David Maddox
Sat 25 January 2025
For those who were carefully listening, Nigel Farage had an interesting message in his speech at the “Stars and Stripes Union Jack” party three days before the inauguration.
He told an audience of leading right-wing Brits, a GB News film crew and a plethora of Donald Trump supporters – including members of the incoming president’s trusted circle – that he believed he would win the next general election. But, he, added: “I just hope it happens while Donald Trump is still president.”
Trump’s presidency is set to run out in 2028, a year before Keir Starmer has to go to the country in the UK. So was it Farage optimism or was there something else at play? This was not just a piece of wishful thinking said in a vacuum, it reflected a virulent mood among Trump’s supporters and advisers.
Keir Starmer is not liked by the Trump team (PA Archive)
Team Trump hates Starmer
The one thing that struck anybody having conversations with anyone involved in the Trump team, from lowly researchers to senior advisers, was the unanimity of hatred about Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government. There was no pretence, no attempt to hide it.
It is worth underlining that this goes well beyond a series of angry tweets from Elon Musk and is much more deep-rooted.
It may be that the decision by the bete noire Justin Trudeau to step down as prime minister of Canada has left a space for an international “socialist” hate figure which Keir Starmer has now filled.
Communist, Marxist, authoritarian, idiots, CCP (Chinese Community Party) puppets and other terms were trotted out with regular abandon. There was contempt for Starmer’s policies and worldview but most interestingly, there was a sense of pity for all the Britons they ran into.
“I’m so sorry for what’s happened to your country,” said one.
“Britain used to be great, we need to make it great again,” added another.
“What has happened to your country?” yet another asked.
And so it went on.
Trump felt betrayed by Labour sending 100 activists to help Kamala Harris (Reuters)
One hundred activists and the Prince of Darkness
For those close to Trump, the bad feeling dates back to the dinner he held for Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy in New York and the sense of betrayal that, shortly after, Labour sent 100 activists across the Atlantic to campaign for Kamala Harris.
“Starmer, Lammy and Trump sat down for that dinner,” one source explained. “They make a lot about Lammy being given a second helping by Trump but all that does not matter because Labour then sent out activists to help Kamala Harris. Starmer had a terrible briefing saying Harris would win and his actions after undid any goodwill he may have had.”
But there is more to it. Since then, the handling of the race riots after the Southport murders was seen as “an attack on free speech”. The government is perceived as being “too close to China”, and now the issues around child grooming gangs and alleged “cover-ups” have been greeted with horror and disgust.
“Nobody believed such a thing could happen in Britain,” said one senior adviser to Trump about the grooming gangs. “It’s shocked everyone and makes Britain look like a backward country.”
What it all means is that Trump appears to have no qualms about humiliating Starmer, whether it is vetoing his Chagos Islands deal, being threatening about tariffs and the terms of a trade deal, deliberately not inviting British government representation to the inauguration or, most urgently, threatening to reject Lord Mandelson’s credentials as UK ambassador to the US.
Mandelson has become a genuine lightning rod of the toxic relationship between the White House and Downing Street because of his links with Jeffrey Epstein, China and the EU.
Peter Mandelson has been appointed US ambassador but could be vetoed by Trump (PA Wire)
‘The British Trump’
A number of people connected to the Trump team have talked about “regime change” in the UK and specifically how to get a Trump-style prime minister into Downing Street. Such discussions seemed to lack an understanding of the British parliamentary system and the fact that Starmer has a huge majority for the next five years.
There were some fanciful musings about “crashing the British economy” to cause a crisis which would force the government out. Most of all, it was about looking at how Labour can be defeated. But here there is uncertainty and disagreement. After all, who is the British Trump?
For some, it is Farage and he was certainly playing up his strong connections with the administration. But the Reform UK leader was not invited into the Capitol Rotunda for the ceremony, unlike former PM Boris Johnson. And Elon Musk is not the only one to have doubts about whether Farage can carry off victory by himself.
