The British intend to have a new ambassador, Lord Peter Mandelson, in Washington to handle the incoming Trump administration. Lord Mandelson is considered to be a clone of Tony Blair and is said to have “significant influence” over Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Mandelson and Starmer are not only political allies, but also share a long personal friendship. Mandelson has been a long-time promoter of globalization and European integration. In the 1980s Mandelson was director of communications for the Labour Party where he earned the title of “spin doctor,” and in the early 2000s played a key role in spreading the hoax about alleged Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.”
Starmer has been looking for an ambassador who can bolster the “special relationship” during this “delicate period,” according to London’s The Times. Lord Mandelson was a Labour Party MP and currently sits in the House of Lords. He has held several cabinet positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but Starmer may be more interested in Mandelson’s experience as the president of Britain’s Board of Trade and the EU Commissioner for Trade. This is the first time in 50 years that Britain will send a political figure instead of a career diplomat to Washington. A London insider said, “He’s the ideal candidate to represent the U.K.’s economic and security interests in the U.S.A.” Mandelson is scheduled to enter the embassy as Trump enters the White House, and his choice as U.S. ambassador gives some indication as to what the British will try to do with the new administration.
Recently Starmer has had his Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney and the U.K.’s National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell racking-up frequent flyer miles traveling to Florida to meet with Trump’s staff. Starmer had a phone call with Trump on Dec. 18, and plans to visit Trump in the White House in February.
Some observers view this as a British “charm offensive” to cover up the many critical remarks about Trump and his policies by Labour Party leaders, and the fact that the Labour Party had recruited 100 party activists to travel to the U.S. to campaign against Trump. In August the Labour Party also sent McSweeney and Starmer’s communications director Matthew Doyle to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, all of which Trump saw as “blatant foreign interference” in the U.S. elections.
Starmer said that he would “never turn away” from the U.K.’s special relationship with the U.S. “This is not about sentimentality,” he said. “It is about hard-headed realism.”
