Against a background of negativity toward President Trump in the British establishment, Britain’s new Ambassador to Washington Lord Peter Mandelson has a battle on his hands to keep Downing Street relevant in D.C.
He has already been quick to backtrack on his previous disparaging comments about Trump.
If diplomacy is a game of influence, there is no better way to lose influence than to cause offense. He should aim to make courtesy great again.
In 2019, Lord Mandelson described then President Trump as a "danger to the world" and little more than a “white nationalist and racist.” Arriving in Washington to take up his role as His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador, he has embarked on a charm offensive with U.S. news networks. Describing his prior comments as “childish and wrong,” Lord Mandelson has described President Trump as “nice” and “fair-minded,” and said that people must respect the President’s “strong and clear mandate for change.”
Beyond his personal rebrand, Lord Mandelson faces an uphill struggle to rebuild relationships in Washington, for a British government that had assumed, hoped even, that President Trump would not win.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself has fallen afoul with ill-advised comments about President Trump, at one point describing himself as “anti-Trump.” In offering to commit UK peacekeepers to Ukraine on the back of a U.S.-brokered peace deal, Starmer is now scrabbling to reposition himself, and Britain, as a vital bridge between the U.S. and Europe. That will require some deft diplomatic footwork.
Ambassador Mandelson has made a start, suggesting that Britain should position itself as “not Europe.” However, every aspect of British policy towards Ukraine since 2014 has been firmly aligned with the hardline European faction that includes Poland and the Baltic States; that is poles apart from a rapidly shifting U.S. policy under President Trump. Ambassador Mandelson might be better off describing UK policy as “not Biden,” showing a willingness to pivot away from the zero-sum Democratic Party approach to Russia of the last decade. Except, that would require a genuine change in Britain’s positioning on Ukraine, which has yet to manifest itself.
Prime Minister Starmer remains off message with the new U.S. Administration by reassuring President Zelensky that Ukraine is still on an irreversible path to NATO membership. He is hemmed in politically by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been buttering up President Trump with compliments, yet calling for the UK not to change its Ukraine policy.
While Johnson is able to navigate political differences with skill, given his natural affinity to the president’s politics, the Labour government has a deep seated Trump problem that will be harder to shift. This follows a long-running slew of negative comments by other senior figures. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has verbally excoriated the president many times, once declaring that “Donald Trump is not welcome in Britain.”
Recent years have witnessed a trend by western politicians and media figures in general to disrespect those foreign leaders they disdain, including President Trump.
Boris Johnson himself wrote a crude limerick in 2016 suggesting that President Erdogan of Turkey was a “wanker,” and famously compared President Putin to Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. People domestically chuckled at his Etonian humor. Yet his ability to influence two seasoned heads of state was dented.
Kim Darroch, the former British ambassador to the United States, remains utterly unrepentant about his leaked comments that President Trump’s first government was “dysfunctional” and “inept.”
The system risks believing its own propaganda and rewarding people who become hoist with their own petard. Lord Darroch, as he is now known, received a Life Peerage and a hefty book deal for making a catastrophic diplomatic blunder that would have gotten anyone else sacked. I know from a senior diplomatic contact that he had been warned about his “fruity” telegrams about the U.S. President, but has chosen to grandstand nonetheless.
Diplomatic telegrams are not meant to be leaked, of course. But speaking respectfully about President Trump — or any foreign leader — shouldn’t be seized upon as moral weakness, but rather seen as the way that diplomatic business is carried out. Disagreements are best discussed with due diplomatic courtesy in private. Diplomacy isn’t about friendship — although it’s nice if you can get it — but rather about finding ways to coexist.
There is a reason that the UK invests significantly more in its diplomatic relationship with the United States than it does with any other country. The U.S. is the most powerful country on earth, and more powerful than the entirety of Europe in economic and military terms. Our ambassadors in Berlin and Paris are as senior as our man in Washington, but the latter is seen internally as primus inter pares.
Some people raised eyebrows about appointing a political figure like Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to Washington. While political appointees are not the norm in the UK diplomatic service — unlike in the American — there are precedents, including David Cameron’s appointment of his chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, to be ambassador to Paris in 2016. Former Labour MP Boateng was made British high commissioner to South Africa in 2005.
The diplomat slated for the role, Sir Tim Barrow, is an exceptional diplomat, who had previously served as national security adviser, ambassador to Moscow when I arrived in 2014, and, before that, Kyiv. But while he is scrupulously independent, he made his ambassadorial career under the previous Conservative government.
Having spoken to two former senior British ambassadors last week, the considered view was that Lord Mandelson — who is not considered an ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer — has the political clout to speak truth to power, with Starmer, behind closed doors on the big calls. That will be vital.
Navigating a huge shift on Ukraine policy under President Trump will occupy most of Mandelson’s time at the start of his term on Massachusetts Avenue. In order for Britain’s voice to be heard, he needs to help Starmer redraw the sword lines of diplomatic etiquette and make courtesy great again.