Farage has important allies and cheerleaders, not least the 47th president of the United States, but also figures like Farage’s former aide and now highly influential Maga insider Raheem Kassam as well as Steve Bannon. The Reform UK leader also had a meeting at one of the parties the night before the inauguration with Trump and Musk which saw some rapprochement with the billionaire X boss.
There were high-profile Tories in town for the inauguration including Johnson, shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, former PM Liz Truss and a number of peers. They clearly had their own links too and new vice-president JD Vance likes Kemi Badenoch greatly. But there is also very little appetite to help out the “not conservative Conservative Party”.
A number of those particularly interested in the future of the UK are looking at how to encourage Reform and the Tories to get together, in the belief that would be a winning ticket.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has a fan in Donald Trump (PA Wire)
Is all lost for Starmer?
The answer to that is, certainly not. Not least because President Trump does have a soft spot for the UK thanks to his love of the Royal family and his mother growing up in Scotland.
Perhaps the prime minister will need to find a new ambassador (maybe former foreign secretary David Miliband) to appease Trump and if he pursues a trade deal, that may be taken as a sign that the Labour government wants a serious relationship.
Most of all they will need to pursue the unofficial policy already in place of using King Charles and Prince William to be the face of dealings with President Trump, as revealed by The Independent last month.
In the end, though, Trump will need allies to help with his agenda on Nato and Britain, even under Starmer, remains the most consistent voice in favour of higher defence spending.
However, as things stand, the mention of Starmer’s name to the Trump administration is more likely to induce thoughts on how to get him out of power sooner rather than later.
Trump Picks Sides in Elon Musk Feud—And It’s Not With the ‘First Buddy’
Sean Craig
Sun 26 January 2025
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
President Donald Trump has praised U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, striking the complete opposite tone of his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who has called for the British leader’s ouster.
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said the prime minister was “doing a very good job” and that the two have a “very good relationship.”
“I get along with him well,” he said of Starmer, who shared a two hour dinner with the president at Trump Tower in New York City in September. “I like him a lot. He’s liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he’s a very good person and I think he’s done a very good job thus far.”
Trump’s diplomatic tone is in stark contrast to his adviser and and self-proclaimed “first buddy” Musk, who has blasted Starmer over the U.K. grooming gangs scandal.
In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Musk launched incendiary allegations against the U.K. leader, including that he was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes.”
In addition to calling for Starmer’s ouster, the Tesla CEO said one of the UK leader’s cabinet ministers should be jailed.
Starmer accused Musk—a booster of the right wing populist Reform UK party—of spreading “lies and misinformation” and of amplifying far-right “poison.”
Starmer, who leads the centrist Labour Party, was elected Prime Minister in July after 14 years of Conservative Party rule.
Since taking office, he has taken increasingly fiscally conservative positions, earlier this month stating his government “will be ruthless” on making cuts to public services.
He and Trump spoke by phone after November election and Trump said they plant to speak again within the next few days.
Last month, Starmer named Peter Mandelson—a longtime Labour politician who previously called Trump “little short of a white nationalist and racist”— as UK ambassador to the United States.
After the announcement, Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita called Mandelson an “absolute moron.”
Trump plans to send Mark Burnett, the producer of his reality show The Apprentice, to London as American’s top envoy.
Trump’s calls with British leaders reportedly left staff crying from laughter
Andrew Feinberg
THE INDEPENDENT
Sun 26 January 2025
President Donald Trump’s phone conversations with the two British prime ministers who served during his first term were apparently so madcap that they left staff at Number 10 Downing Street in tears.
According to a report in Politico, any conversation between the then-president and the two occupants of Number 10 from 2017 to 2021 — Theresa May and Boris Johnson — were appointment listening for civil servants and other aides in the PM’s orbit, with staff making a point to gather in a secure room or the prime minister’s private study to hear them speak with the American leader.
One former Downing Street source described the conversations as “extraordinary” and “brilliant” — the latter meant more sarcastically — and said those who were present were “there with tears [of] laughter” because the calls were “hilarious.”
