Britain's abusive relationship

Will the UK ever extricate itself from its unctuous dependency on Uncle Sam?

Such is the dizzying speed of events, such as is the deranged unpredictability of Donald Trump and the people around him, that instant commentaries (let alone predictions) about global affairs are well nigh impossible. By the time you read this, will Trump have lavished more praise on his idol, Vladimir Putin? Will Ukraine have been carved up between them? Will the USA have invaded Canada or Greenland?

More instructive are the longer-term trends, such as the belated but now existential requirement on Europe to fend for itself. (For the first time in a while, this isn’t a post about Germany…). From a British perspective, its two most important relationships are now colliding against each other.

In his eight months so far in Downing Street, Keir Starmer has made incremental steps towards a rapprochement with Europe. To ardent pro-Europeans like me, his approach has been frustratingly slow and contains no hint of any formal links back into EU institutions. But concerns such as these now pale into insignificance when faced with the dark clouds over the continent. Starmer has shown commendable sang froid and and an absence of performative politics in helping Europe navigate its way through the Trump-Putin axis. His close partnership with President Macron and other European leaders has been vital.

With a lawyer’s instinct, Starmer has concluded that the only chance anyone has to get through to Trump is to try to keep in his good books. Hence the flattery, the unctuous invitation from the king of a second state visit. Macron has made similar gestures.

There is a bigger question for Britain, one that for decades it has shirked, and that was the subject of a recent piece I wrote for Foreign Policy. You can read it through this link or below. The headline writers for the august publication called it ‘Britain’s New Abusive Relationship with America’. Initially, I was slightly taken aback, but then I realised that, in my last line, I had used the term myself. The abuse has been going on for years. Think of any partnership where one side is dependent on the other. It leads to perverse behaviour by both.

Will any of it change? Read on, and as ever I’m keen for your thoughts…

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There’s nothing that upsets the British more than being ignored by the Americans. Or, if I’m being cruel, there’s nothing that upsets them more than not being shown love by the Americans. The special relationship between the two countries is an article of faith. It is desperately sought by one side and conferred with a pat on the head by the other.

For sure, there have been bumps in the road. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson was infuriated when British Prime Minister Harold Wilson declined to help him with Vietnam in 1967; Prime Minister John Major got on President Bill Clinton’s bad side when the Conservatives in the United Kingdom campaigned for George H.W. Bush in 1992. In 2016, President Barack Obama infuriated the Brexiteers by warning voters that it would put the U.K. at the “back of the queue” for any trade deal if it left European Union. His prediction came true, at least for a while.

The most illustrative moment in recent history, however, belongs to Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Blair became the galvanizer-in-chief for the White House. He was spectacularly successful in assembling a coalition of the willing for the invasion of Afghanistan. Within months, however, Bush had turned his attention elsewhere, announcing in a State of the Union address that he would go after the “axis of evil,” at the heart of which was Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Blair had no idea this was going to happen, and he resolved he would never be blindsided by the White House again. As I wrote in my book, Blair’s Wars, he spoke with Bush in April 2002 and said he would go along with him, come what may. The rest, as they say, is dodgy dossiers, spurious legal advice, elusive weapons of mass destruction, and a disastrous occupation. All the various public enquiries that followed have corroborated this chain of events.

This line of thinking—always being at the United States’ right hand—is deeply embedded in British political psychology. It was that way before the U.K. joined the EU, while it was a member, and since it walked away. It is based in a small amount of hubris and a large lack of confidence. It was born in the hope that the relationship restores the status the U.K. once held on its own and still clings to.

President Donald Trump has upended pretty much every aspect of the world order. One of the byproducts of this is how London behaves in regards to Washington. During Trump’s first administration, it wasn’t that difficult to navigate. Prime Minister Theresa May found him distasteful but was able to work with him. Prime Minister Boris Johnson became a soulmate of his mercurial double across the pond—even though Johnson had made some unsavory remarks about Trump during his tenure as London’s mayor. In any case, Trump’s bark was worse than his bite.

This time around, however, everything is different—far more threatening than even the most assiduous strategists would have predicted.

