When negotiating a trade deal in normal circumstances, governments tend to concentrate on what might be termed, sometimes literally, “bread and butter issues”.
Tariffs, quotas, regulations… these are the matters that occupy the negotiators for months if not years – as the Brexit process rather painfully proves. In the case of the current trade talks between the UK and the US, these are not proceeding in the usual manner.
The putative components of an ambitious transatlantic agreement have been kicked around, on and off, for some years, albeit with limited success. Only now, with the second coming of Donald Trump, has Britain been asked to exchange truth for trade. Yet that is, in effect, what the Trump administration will require of Sir Keir Starmer if he is to achieve what has eluded all of his predecessors since the Brexit vote in 2016.
As The Independent exclusively reveals, for the first time in such trade talks, Britain will be asked to adopt a political, indeed “Trumpian”, view of the world quite at odds with its traditions and democratically approved laws.
President Trump’s America is a world of truth-twisting, hypocrisy and increasing authoritarianism, where Congress is sidelined and even the rulings of the Supreme Court are brazenly ignored by the administration. Independent checks and balances on the excesses of executive power are being slowly but surely eroded – the media, universities such as Harvard, even the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian – all bullied and extorted. As former president Barack Obama says, the unprecedented decision to freeze more than $2bn in federal funds for research and teaching at Harvard University is “unlawful and ham-handed”. Joe Biden, breaking his own silence, talks of the “destruction” wrought by Mr Trump.
We have seen all too much of the kind of populist, hard-right ideology that the Trump administration now seems intent on exporting to the UK. It will take all of the wit and skill of the prime minister and his senior colleagues to resist the drive to undermine Britain’s culture of tolerance and its well-established multicultural society. That is more precious than any conceivable trade concessions. We must seriously question whether a deal that sacrifices truth is worth it.
However, the nightmare proposition is real enough for the government to have to take it seriously. The Independent’s reporting shows that sources close to the vice-president, JD Vance, have indicated that the British government will have to repeal hate speech laws in order to get a trade deal over the line. Mr Vance has been surprisingly upbeat in public about the prospects for some sort of economic accord with the UK, even as President Trump has unleashed his erratically conducted trade war on the world. But such an exceptional deal with the British would, say Mr Vance’s allies, come at a particular cost. As one puts it: “No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that.”
In practice, pushed to the maximum extent, that would mean the repeal of laws against hate speech, including abuse targeting LGBT+ groups or other minorities, as a condition of any accord. In principle, such a demand could also extend to the civil police orders prohibiting silent protest in the vicinity of an abortion clinic, relevant clauses in the new Online Safety Act, and changing the laws used to prosecute those involved in the civil disorder last summer, after the Southport murders. Elon Musk, still close to Mr Trump, has long complained in lurid terms about what he sees as draconian restrictions on freedom of speech in the UK, including on his social media platform, X.
Mr Vance’s views carry weight in the US-UK trade talks. During Sir Keir’s visit to the Oval Office in February, in front of the television cameras, Mr Vance declared that “there have been infringements on free speech that affect not just the British – what the British do in their own country is up to them – but also affect American technology companies and by extension, American citizens”. Sir Keir pushed back at that point, defusing the controversy, but Mr Vance isn’t dropping his objections.
Earlier this year, at the Munich Security Council, Mr Vance delighted in telling the assembled European allies that the greatest threat to their security wasn’t Russia or China but their own migration policies. Last summer, while he was running for office, Mr Vance said he was “beating up” on Britain and “joked” that “the first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon” might be “actually the UK since Labour just took over”.
Such, then, is the scale of the hostility and the personal challenge awaiting the prime minister as he sets out to win a historic trade deal. He will set about it in his usual serious manner. As President Trump said in a backhanded compliment, when Sir Keir tried to stop him from imposing steel tariffs, “he was working hard, I’ll tell you that. He earned whatever the hell they pay him over there.” Sir Keir does indeed argue hard, is usually in command of his brief and is persuasive, and the whole of his team will have to emulate those qualities in the coming weeks.
The British should be open, in principle, to a deal that eases trade on cars, steel, agricultural products, digital services, biotechnology, AI and much else – and which declares mutual respect for the rule of law and freedom of expression. It could be consummated during the president’s planned state visit at the invitation of the King.
However, importing Trumpism would be neither desirable nor practical, and Sir Keir will need to say as much, in as velvety, oblique, delicate and diplomatic a fashion as possible. Fortunately for Britain, President Trump likes Sir Keir, which counts for much – and Mr Vance is not the president (yet).