Another former British government official who worked in Number 10 at the time said any planned agenda for the arranged call between the two leaders would “quite quickly fall by the wayside” because Trump would simply change the subject to whatever was on his mind.
Trump would reportedly go off on wide-ranging and long-winded tangents on a variety of subjects close to his heart but not exactly germane to the Anglo-American Special Relationship, including his hatred of wind turbines, his Scottish golf property, or matters that prime ministers simply could not discuss because they were the subject of court proceedings.
“They were never what you wanted them to be about, broadly. If you were calling about trade or Israel or something, it would always go off beam,” said another former government official, who added that the American president would go so far as to ask about the health of Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch at the time.
Sun 26 January 2025
President Donald Trump’s phone conversations with the two British prime ministers who served during his first term were apparently so madcap that they left staff at Number 10 Downing Street in tears.
According to a report in Politico, any conversation between the then-president and the two occupants of Number 10 from 2017 to 2021 — Theresa May and Boris Johnson — were appointment listening for civil servants and other aides in the PM’s orbit, with staff making a point to gather in a secure room or the prime minister’s private study to hear them speak with the American leader.
One former Downing Street source described the conversations as “extraordinary” and “brilliant” — the latter meant more sarcastically — and said those who were present were “there with tears [of] laughter” because the calls were “hilarious.”
Another former British government official who worked in Number 10 at the time said any planned agenda for the arranged call between the two leaders would “quite quickly fall by the wayside” because Trump would simply change the subject to whatever was on his mind.
Trump would reportedly go off on wide-ranging and long-winded tangents on a variety of subjects close to his heart but not exactly germane to the Anglo-American Special Relationship, including his hatred of wind turbines, his Scottish golf property, or matters that prime ministers simply could not discuss because they were the subject of court proceedings.
“They were never what you wanted them to be about, broadly. If you were calling about trade or Israel or something, it would always go off beam,” said another former government official, who added that the American president would go so far as to ask about the health of Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning monarch at the time.
Boris Johnson shakes hands with Donald Trump (PA Archive)
Trump famously got on well with the second of two prime ministers during his term, Boris Johnson, with whom he is understood to have felt a kindred spirit because both men were seen as disrupters and outsiders.
He did not have feelings quite as warm for Johnson’s predecessor May, who was the second woman in history to lead the British government.
According to former Trump administration sources, the rift was due to May’s cautious attitude towards the U.K.’s exit from the European Union, plus Trump’s decidedly retrograde attitude towards women in general.
The newly-minted 47th president has yet to conduct his first leader-to-leader call with the current prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, though he met with Starmer for dinner alongside Foreign Secretary David Lammy last September while he was running his presidential campaign.
Donald Trump latest
Trump expected to make decision on Lord Mandelson as ambassador this week
Donald Trump is expected to decide this week whether to accept Lord Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US.
Concerns about Mandelson’s links to China, Jeffrey Epstein, and his previous EU role are cited as potential reasons for rejection.
Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently spoke, discussing trade and reaffirming the strong ties between their countries. However, the ambassador issue remains unresolved.
Despite Trump’s positive comments about Starmer, some sources suggest he might reject Mandelson to assert dominance.
The situation is further complicated by previous tensions, including Labour’s support for Kamala Harris and concerns over the Chagos Islands and free speech in the UK.
They spoke by phone on December 18 after Trump won the election, but the fact that details from that call leaked to the press shortly thereafter has put a chill on the vibes between Number 10 and the White House. A White House official did not respond to a query from The Independent on when the two leaders might speak next.
The Independent has also reported that Sir Keir’s tentative choice of Lord Peter Mandelson as the next British ambassador to Washington is also a bone of contention, with Trump considering taking the unprecedented step of rejecting Lord Mandelson’s credentials due to the Labour bigwig’s support for closer ties with Beijing.
“There’s also a possibility that they approve it conditionally. There would be a very short leash,” one Trump team source said last week.
No comments:
Post a Comment