It’s time Keir Starmer proved Elon Musk wrong
As wildly inaccurate characterisations of the prime minister as a ‘woke’ socialist take hold in Donald Trump’s White House, the onus is on No 10 to expose those briefing against the government – and a state visit to Washington would be a good start, says Andrew Grice
In public, Downing Street insists Keir Starmer has a good relationship with Donald Trump. The prime minister and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, have literally dined out on their two-hour dinner with him at Trump Tower last September.
They recall it when the media asks them about relations with the new US president, so we know he offered Lammy a second portion of chicken. Evidence, it seems, that Trump had forgiven Lammy for once calling him a “woman-hating neo-Nazi sociopath”.
In private, UK ministers are less confident all is quite so rosy. They worry that Trump views Starmer as a big-state socialist, wedded to the old order of the EU and multilateral institutions rather than the nation state, and someone who supports a “woke”, progressive ideology.
The proposed deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which Trump might block, is seen in Trumpworld as anti-imperialist – even though Labour points out the previous Conservative government began the negotiations.
UK ministers fear the president, not surprisingly, has been influenced by the unflattering picture of Starmer and the Labour government painted by his allies, Elon Musk and Nigel Farage. "They have poisoned the well," one Labour insider told me. This crude caricature of Starmer is reinforced by American think tanks close to Team Trump, such as the Heritage Foundation.
The onus is on Starmer to prove them wrong. He hopes to have a chance to do so by visiting the White House soon.
The PM has a strong story to tell. He does not head a left-wing government. He has worked hard, in opposition and government, to be in the mainstream of Western opinion on the Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict – even when his party wanted a tougher stance on Gaza. He accepts Trump’s case that Europe, including the UK, needs to spend more on defence.
True, Starmer wants closer links with the EU to boost UK growth, but he does not want to rejoin the bloc, as Farage and the Conservatives claim. The PM wants a trade deal with the US based on services – no contradiction with his aim to reduce trade friction on goods moving to and from the EU. Although he wants to engage with China, he doesn’t want a return to David Cameron’s “golden era”.
The two leaders are never going to agree on climate change – though this week Rachel Reeves made clear economic growth would “trump” all else, including net zero.
Starmer’s politics is not based on wokery and identity, like that of the US Democrats, as Team Trump appears to believe. The idea the PM heads a “socialist” government will come as news to Labour left-wingers. The irony is that Starmer’s key priority is to improve the lives of the very same "working people" Trump lured away from the Democrats to regain power.
Of course, the PM and the president are different political animals. Starmer, once dubbed "Mr Rules", believes in international law and human rights. He does value international bodies like the UN and Nato. But that doesn’t mean he can’t adapt to the new world order Trump is ushering in. Starmer is a pragmatist who lives in the real world, not one of Labour’s dreams.
Despite Kemi Badenoch’s claim to the contrary, allies insist he is a leader, not a lawyer. His patriotism is real, not a spray-on, and he eschews the anti-Americanism of the Corbyn left.
Perhaps Farage has less influence with the president than he would have us believe. Although he claimed to know half the Trump cabinet as he milked his latest visit to Washington, he did not attend the inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda. Farage admitted he “didn’t make the cut, sadly”; the only British politician who did was Boris Johnson. But Some Labour figures worry the damage to Starmer’s image has been done and admit he needs to repair it.
Farage has offered to act as an honest broker between the two governments “in the national interest”, but he is hardly a neutral observer; his Reform UK has Labour in its sights and Starmer’s party is rightly worried. Little wonder the PM has not taken up Farage’s offer, which would build him up as he aspires to be the UK’s next leader.
As for Musk, the US president would be wiser to listen to what US State Department officials make of Starmer than rely on tweets from the X owner which bear little resemblance to the truth.
Trump should judge Starmer on what he says when the two leaders meet and on what he does. But, as the UK seeks to avoid Trump’s planned tariffs, the PM’s already difficult task of building a working relationship with the mercurial president is being made harder by the wicked whispers in his ear from the likes of Farage and Musk.
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