‘The Special Relationship only exists when the Americans want something,’ a former Downing Street aide observed after Donald Trump rejected the Chagos Islands deal. There are profound differences between London and Washington over military action against Iran while the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine this week has exposed further fault lines. The result is that Anglo-American relations are at their worst point since the general election.
Starmer’s team argues he should not be ousted at a time of huge international instability. But the reality of the Anglo-American relationship raises three questions. Where did things go wrong? Does the PM still have some kind of relationship with Trump? And would it matter if he were replaced by Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting or anyone else?
The PM apparently hates the way Trump calls him at random when he is with his family
During the first 18 months of his premiership, it became accepted, correctly I think, that one of the few areas where Starmer excelled was foreign affairs. He seemed particularly good at handling the often capricious President. But it is also true that the two great cleavages of recent weeks – Iran and Chagos – are intimately tied to Starmer’s personal fetish for subordinating the sovereignty of parliament to international law.
If the Prime Minister believes in anything, it is that the web of international treaties constructed to constrain rogue states after the second world war overrides domestic law. His appointment of Richard Hermer as his Attorney General was proof that this would form the backbone of his premiership.
Hermer’s numerous legal opinions flow from this belief in the primacy of international law: that Britain must not support an American attack on Tehran and must not allow America to use British air bases for the attacks. This is what prompted Trump to change his mind on the Chagos deal, by which Britain would cede control of the islands to Mauritius and then lease back British airbases which America also uses.
My understanding is that the US has not made a specific request to use the base for an Iranian operation, nor has the UK explicitly rejected the idea. However, ‘general soundings’ have made clear what the answer would be. Insiders say that Starmer and Hermer’s approach is no different from what any other PM would do. The belief in government is that allowing the US to use our bases without legal backing ‘smells like Iraq’.
This has outraged Team Trump. ‘It’s just not how they roll,’ says one insider who has dealt with the Americans. ‘Their risk spectrum is significantly different. International law, due legal process – they don’t give a shit about that.’ Privately there have been threats that the US will not be there in Britain’s hour of need. The Iran decision led directly to Trump pulling the plug on Chagos. Those who deal with the Trumpies say there is no point ‘continually making the same argument’ and the deal is now ‘in the medium-length grass’.
However, by far the bigger issue is Ukraine and that is where Starmer has deployed most of his capital with Trump. The President and his envoy Steve Witkoff began with a fundamentally misguided understanding of the conflict. ‘All of them basically come back to this belief that it’s about territory, that peace is a real estate deal,’ one insider said. On calls with British officials, Witkoff openly ridiculed the French for saying ‘root causes’ were behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion. ‘He would mock the idea that if there’s peace, the Russians will just rearm and be a threat to Europe.’
The view of Britain’s political and military leaders is quite different after four years of working closely with the Ukrainians. ‘There is a whole generation of Europeans who have made the trip to Kyiv and it feels like the most meaningful thing they’re doing in their political careers,’ a diplomat says.
The key achievement of the Starmer government, in this telling, is that ‘we have persuaded the Americans to listen to us’. A senior adviser says: ‘People are saying that Starmer’s foreign policy is a failure because of Chagos. But if you look at Ukraine, it’s been a success.’
Intercepted phone calls and messages from senior Russians ridiculing Trump have been shared by the British with the Americans. ‘We have continually shown them intelligence that shows the Russians are lying,’ a senior security source revealed. ‘The Russians are privately mocking Trump over his naivety about Putin’s intentions. Putin doesn’t want to end the war.’
‘Of course, he’s always denied any wrongdoing.’
Yvette Cooper, the new Foreign Secretary, spent an hour last week with Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State. But the four key relationships that have moved the dial are Starmer and Trump; David Lammy and Vice President J.D. Vance; the US embassy in Washington, which enjoys closer ties to the White House than any other D.C. diplomats; and, most important, Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, and Witkoff.
Henry Kissinger is said to have asked: ‘Who do I call if I want to call Europe?’ Now a senior member of the Trump administration refers to Powell as ‘dean of the European national security advisers’. A Foreign Office source concludes that if there is regime change in London: ‘The one relationship I fear might be irreplaceable is Jonathan Powell and Witkoff.’
Opinions are divided about whether Starmer’s departure would make any difference. The PM apparently hates the way Trump calls him at random when he is with his family but he has built a ‘load-bearing relationship’ with the President. This is based, in part, on the fact that both have lost brothers. In their first meal together, Trump interrupted a conversation about tariffs to ask if Starmer’s brother had ‘a good death’, genuinely troubled by his loss.
But those who want Starmer gone will agree with the official who says: ‘Trump’s mum was British. He loves the UK and he views having a great relationship with the PM as part of his job.’
Diplomats doubt that any new leader would be given the same space by Labour MPs to develop ties with Trump. But that is another reason why foreign policy will not save Starmer. As one MP puts it: ‘If Keir thinks sucking up to Trump is the argument which saves him, he is going to be in for a rude shock.’
