of Congress, including some unabashed isolationists who’ll be all too eager to take offence at any perceived snootiness from a supercilious Brit.
It’s not just about name-calling. With Trump threatening to pull support from Ukraine, start a new trade war, and confront China, Lord Mandelson finds himself diametrically opposed on some of the litmus tests that will sorely test the transatlantic relationship in the next four years.
Life under Trump 2.0 will be ‘like a 24/7 bar-room brawl’, according to Kim Darroch, a former ambassador to the US
He has wooed China for years (during a lucrative post-politics career in international consultancy), and was the European Union’s trade commissioner in pre-Brexit times, trying and failing to reignite liberalisation talks at the WTO.
But love him or loathe him (and few politicians attract such admiration and animosity in equal measure), the new ambassador is a heavyweight figure who brings a heavyweight CV to bear from his years in Government, and in Brussels.
The Prime Minister says Lord Mandelson will bring “unrivalled experience to the role and take our partnership from strength to strength”.
Among others he worked with in Brussels was Kim Darroch, then the UK’s permanent representative to the EU. Lord Darroch went on to become ambassador to the US — and is uniquely well placed to advise on the perils of life under Trump. He resigned from the post in 2019 when leaked emails revealed his unvarnished view of the administration’s “dysfunctional” and “inept” first term.
Life under Trump 2.0 will be “like a 24/7 bar-room brawl”, the former envoy told Sky News last month, noting that Mandelson will also have to deal with another Brit contending for Trump’s ear: Nigel Farage.
But in response to LaCivita’s scorn, Lord Darroch said the new ambassador shouldn’t “take all of this stuff too seriously”, adding: “You get this sort of stuff going on all the time, you need to have a thick skin, and you need to manage it and to get through it, to weather it, as it were, so Lord Mandelson is a very experienced politician, I’m sure he can cope with this kind of stuff.”
At every step, however, Mandelson has ruffled feathers, and at times been his own worst enemy. He was forced to resign twice from Tony Blair’s Cabinet — first for failing to declare an interest-free loan from a wealthy Labour colleague to buy a house in Notting Hill, the second over claims that he had lobbied for Indian tycoon (and Millennium Dome donor) Srichand Hinduja to get a UK passport.
An independent inquiry found no wrongdoing in the Hinduja affair, but for a second time Blair had to admit that one of his closest allies had become too politically toxic to retain. When he was re-elected as an MP in Hartlepool (a far remove from Hampstead Garden Suburb where he grew up), Mandelson defiantly declared he was a “fighter and not a quitter”, and was rewarded with the EU job in 2004.
It was a consolation prize after his ministerial career had stalled. The prize of taking over the UK embassy in Washington is another (pretty good) consolation after he lost out last year to former Tory leader Lord Hague to become Chancellor of Oxford University, where Mandelson studied in the 1970s after grammar school in Hendon.
While a scion of Labour royalty (his grandfather was the senior post-war minister Herbert Morrison), Mandelson became a lightning rod for criticism from the old Left after taking over the party’s communications apparatus in the 1980s under Neil Kinnock, following time as a TV current affairs producer.
He brought a very American approach to politics in Britain, pioneering the role of spin doctor when he was helping Kinnock to bring the Labour Party back to electoral respectability alongside up-and-coming modernisers Blair and Gordon Brown. (It was from that time that Mandelson’s mastery of media manipulation earned him the nickname “prince of darkness”.)
Blamed by Brown for “scheming” to install Blair as Labour leader when John Smith died in 1994, Mandelson agreed to end his Brussels stint early to help shore up Brown’s premiership in 2008. His shock return to frontline UK politics was not enough to head off defeat for Labour in 2010.
An affinity with the uber-rich could serve the next ambassador well in the new-look Washington
A taste for the high life and the company of the rich runs through the Mandelson story. Controversy has continued to dog him over some of his consultancy clients (similar controversy has dogged Sir Tony since his premiership), and questions were raised too about his links with the disgraced US financier and child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
But perhaps an affinity with the uber-rich can serve the next ambassador well in the new-look Washington, as he begins to rub shoulders with the likes of Elon Musk who — for now — appear to have Trump’s ear. “I admit that I am drawn to individualists, to people whose achievements and strong personalities make them interesting company,” the politician wrote in his 2010 memoir, The Third Man: Life At The Heart of New Labour.
After the US election in November, Lord Mandelson said Sir Keir’s Labour government should try to "reconnect" with the mercurial tech billionaire (although Musk’s increasingly deranged attacks on Britain since make that look a hard sell). He also called for "a new relationship rather than a special one" with the United States, and said it was "absolutely essential that we establish a relationship with President Trump that enables us not only to understand and interpret what he's doing but to influence it".
He’ll have gilded surroundings from where to work his influence. The UK embassy and grand ambassador’s residence on Massachusetts Avenue NW have been refurbished for a cool £119 million, reopening in 2023 after a five-year renovation. Next door is the vice president’s residence, making Lord Mandelson neighbours with Trump’s running mate JD Vance.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy — who’s also had to eat humble pie for his past attacks on Trump — boasts a good relationship with Vance, potentially offering some leverage to the new embassy team. Then there’s Trump’s fawning adoration of the Royal Family.
During his first term, Trump looked giddy at meeting Queen Elizabeth as part of a state visit replete with the best of British pomp and pageantry (and no shortage of street protests). He’s keen to get out the white tie and tails for another state visit. The Queen’s passing, however, has deprived Sir Keir of one trump card. It’s hard to see much affinity between the brash president and King Charles.
What else might influence Trump as the Labour government strives to sustain the special relationship? The PM could always try to lean on the SNP and councils in Scotland to give an easier time to the president’s loss-making golf courses at Turnberry and Balmedie.
Apart from offshore wind farms apparently spoiling the view, Trump is also seething over the refusal of British Open organisers to allow another of the Major tournaments at Turnberry in reprisal for the storming of Congress by his supporters in 2021.
They might seem frivolous grounds to hold a grudge against Britain, but then that’s Trump. The odds on finding him a deal on those fronts are as long as the 575-yard 7th hole on Turnberry’s Championship course.
And in truth Mandelson doesn’t have so many cards to play as post-Brexit Britain finds itself squeezed for influence by Brussels and Beijing, beyond finding a quid pro quo to Trump’s transactional deal-making and appealing to the president’s heritage (his mother was born in Scotland).
Trump does like unconventional characters
“The special relationship will endure. It’s always had its bumps,” argues Evie Aspinall, Director of the British Foreign Policy Group. “But the next four years will be very rocky. There’s only so much we can lean on the special relationship to avert tariffs hitting the UK, and on pressure to massively raise defence spending,” she said.
That said, Mandelson is “a very effective networker” and “actually Trump does like unconventional characters”. But Aspinall cautioned: “The change from a politician to a diplomat is a hard one to make. You need to be smooth, you need to be willing to bend over backwards to win over the nation you’re in. Mandelson isn’t used to doing that.”
In his memoir, Lord Mandelson also acknowledges being a “restless soul”. He adds: “Unlike those in politics who appear able to go with the flow, I am not a neutral figure. I do not remember a moment when I have not been fighting for something or against something, or simply fighting back against the tumult engulfing me.”
His restlessness is now taking the New Labour architect deep into the tumult of Trump 2.0, requiring all his wiles to navigate the most testing challenge of his colourful career.
