Keir Starmer was understated as he boarded the flight back to London after his visit to the White House. “I’m happy,” he said. His team were less restrained, celebrating what they thought was a triumph.
Not only did the meeting not go wrong – which, with Donald Trump, is always an achievement of sorts – but the prime minister emerged with some tangible gains. The US president all but promised not to impose tariffs on the UK, and praised Starmer as “a very tough negotiator”.
Starmer traded the King’s invitation to a state visit like a street hawker selling royal-themed tat to a credulous American tourist. It was embarrassing – but if you are going to deal with a transactional president, at least have a transaction to offer.
Starmer got what he wanted in return, including unanimous headlines in the British press on Friday morning declaring the trip a success.
The triumph lasted less than 24 hours, as Trump and JD Vance’s ambush of Volodymyr Zelensky in the same Oval Office cast Starmer’s fawning in a different, harsher light.
Before the televised punishment beating administered to the Ukrainian war hero, some of Starmer’s supporters had allowed themselves to dream. Nick Watt on Newsnight on Wednesday reported that two Labour figures thought the prime minister’s response to Trump on Ukraine could be his “Falklands moment” – comparable to Margaret Thatcher turning round her early unpopularity, partly by being resolute in an international crisis.
This was the purest wishful thinking, based on little more than Starmer and Thatcher both being unpopular in their early months in No 10 – although Starmer’s defenders point out that he has held his nerve before, recovering from the depths of unpopularity and defeat in the Hartlepool by-election in 2021 to win handsomely last year.
And Starmer’s initial response to the withdrawal of US support for Ukraine, as advertised in the Trump-Putin phone call two weeks ago, was certainly bold. Cutting foreign aid to increase defence spending was unthinkable for a Labour government until Starmer did it. It sent a strong message across Europe, especially to those nations professing support for Ukraine that spend less on defence than the UK – which is all of them, apart from Poland, Greece and the Baltic states.
It was the price of admission to the Oval Office on friendly terms – although it was no protection from the scorn of Trump, who asked Starmer: “Could you take on Russia by yourselves?”
But if Starmer thought he was a bridge between Trump and European leaders, the US president has blown it up.
I understand that in all the war-gaming of the White House meeting, it simply had not occurred to the British side that the Zelensky meeting the next day might not go well.
Nor, incidentally, did Starmer expect Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, to resign. It was a sign of how sensitive the foreign aid cut is in the Labour Party that he felt he had to turn to Jenny Chapman, one of his oldest political friends and a minister in the House of Lords, as her replacement.
Dodds’s resignation may be a sign of trouble to come, but it is nothing to the effect of the undignified scene in the Oval Office on Friday.
All the gains of the Starmer visit have been wiped out by the bullying of Zelensky for “disrespecting” the US by having his country invaded. Trump’s praise for Starmer – “he was working hard; I’ll tell you that he earned whatever the hell they pay him over there” – might have even impressed British voters who dislike Trump, but now won’t count for much even among the 22 per cent of Britons who had a favourable view of the US president. That is a figure, from YouGov two weeks ago, that is probably lower now.
The prime minister deserves praise for taking a leading role in Europe in responding to Trump’s betrayal of America’s values. The meeting of European leaders in London on Sunday will be a huge test of the British diplomatic machine and of the prime minister’s character.
But Starmer, having dreamed briefly of redemption, is now engaged in damage limitation.