The recent fraught weeks, during which Trump has humiliated Ukraine and embraced Russia, in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been called a “dictator” and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been praised as a man of peace, have tested the mettle of all European leaders.

Trump and his people initially didn’t like what they saw in Prime Minister Keir Starmer, not least because Labour officials had gone to the United States to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.

MAGA ideologues regard Britain as infected with “woke,” not dissimilar to elsewhere in Europe. Yet they venerate other British cultural symbols like the monarchy, seeing them as a route back to a traditionalism that they wish to thrust upon their own people. Believing the two countries to be joined together by a shared language and other social mores, the Trumpians assume, or rather require, the Brits will ultimately follow along—come what may.

A lawyer by training and instinct, Starmer took the view that the less he said publicly about Trump, the more he might be able to influence him behind the scenes. His first visit into the lion’s den was marked by ostentatious flattery. He brought a letter from King Charles III inviting the president to London for a second state visit, and he talked glowingly about the special relationship. Tickled pink, Trump provided some surprisingly warm words of his own.

On his return to the U.K., Starmer was delighted with his diplomatic handiwork, as was much of a domestic media that had taken to criticizing him at every turn. The media seemed to agree with Starmer’s assessment that the relationship was going well. But not all took that view, however. Writing in the Times, veteran commentator Matthew Parris called it a “cheap stunt.” He wrote, “Going well? Yes, if to watch a British prime minister dancing attendance upon a monster and tickling its fancy is to watch an encounter ‘going well.’”

Starmer was not alone. Three days earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron made a pilgrimage to the White House and even managed to put his hand on Trump’s knee.

Then, barely hours after Starmer had returned to the U.K., came the ambush of Zelensky in the very same room.

To their credit, Starmer and Macron have tried to deal with each setback with as much steely resolve as possible. All Europe’s main players are operating with impediments. Macron is a presidential lame duck. Germany is waiting for its new government, though with the announcement of a $500 billion defense fund, Friedrich Merz has wasted no time in signaling his determination to step up.

Britain’s role is the most intriguing. Many in the European Commission and among EU member states have feared that Trump would exploit the U.K.’s position outside the bloc to drive a further wedge. Trump has already hinted he’ll do so, suggesting to Starmer that he might exempt the Brits from all or some of the tariffs that he’s waiting to slap on Europe. That would, as the British and American right-wing say, help “get Brexit done.”

It is a byproduct of the wider aim, shared by the Trumpians and by Putin, of undermining the EU from inside and out. In the early post-Brexit years, the EU was keen to distance itself from the U.K. and not reward it for its decision to leave. But now, for the EU, it seems everything is up for discussion with the Brits—including some flexibility in London’s arrangements with Brussels— as part of a more immediate task of helping Europe defend itself from the Trump-Putin axis. Trump’s hope seems to be that Starmer will break ranks, recommitting Britain to become an offshore haven for American (and presumably Russian) economic interests.

Which way will Starmer turn? Will he play the part of a teacher’s pet? Or will he stand firmly in unison with his European partners? Starmer has insisted that it’s a false choice and, so far, he appears to have been true to his word.

With Britain outside the formal structures of the EU, Starmer has to rely upon what used to be called variable geometry. He is also using a phrase beloved by former President George W. Bush: coalition of the willing. So far, the European approach is being coordinated by the British and French, with the Germans presumably about to join the top table, along with the EU and NATO. These new permutations are likely to outlast this present crisis—no matter how long it lasts—suggesting a finessing of some of the Brexit boundaries.

Yet, with Trump being Trump, there are many more serious crises ahead. How far will the Trump administration go to appease Putin? How far will Putin penetrate, militarily and politically, into Ukraine—and, who knows, other countries—with the United States’ acquiescence or blessing? Will Trump achieve his wish to take over Greenland? What about the tariffs? These are the known unknowns.

How far will the British really go in standing up to the White House? At what point will they be forced to realize that not only is the relationship no longer special (it hasn’t been for a long time), but that the friend is an adversary? Starmer is hoping that, by hanging in there, he can curb the instincts of his—and Europe’s—abusive partner.