I feel our national security has been deeply harmed by the tRump adminsitration. I posted for tomorrow how Ukraine started making big gains against Russia’s invasion once they and foreign countries stopped sharing the war intel with the US. Seems clear everything Ukraine was sharing with the US went right to Putin. tRump’s amistration has given military secrets and tech to enemy countries just for their personal profit. And the worst of the stuff they hide. Horrific and I wonder with the military purges if the US can actually recover in the next decade. Hugs
Is every agency of the tRump admin totally screwed up and useless? But I want to point out the Nazi like states used such as defend the homeland. These Nazi wannabee white supremacists are so desperate to have the Nazi ideology forced on the public that they slip it into every aspect of the current administration. Hugs
The video below details some of the racist attempts to purge black people from positions of authority and to erase the racist history of attacks on black people over time. The video also explains how tRump ordered the agencies of his government to remove black hoildays from the list of free entry days at national parks and instead replaced them with his birthday. This is simply the whitewashing of history, the removing of evidence of the massive racism / damage done to black people in the past, and the purification of the US as a white ethnostate. Just look how tRump refers to black journolists. Hugs
No doubt we’ve all seen that AG Bondi has contacted Gov. Waltz stating that if he will forward the MN voter rolls to her, the federal government violence will stop in MN. Last I knew, that offer was declined. Meanwhile, they’re still in MN, and now they’re raiding in Maine (I’m certain their Republican US Senator is deeply concerned, though not concerned enough to demand a turnaround.) Anyway, below are some links and snippets about preparation. The fact is that immigration enforcement has been around in every state for years, but they mostly haven’t been Gestapo-awful, or not at the massive numbers of people abused and killed, as they are currently. So, it isn’t as if things can’t happen instantaneously anywhere. If we still haven’t begun building local community, it’s definitely time. Aside from making sure we can take care of our neighbors and vice-versa, here are some good guidelines for dealing with our reality. We can do this. There is a place for everyone.
snippet: Today, after a year of rapid, large-scale mobilizing, resistance to rogue immigration agents is seeing its own set of commandments emerge. From compiling strategies from across the United States, 10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut can be identified. Taken as a whole, they offer all of us a robust approach to denying ICE the basic necessities of their operation.
10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut
No silence.
No selling.
No service.
No hotel rooms.
No entry.
No informing.
No looking away.
No collaboration.
No transporting.
No detention centers.
(You can add to this list, of course. There’s no limit to the ways we can resist.)
Nonviolent movements succeed by strategically pressuring the pillars of support for an injustice to withhold or withdraw things like information, cooperation, funding, labor and more. These 10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOut offer ways to deny immigration agencies the key resources they need to function effectively. ICE cannot function without detention centers, transportation of detainees, access to businesses and properties, staging areas in parking lots, surveillance, telecommunication, recruitment ads, deliveries, or even quiet and uninterrupted sleep at hotels. (snip-more at link-the title above)
General strikes can have a tremendous impact, but to succeed they require an organized majority, networks of solidarity and resources to weather repression.
The call is coming from a rapidly growing coalition that includes the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, Service Employees International Union Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, Communications Workers of America Local 7250, the Saint Paul Federation of Educators, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Sunrise Movement, and grassroots groups like Tending the Soil, among others.
That breadth matters — it’s not just a tiny group but an array of organized, powerful entities.
The action carries momentum. It follows the extreme violence carried out by ICE and other immigration agents in Minnesota — and the courageous, sustained pushback by Minnesotans who have stepped in to protect one another. The Jan. 23 one-day economic blackout is not the only tactic on the table. It sits alongside legal challenges, corporate pressure campaigns targeting ICE enablers, mutual aid and direct services, physical interventions, and more.
This is how real movements tend to move: not in a straight line, but through overlapping experiments. (snip-see the rest by clicking the title above)
The movement for justice and democracy is growing and has displayed significant political clout: mobilizing unprecedented millions in mass protest, resisting ICE attacks in Minneapolis and other cities, turning interim electoral outcomes against MAGA policies, and building pressure for National Guard withdrawals. Trump’s ratings have slumped to the lowest level of his second term. A recent poll shows a majority of Americans opposed to ICE’s aggressive tactics.
Now we are at a critical juncture, a moment of escalating risk, but also opportunity for political gain. Protests and protective actions have surged in Minneapolis, especially following the murder of Renee Nicole Good. Citizens and public officials in Minneapolis have condemned the brutality of ICE and Border Patrol operations and their blatant acts of racial and ethnic profiling. They are demanding the withdrawal of federal forces and a halt to the de facto military siege of city neighborhoods.
What is shocking is how ill informed some people in the US are. This is part of the dumbing down of the US education system. So many right wing / or maga people are so uneducated and wrong because they believe the misinformation fed them along with the hyper US is always correct and never wrong they are fed by the right wing media that is designed to mislead the maga public ready to accept / follow an authoritarian government meant to make their lives harder while making the lives of the very wealthy even more wealthy. Just listen to the arrogance the person asking the question has even though they are totally incorrect on everything they claim / write to Belle. Hugs
Of course tRump gets to control the money himself and he claims he will control all of Gaza with the goal of creating a beachfront resort and hotel complex with no input from the Palestinian people nor any mention of where they will live. It is a total money making gambit with no humanitarian aid allowed for the Palestinians at all. No food, no healthcare, nothing. It is like they simply will not be there one way or the other. Hugs
What is the US treasury not secure enough? Who is getting the money? Who bought the oil. As the report says this is all to side step the legalities that would or could arise if the money was held under the US legal system in the US. Which leads to questions. Again who is getting the money and why? Is this going to tRump and family while the US taxpayer gets the bill for securing the ill gotten gains? Is it so creditors can’t collect their legally due money again so tRump and family get to keep it. See my issue with all this? The US is being led by a mob boss wannabe gangster. Hugs
I put this one here with because tRump needs to be a total authoritarian strong man dictator to be able to grift and steal as much money as possible both from the US treasury along with other sources. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 