Operation Ingratiate takes more risks with Starmer’s embattled reputation

We can rule out the thought that King Charles was gagging to provide regal entertainment for King Donald. The late Queen found the US president “very rude” during his previous visit in 2019 and her son was less than enthused about the prospect of hosting another one, not least because of Trump’s predatory designs on Canada. Charles bowed to Downing Street’s insistence that it had to happen, and quickly.

Sir Keir Starmer cannot think that his embattled premiership is going to gain lustre from bringing this guest to our shores. Trump is not popular with a majority in his own country, while his favourability score with British voters plumbs darker depths than Sir Keir’s ratings. Pollsters report that those who approve of this US president are outnumbered more than four to one by those who dislike him. Despite the infatuations of Nigel Farage, the US president is not even well-liked by a lot of the Reform tribe. You wouldn’t want to hitch your wagon to a foreign leader most Brits find repellent.

The guest’s unpopularity will be reflected in the logistics of the three-day visit. He will be flown around by helicopter in a security bubble involving swarms of police drones. There won’t be the traditional carriage ride down the flag-bedecked Mall. They are not even risking exposing him to any crowds in genteel Windsor. In contrast with Emmanuel Macron’s state visit in July, there won’t be a trip to the grave of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey. Nor will there be an address to MPs and peers, Downing Street cunningly arranging the visit for when the Commons is in recess.

The ideal state visit is an occasion to celebrate and nurture the ties that bind two countries. Other times, they are endured as a necessary price of realpolitik.

This visit is the most cynically conceived I can remember. It is best thought of as the apotheosis of Operation Ingratiate: the obsequious strategy that Sir Keir started pursuing even before Trump returned to the Oval Office. There is a case for that strategy, even if the prime minister can never be completely explicit about it. When it comes to defence and intelligence, the US remains the UK’s most critical partner. “You can’t just turn it off,” says a senior member of the cabinet. While it would be prudent to treat the US as an unreliable ally, it is not possible to rewrite decades of Anglo-American history overnight.

One minister in a position to know says that, for all the difficulties in dealing with the Trump administration, “the relationship at a deep-state level is still functioning OK.”

Sir Keir tells himself that wooing the US president has helped to deflect Trump from tearing up Nato security guarantees in the way he once threatened to do.

The US is not the UK’s most significant trading partner. That is the EU. But it is not trivial for our economy either. Starmer aides contend that laying on a splash of regal pageantry and catering is a price worth paying to swerve the most punishing of the Trumpian tariffs. Signatories on UK-US tech partnerships will be hyped as another fruit of the relationship.

These are the dividends claimed for Operation Ingratiate, but the perilous downsides are also becoming painfully obvious. The Dark Lord Mandelson was sent to Washington as our man in DC because it was thought that the risky but sinuous peacock had a better chance than a conventional diplomat of gaining the president’s attention and wooing the Maga crowd.

That high-risk gamble has spectacularly blown up in the prime minister’s face and triggered acute questions both from the opposition and within his own party about his judgment. Those Labour backbenchers publicly questioning how long his prime ministership can carry on like this are thus far confined to the usual suspects who have never liked him, but it is fair to say that agonies about the competence and direction of Number 10 are gnawing guts across the party’s factions. This visit won’t soothe their nerves.

Playing nice with The Donald turns the stomachs of the median Labour MP who would much prefer to enjoy Sir Ed Davey’s freedom to declare that he is boycotting the state banquet at Windsor Castle in protest at the horrifying carnage in Gaza.

The UK will formally recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations later in the month, a point of difference with the US and a gesture of minor symbolic value that will have little practical effect. If Sir Keir genuinely has influence over the US president, he will use their day together at Chequers to lean on the American to lean on Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the slaughter.

British officials are relieved that the US has not altogether abandoned Ukraine, but they struggle to tell you anything more optimistic about the conflict. The US president has huffed and puffed about increasing the severity of the sanctions regime against Russia without doing it. The seriousness with which Vladimir Putin takes bluster from the White House can be measured by the recent amplification of Russia’s aerial bombardment. If Sir Keir wants to live up to the claim that he is an effective Trump whisperer, he will use this opportunity to persuade the American president to ratchet up the military and economic pressure on the Kremlin tyrant.

Donald Trump will regard his visit to our shores as a success if he comes away with an ego-gratifying photo album of happy snaps with the royals and the Household Cavalry. Sir Keir has a contrasting need – to show his domestic audience at least glimmers of progress on Gaza and the security of Europe.

There is a distinction between the necessities of realpolitik and obeisance so slavish that you make yourself look like a vassal, meekly compliant to the capricious and authoritarian White House. The prime minister won’t do his reputation or our national dignity any favours if he loses sight of the difference this week.

Photograph by Jordan Pettitt/PA