John Jefferson
When Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Washington this week and meets with President Donald Trump Thursday, he’ll walk a tightrope between alienating the U.S. leader and causing himself political trouble at home.
The prime minister has already drawn the ire of Trump, who recently said that Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron “haven’t done anything” to end the Ukraine war. In response to Trump’s comment, the British press went into a tailspin. Across the board, Britain’s liberal media has expressed horror that Trump is looking to upend Ukraine policy, even though the three-year war is locked in a bloody stalemate.
To understand the mood in Britain and its effect on Starmer’s behavior, consider how he has responded to U.S. statements and actions the past few weeks. After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join NATO as part of a peace deal, Starmer declared that Kiev’s path to entry to the Western alliance is irreversible. After Trump accused Ukrainian President Zelensky of being a dictator, Starmer disagreed, noting that Zelensky is a “democratically elected leader.” The UK abstained in the vote on a U.S.-backed Security Council resolution that called for an end to the war in Ukraine without criticizing Russia for the invasion.
Starmer has also made critical comments about Trump in the past, as have members of his Labour party who now occupy positions of power in the government.
Taking positions opposed to Trump doesn’t augur well for Starmer’s visit to Washington this week. Macron took a nuanced position during his meeting with the president, not fully aligning with the U.S., but showing a willingness to reach an agreement and to listen to Trump’s point of view.
Prime Minister Starmer may find nuance difficult to tain.
The pro-war lobby in the UK is both powerful and sufficiently delusional to expect Starmer to persuade Trump to reconsider America’s diplomatic stance.
A leading BBC commentator spoke of the risk of a “gruesome sellout” if Starmer goes along with Trump, rather than convincing the American president to take a hardline stance on Russia.
John Simpson, the BBC’s most seasoned world affairs editor, wrote a scathing article against Trump, calling him ‘breathtakingly vain, and amazingly thin-skinned.’ On their popular Political Currency podcast, Ed Balls, a Labour politician married to the current home secretary, accused Trump of spouting Russian propaganda. This echoes Zelensky’s blunder last week, when he accused the president of living in a Russian disinformation space—comments that prompted Trump to lash out against the Ukrainian leader.
Corroborating Vice President J.D. Vance’s criticism of free speech in Europe, almost no one in Britain’s stream media or politics seems willing to suggest that White House officials, including Trump, may have a point. Even UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, a strongly pro-Trump politician, was cornered by the press into saying that Zelensky was not a dictator and that Ukraine should join NATO.
10 Downing Street has briefed the UK press that Starmer will try to ‘“take the heat out” of the debate on Ukraine by “injecting a sense of calm.”
But Starmer, in seeking to align American and British policy, will face significant challenges. Nowhere is the philosophical gulf between the two governments more evident than on the issue of what role Russia should play in securing a future peace deal.
Trump sees engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin as vital to a breakthrough on the war in Ukraine. Herein lies the basis of Trump’s allegation that Starmer hasn’t done enough to bring about peace.
The UK has been implacably opposed to engagement with Putin on grounds that he alone is responsible for the conflict.
This is a gulf that won’t be bridged by elegant British weasel wording. Rather, Starmer would need to significantly revise Britain’s approach not only to the Ukraine war but to Europe-Russian relations generally.
I see no appetite in the UK for that. Across the British political spectrum, most people consider Putin the implacable enemy, Zelensky the unerring hero, and Trump a buffoon.
Within Europe, Britain has taken the lead in seeking to isolate Russia diplomatically on the world stage. It authored this policy as far back as the second half of 2014, under the government of Prime Minister David Cameron. As I have pointed out in my memoir, not talking to Russia is a central tenet of British diplomacy.
Keir Starmer didn’t introduce this policy, and he may prove too constrained, or too cautious, to change it.
And Ukraine will do everything it can to ensure the UK and Europe hold firm on isolating Russia, even as the U.S. aims to reengage. On a recent BBC news broadcast, an adviser to Zelensky complained that Trump was breaking Russia’s diplomatic isolation by talking to Putin.
This is becoming a major fault line between the U.S. and Europe, and Britain, perhaps more than any other country, has helped establish it. When Trump spoke on the phone to Putin, he smashed through the European consensus on Russia’s isolation.
Following what has been described as Trump’s “betrayal” of Ukraine, some political figures have suggested raising UK taxes and boosting defence spending to three percent of GDP. The irony, of course, is that Trump has suggested European states do just that, as part of a move to managing their own security. On Tuesday, Starmer announced that Britain will increase defense spending from 2.3 percent to 2.5 by 2027 and to 2.6 by the following year.
By whipping up a storm in Britain and Europe, Trump is advancing a core U.S. strategic goal of getting Europe to pay for its own security. In other words, the animosity Trump has stirred up among Europeans is actually helping him advance America’s national interests.
Still, that doesn’t alter the fact that today the UK and the U.S. re poles apart on policy. And the UK, which has contributed only about a tenth of American funding to Ukraine since the war started, has limited leverage to shift Trump’s position.
Starmer should follow Macron’s lead and go to Washington ready to discuss with Trump how the UK can reengage politically with Russia in concert with U.S. efforts.
There are small signs that the policy cogs in London are starting slowly to shift, with a senior Labor minister supporting Trump’s engagement with Putin on the weekend. I hope Starmer is brave enough to repeat that line in Washington this week. If he does, he may succeed in pushing British politics toward a saner and more constructive position on Russia.
Given the likely political blowback at home, however, I predict a fudge.
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