Many politicians aspire to statesmanship, but few can rise to that status. There are a large number of entrance exams that prime ministers and presidents must pass to make it into this elite group. Two such tests seem highly relevant at the moment: first, can you make the weather; and, second, can you do business with your counterparts, no matter who they are?
As our Prime Minister travels to Washington this week, the burden he carries is very weighty indeed. Mr Trump’s approach to Ukraine appears, outwardly at least, to fly in the face of the decades-old consensus on Euro-Atlantic security. His anger at European free-loading on the might of US military power is there in plain sight.
As is his deep scepticism about Western entanglement in far-flung conflicts which don’t appear to have credible strategies for victory or at least some other respectable exit strategy. There is also something deeply personal in his history with President Zelensky that doesn’t make much sense to those of us who are uninitiated.
Quite what Mr Trump is ever trying to achieve is never easy to divine. Like many people who reach the top of the political pile, he clearly likes to win. But whether his definition of a “great” solution to the conflict in Ukraine is the same as the dictionary definition that anyone else would recognise is harder to tell.
Messrs Johnson and Farage, two of our politicians who lay claim to some Trump-telling powers, have both publicly disagreed with the president this last week on Ukraine whilst also warning us not to take 47’s utterances at face value.
During the 45 era, we witnessed both modes of Trump – doing exactly what I said I would do (think of tariffs) and also, what I say and what I end up doing have a more complex correlation (for example, his inability to deliver on his plan to repeal Obamacare).
Prime Minister Starmer has an existing relationship with Trump that few seem to appreciate. He has been able to reject the student politics that others in our public life have not. In an era when loud virtue- or vice-signalling are abundant, as Prime Minister, Starmer has understood well that his job is to do business with the US president of the day, no matter what the gap in ideology and party politics.
Clinton’s advice to Blair on how to work with his very different successor, Bush Jr, springs to mind: “hug them close” was the essence of what the outgoing president told our young prime minister of the day.
We’ll have to wait for Starmer’s memoirs before we might catch a glimpse of what advice, if any, Joe Biden could muster as he shuffled out of the White House door. There is clearly a skill to master when it comes to disagreeing well with Mr Trump. Reading the contours of the Trump green, borrowing just the right amount of private confidence and assertion, to successfully sink the public putt requires serious judgment.
Taking a brief detour, the current Sinn Féin leadership has fallen foul of the student politics trap in recent days. By announcing that they are boycotting the annual White House St Patrick’s Day event over Gaza, Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill have shown that they have missed the mark as political leaders because of their unwillingness to engage with a world leader with whom they disagree.
In McDonald’s case, this is largely irrelevant given she is not in power, but in the case of the first minister of Northern Ireland this is more worrying.
Commendably on taking office, O’Neill made plain that she would hold the office of first minister based on the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland. It is therefore a real disappointment that she has succumbed to the temptation to hark back to the old days of sectarian political allegiances in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, rather than focus on what is in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, namely continuing the steady stream of vital US investment into Northern Ireland.
It seems so very odd to have failed to take up the opportunity to tell the US president to his face that you disagree with him on something. Few get that chance.
Back now to the main focus. The US has been the UK’s indispensable ally for decades. Starmer understands this as well as most of his post-war predecessors. Our deep state connections, in the private corridors of the intelligence world and the giant dockyards and shielded labs of our nuclear enterprise, go deeper than even the most honed understanding of an outsider would appreciate.
And those relationships have survived a good number of turbulent times since they were forged in the common purpose of the Second World War.
The 1946 US McMahon Act attempted to drive a wedge between our nuclear scientists and engineers for a number of years. Over Suez, the US brought the UK-France-Israeli adventure to a brutal halt with its economic might. Wilson had the UK sit out the Vietnam War, to president Johnson’s irritation. Mrs T hit the roof over Grenada. Major sparred with Clinton over Gerry Adams and Yugoslavia.
Fortunately, although not completely sheltered from the spells of political frostiness, the human wiring of the deep professional connections within the US-UK secret state alliance is pretty well insulated.
The public divergence over Ukraine, if it translates into actual strategic divergence, will probably sit amid the list of most difficult moments in the US-UK security alliance.
Although it is obviously about the future of the brave Ukrainians, the conversation belies an even deeper significance. How the US under Trump decides to approach the deeply malevolent regime of Putin could have consequences that span many years to come.
As 45, Trump forced other Nato member nations to approach their own defence more seriously. Relatively speaking, though, that was marginal-gains territory, rather than the profound change of performance that is now so clearly needed in light of Putin’s illegal and immoral Ukrainian invasion and Trump’s determined pivot to China.
