The Labour Government’s appalling refusal to allow the use of American bases on British soil for possible U.S. strikes against Iran is only the latest damaging blow to the U.S./UK Special Relationship.
Not only is this a morally bankrupt decision, appeasing the brutal mullahs of Tehran responsible for killing tens of thousands of Iranian protestors, but a strategically reckless one that is deeply unpopular in Washington.
U.S. officials have told me that trust towards Starmer is rapidly eroding across the Atlantic. They view him as a milquetoast and fair-weather ally on par with the likes of Emmanuel Macron. The comparisons with the French are jarring and worrying, and previously unimaginable from a Republican administration. Starmer’s image is so bad in the White House that I have heard him compared even with Ursula von der Leyen, the unashamedly anti-American president of the European Commission.
In the space of just 18 months, Starmer has inflicted more damage upon the vital partnership with the United States than any prime minister in post-war history. An alliance that has lasted for the best part of a century is today being actively eroded by a Left-wing socialist government that is playing fast and loose with the world’s superpower. My former boss Margaret Thatcher, who championed the Special Relationship, would have been horrified.
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Starmer’s Chagos surrender deal is unravelling fast, and the U.S. president’s emphatic condemnation of it in a post on Truth Social last week was the verbal equivalent of a cruise missile strike. Donald Trump is absolutely right to warn that this incredibly dangerous deal poses immense risks to the future of the vital Anglo-American military base at Diego Garcia, at exactly the same moment Communist China seeks to advance its nefarious ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
Even now, with the leader of the free world clearly against the Chagos deal, Starmer’s team is insisting that it will move forward, despite Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer telling MPs that the Government was pausing the giveaway.
This marks a renewed push to sell to the United States the worst deal from a British PM in modern history. Not only is this staggeringly arrogant, it is delusional and based on a ludicrous assumption that somehow the president is not in charge of the policies of his own administration.
This approach will backfire spectacularly, and I expect will draw a furious response from the Oval Office. Having spent nearly a quarter of a century working in the Washington policy world, I predict this will all end in tears for Starmer, who will be humiliated and sent packing.
The impending Chagos defeat for the Prime Minister may well accelerate his departure from Number 10 and will reinforce the image of a Labour Government that has displayed exceedingly poor judgment and a great deal of hubris on the international stage. The Downing Street/Foreign Office Chagos influence operation in the U.S. has been one of the largest of its kind in decades, and one that has failed spectacularly. And the fact that disgraced and recently arrested former British ambassador to Washington Lord Mandelson was hand-picked by Starmer to head it speaks volumes about why it was doomed to fail.
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The damage the Chagos debacle will inflict upon American trust in the Government is immeasurable. And combined with the treacherous refusal to allow the use of U.S. bases in Britain to bomb Iran, Starmer’s stock is falling fast.
There are also deep-seated concerns within the Trump administration over growing censorship of free speech in Britain, including the arrest of thousands of Britons for their social media posts, as well as Ed Miliband’s Net Zero zealotry, which has won few friends in the America First White House. And for the avowedly pro-Brexit Trump administration, Starmer’s move to take Britain back into the EU’s orbit is seen as a huge negative for the United States as it seeks to deepen and expand a U.S./UK trade agreement.
It is hard to imagine a more amateurish and destructive British approach towards the United States than the one adopted by Keir Starmer. It is obsessed with deference to international courts, “international law”, and supranational institutions, as well as a distinctly appeasement-oriented mindset towards some of America’s biggest enemies, including China and Iran.
Starmer is alienating Washington while kowtowing to both Brussels and Beijing. This is the height of folly and an exceedingly unwise path to take.
