Whisper it, because that’s what the Prime Minister prefers to do. But his No-Drama-Starmer approach to diplomacy is starting to pay off.
‘We can’t slap ourselves on the back,’ a senior government insider told me in response to the news the UK was escaping the worst of Donald Trump‘s tariff wrath. ‘It’s still going to have a negative effect on us. But we got off more lightly than anyone else in the G7 and the EU. And that shows our work is having some impact.’
Another sign Starmer’s unlikely bromance with the hero of the MAGA movement is bearing fruit came with the news Trump had formally rubber-stamped his controversial Chagos deal.
When Trump won re-election, it was widely predicted the agreement struck with the outgoing Joe Biden and Mauritius administrations would be torn up. But some deft massaging of the infamously fragile presidential ego – coupled with some skilful behind-the-scenes wrangling from Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Washington ambassador Peter Mandelson – persuaded Trump to sign on the dotted line.
And there may be even better news to come. Some government insiders say serious progress is being made towards delivering on the Holy Grail – a bespoke trade deal with the United States.
‘Wednesday’s tariff announcement was never a hard deadline for us,’ a minister told me. ‘Peter [Mandelson] thinks the framework for a deal is now there. The signs are positive.’
Downing Street sources are keen to downplay the suggestion any announcement is imminent, instead emphasising the work Starmer is doing to cushion the impact of the tariff after-shock.
Car manufacturers will be given greater flexibility on the phasing out of non-electric vehicles, while the Prime Minister has ordered ministers and officials to accelerate efforts to establish relationships beyond the main global trading blocs.
Sir Keir Starmer met President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington in February
‘Keir’s view is we can’t just look to the EU and the US any more,’ one ally told me. ‘We’re going to need to start diversifying our relationships.’
But a No 10 source confirmed direct talks with the Trump administration continued on Friday. And there is a belief within government that if that elusive trade deal could be secured it would represent an economic and political game-changer.
‘The Tories had the best part of a decade to deliver Brexit,’ another minister told me, ‘and they failed. Theresa May couldn’t get a US trade deal. Boris couldn’t. Truss couldn’t. Sunak couldn’t.
‘If we get to turn round and say, ‘Keir did it. He’s the man who really can get Brexit done’, it’ll leave the Tories and Reform floundering.’
Possibly. But any deal would come at a potentially heavy price.
Allies of Starmer claim his strategy for dealing with Trump is guided by one principle: delivering results for the British people, rather than grandstanding.
‘We think the public see what we’re doing is exclusively motivated by what we think is in their interests,’ a government source claimed. ‘There’s no point just shouting for the sake of it.’
But what the Prime Minister and his Cabinet believe is in voters’ interests, and what they see as in their interests, is not necessarily the same thing.
President Trump with the King – then the Prince of Wales – at Clarence House in 2019
Everyone I’ve spoken to connected with the US trade negotiations concedes a deal is unlikely unless it contains a cut in the Digital Services Tax, which is levied on the US tech giants. And the prospect of such a cut – which would be seen as providing a tax break for billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos just at the time ministers are axing support for pensioners and the disabled – is petrifying Labour MPs.
‘Oh God!’ one Labour MP in a marginal Red Wall seat exclaimed. ‘That would be very problematic for a lot of people. It would basically communicate to our voters that Trump has got us by the gonads.’
The dilemma facing No 10 is just how far Starmer can go in cultivating a relationship – actually, let us be honest, debasing himself – with Trump in the national interest, without the nation turning away in total disgust.
Some ministers are already warning of the backlash that will accompany the State visit which would almost certainly have to coincide with any trade agreement. Especially given there are rumours circulating within Westminster that the King is less than enamoured at the idea, following Trump’s threats towards Canada, a leading member of the Commonwealth.
‘What’s it going to look like,’ one minister remarked, ‘if we’re seen to be using a King who’s in the middle of cancer treatment as bait to deliver a trade deal? The optics will be terrible.’
But other ministers are becoming worried at more than some unflattering photocalls.
I spent last week in Israel, where a series of political, diplomatic and military sources confirmed they are actively preparing for a joint US/Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Which is in turn raising the spectre of re-run of the Blair/Bush Iraq debacle.
‘It would be a nightmare for Keir,’ one minister explained. ‘The party’s already on the brink of revolt over Gaza. If he decides to line up with Trump and Israel to attack Iran it’s all going to boil over.’
There is one other key problem for Keir Starmer in investing his economic and diplomatic hopes in Donald Trump – he would be doing so at a time when the US President literally appears to be going stark staring mad.
The threats to subjugate Greenland and Canada. The decision to impose tariffs on the penguins of the Heard and McDonald Islands. The angry denunciation of European beef as ‘weak’.
At the beginning of the Trump administration there was a belief there was at least some rationality in his decision-making. But as the architecture of the US government that kept him broadly in check during his first term has been stripped away, there appears to be no circuit breaker within the White House.
Those closest to him – or who claimed to be close to him – such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, confidently predicted the bluster and bombast of the election campaign would be quietly set aside.
‘I don’t believe he will cave in to Putin. I believe he has the guts and clarity to back Ukraine – as he has in the past,’ Boris wrote just before the presidential inauguration.
It was a fantasy. So given those who know Trump no longer know him at all, what chance does Keir Starmer – a political, ideological and philosophical stranger – really have of shaping that increasingly maniacal MAGA mind?
The Prime Minister will pay a price if he isolates himself from Donald Trump. But the price of keeping him close may well prove significantly higher.