The deterrence of Russia has been a cornerstone of US strategic doctrine for much of the post-1945 era. Over recent years, those broad American shoulders have needed to bear the burden of deterring both Russia and China.
We Europeans obviously need to train up so that we can do our bit too, conceivably taking over the primary role of deterring Russia in due course.
Any such task would be made even more difficult if, at the same time European Nato members were stepping up to the mark, Trump’s administration was going soft on Putin’s imperial ambitions. Letting Putin off the hook will probably embolden other members of the autocratic alliance too, in China and Iran, if they see that armed excursions go unpunished. Let us hope that Trump will see that he will not want to make his own life harder along the way of this presidency.
Such is the backdrop for our Prime Minister’s transatlantic trip this coming week. Both he and France’s Emmanuel Macron are so obviously doing the right thing by deepening their engagement with Trump. They’ll both deploy their skills and the talents of the people around them in an attempt to get Mr Trump to see how best to serve US long-term interests.
Rightly framed, those US interests align with ours too. But they will need to make their arguments well, as Mr Trump is a sharper interlocutor than some might assume. Looking back to the pictures of Mr Trump offering prime minister May a steadying arm during their walk through the White House colonnade, they should also prepare for a more personally thoughtful host than many would guess from his public persona.
Expect the French and British leaders to have done their homework, taking private plans to show their determination to force European Nato members to move fast to end the European naivety over what it takes to deliver effective collective self-defence.
There is an opportunity ahead for Starmer with one or two other European leaders to help set desperately needed, new contours in European security within Nato. This is a huge test, but one that it looks like he is studying for. Results will not be as obvious as quickly as some might want. Success or failure is determined in private, over time, initially. There will be a rush to call it a triumph or disaster within seconds of any press conference beginning, but that isn’t really how historic moments can be judged.
Few prime ministers have faced such a significant test so early in their tenure. Some prime ministers have retreated into foreign affairs to escape more domestic miseries. Not so for Starmer. He now has no choice but to focus on the UK’s relationship with our indispensable US ally.
On every front, Trump is making weather, and a lot of it very tough to navigate for others. The global economy, global security, technology, the experiment in the business of governing. Prime Minister Starmer will need to pack for his trip to Washington like he’s on a week-long walking trip in the wonderfully unpredictable climate of the Lake District.
Simon Case served as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service from 2020 to 2024
Many politicians aspire to statesmanship, but few can rise to that status. There are a large number of entrance exams that prime ministers and presidents must pass to make it into this elite group. Two such tests seem highly relevant at the moment: first, can you make the weather; and, second, can you do business with your counterparts, no matter who they are?
As our Prime Minister travels to Washington this week, the burden he carries is very weighty indeed. Mr Trump’s approach to Ukraine appears, outwardly at least, to fly in the face of the decades-old consensus on Euro-Atlantic security. His anger at European free-loading on the might of US military power is there in plain sight.
As is his deep scepticism about Western entanglement in far-flung conflicts which don’t appear to have credible strategies for victory or at least some other respectable exit strategy. There is also something deeply personal in his history with President Zelensky that doesn’t make much sense to those of us who are uninitiated.
Quite what Mr Trump is ever trying to achieve is never easy to divine. Like many people who reach the top of the political pile, he clearly likes to win. But whether his definition of a “great” solution to the conflict in Ukraine is the same as the dictionary definition that anyone else would recognise is harder to tell.
Messrs Johnson and Farage, two of our politicians who lay claim to some Trump-telling powers, have both publicly disagreed with the president this last week on Ukraine whilst also warning us not to take 47’s utterances at face value.
During the 45 era, we witnessed both modes of Trump – doing exactly what I said I would do (think of tariffs) and also, what I say and what I end up doing have a more complex correlation (for example, his inability to deliver on his plan to repeal Obamacare).
Prime Minister Starmer has an existing relationship with Trump that few seem to appreciate. He has been able to reject the student politics that others in our public life have not. In an era when loud virtue- or vice-signalling are abundant, as Prime Minister, Starmer has understood well that his job is to do business with the US president of the day, no matter what the gap in ideology and party politics.
Clinton’s advice to Blair on how to work with his very different successor, Bush Jr, springs to mind: “hug them close” was the essence of what the outgoing president told our young prime minister of the day.
We’ll have to wait for Starmer’s memoirs before we might catch a glimpse of what advice, if any, Joe Biden could muster as he shuffled out of the White House door. There is clearly a skill to master when it comes to disagreeing well with Mr Trump. Reading the contours of the Trump green, borrowing just the right amount of private confidence and assertion, to successfully sink the public putt requires serious judgment.
