The first public words from the prime minister after the American midterm elections were instantly revealing about contemporary international politics and diplomacy. “Well, President Trump has accepted the results,” Andy Burnham said. It is not an observation British leaders have frequently had to make about recent American presidents – that they are not disputing the result of elections in their own country. But what would previously have been taken for granted no longer can be.
Burnham remains in the foothills of establishing a relationship with the president – so far it has amounted to a handful of phone calls and one face-to-face meeting at the United Nations in New York in September. As he continues to attempt to build a rapport with Donald Trump, he will be doing so with a president in a wildly different political situation than when Sir Keir Starmer was trying to build bridges with him. No longer is this a story of an extraordinary comeback, but of a midterm president seemingly punished for the consequences of a foreign war the type of which he had originally promised to avoid. Time to focus on cost of living, says PM after US election results Trump’s loss limits powers at home, but it will likely be different abroad And it is noticeable that the British government’s public reaction is grounded too in the consequences of the war with Iran: the cost of living.
“I feel the world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all and that’s the cost of living,” the prime minister said. “But I can’t get people’s cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, the conflict between in Ukraine started by Russia.” Within government the Iran war and its consequences, particularly on energy prices, is widely seen as the biggest individual contributor among the many factors currently driving up the cost of living. And, bluntly, it is one that puts many, including many of America’s allies, in alignment with many in America, Democrat and Republican, who when asked why these elections went as they did, point at the prices displayed outside any petrol station. Speaking before the votes in America were counted, the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband reflected on this when I spoke to him on BBC Newscast, external.
When I asked him specifically if he feared that a domestically humiliated Trump may prove more belligerent internationally, it was to the Iran war the foreign secretary referred. He didn’t offer a direct answer to my question, but chose instead to say this: “I know that one of the biggest responsibilities of the whole government, frankly, is the cost of living situation at home, and we know one of the biggest contributors to the cost of living situation is, frankly, the conflict.” “The Strait of Hormuz being not exactly closed, but not properly open, not free flowing, and that is hitting families at home,” he said. “We know that we need a diplomatic way out of this conflict, and so that is one of the things that we’re working on. It’s something I talked to the U.S.
Secretary of State about at the G20, and it’s something we continue to work on,” he added. The foreign secretary met Marco Rubio at the meeting in Atlanta last week. But the big question for the British government, and so many others, is does defeat at home make it more likely that President Trump gets angrier abroad? Or, do America’s traditional allies, the UK, the European Union, Canada, Australia and others feel more strident and willing to work with Donald Trump’s domestic political opponents to try to challenge and restrain a weakened president?
The answers to these two final questions will determine much in world affairs in the next couple of years.