Taking a brief detour, the current Sinn Féin leadership has fallen foul of the student politics trap in recent days. By announcing that they are boycotting the annual White House St Patrick’s Day event over Gaza, Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill have shown that they have missed the mark as political leaders because of their unwillingness to engage with a world leader with whom they disagree.
In McDonald’s case, this is largely irrelevant given she is not in power, but in the case of the first minister of Northern Ireland this is more worrying.
Commendably on taking office, O’Neill made plain that she would hold the office of first minister based on the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland. It is therefore a real disappointment that she has succumbed to the temptation to hark back to the old days of sectarian political allegiances in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, rather than focus on what is in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, namely continuing the steady stream of vital US investment into Northern Ireland.
It seems so very odd to have failed to take up the opportunity to tell the US president to his face that you disagree with him on something. Few get that chance.
Back now to the main focus. The US has been the UK’s indispensable ally for decades. Starmer understands this as well as most of his post-war predecessors. Our deep state connections, in the private corridors of the intelligence world and the giant dockyards and shielded labs of our nuclear enterprise, go deeper than even the most honed understanding of an outsider would appreciate.
And those relationships have survived a good number of turbulent times since they were forged in the common purpose of the Second World War.
The 1946 US McMahon Act attempted to drive a wedge between our nuclear scientists and engineers for a number of years. Over Suez, the US brought the UK-France-Israeli adventure to a brutal halt with its economic might. Wilson had the UK sit out the Vietnam War, to president Johnson’s irritation. Mrs T hit the roof over Grenada. Major sparred with Clinton over Gerry Adams and Yugoslavia.
Fortunately, although not completely sheltered from the spells of political frostiness, the human wiring of the deep professional connections within the US-UK secret state alliance is pretty well insulated.
The public divergence over Ukraine, if it translates into actual strategic divergence, will probably sit amid the list of most difficult moments in the US-UK security alliance.
Although it is obviously about the future of the brave Ukrainians, the conversation belies an even deeper significance. How the US under Trump decides to approach the deeply malevolent regime of Putin could have consequences that span many years to come.
As 45, Trump forced other Nato member nations to approach their own defence more seriously. Relatively speaking, though, that was marginal-gains territory, rather than the profound change of performance that is now so clearly needed in light of Putin’s illegal and immoral Ukrainian invasion and Trump’s determined pivot to China.
The deterrence of Russia has been a cornerstone of US strategic doctrine for much of the post-1945 era. Over recent years, those broad American shoulders have needed to bear the burden of deterring both Russia and China.
We Europeans obviously need to train up so that we can do our bit too, conceivably taking over the primary role of deterring Russia in due course.
Any such task would be made even more difficult if, at the same time European Nato members were stepping up to the mark, Trump’s administration was going soft on Putin’s imperial ambitions. Letting Putin off the hook will probably embolden other members of the autocratic alliance too, in China and Iran, if they see that armed excursions go unpunished. Let us hope that Trump will see that he will not want to make his own life harder along the way of this presidency.
Such is the backdrop for our Prime Minister’s transatlantic trip this coming week. Both he and France’s Emmanuel Macron are so obviously doing the right thing by deepening their engagement with Trump. They’ll both deploy their skills and the talents of the people around them in an attempt to get Mr Trump to see how best to serve US long-term interests.
Rightly framed, those US interests align with ours too. But they will need to make their arguments well, as Mr Trump is a sharper interlocutor than some might assume. Looking back to the pictures of Mr Trump offering prime minister May a steadying arm during their walk through the White House colonnade, they should also prepare for a more personally thoughtful host than many would guess from his public persona.
Expect the French and British leaders to have done their homework, taking private plans to show their determination to force European Nato members to move fast to end the European naivety over what it takes to deliver effective collective self-defence.
There is an opportunity ahead for Starmer with one or two other European leaders to help set desperately needed, new contours in European security within Nato. This is a huge test, but one that it looks like he is studying for. Results will not be as obvious as quickly as some might want. Success or failure is determined in private, over time, initially. There will be a rush to call it a triumph or disaster within seconds of any press conference beginning, but that isn’t really how historic moments can be judged.
Few prime ministers have faced such a significant test so early in their tenure. Some prime ministers have retreated into foreign affairs to escape more domestic miseries. Not so for Starmer. He now has no choice but to focus on the UK’s relationship with our indispensable US ally.
On every front, Trump is making weather, and a lot of it very tough to navigate for others. The global economy, global security, technology, the experiment in the business of governing. Prime Minister Starmer will need to pack for his trip to Washington like he’s on a week-long walking trip in the wonderfully unpredictable climate of the Lake District.
Simon Case served as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Home Civil Service from 2020 to 2024