Theresa May

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares140 Views

    ‘Starmer’s big moment’: can PM persuade Trump not to give in to Putin?

    by

    When Keir Starmer is advised on how to handle his crucial meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, he will be told by advisers from Downing Street and the Foreign Office to be very clear on his main points and, above all, to be brief.“Trump gets bored very easily,” said one well-placed Whitehall source with knowledge of the president’s attention span. “When he loses interest and thinks someone is being boring, he just tunes out. He doesn’t like [the French president, Emmanuel] Macron partly because Macron talks too much and tries to lecture him.”Starmer will also be advised to flatter Trump when he can, to say that everyone is so grateful that he has focused the world’s attention on the need for peace between Russia and Ukraine. But to flatter subtly. And not to lay it on too thick.View image in fullscreenOne – unconfirmed – story from Theresa May’s first visit to see Trump at the White House in 2017 is doing the rounds in Whitehall again before the Starmer trip, and is being used as a cautionary tale for the current prime minister.“When May first went to see Trump, she was told she had to congratulate him on lots of things,” said one source.“So she rushed over to him and congratulated him on his new cabinet appointments, saying: ‘You’ve appointed a great team, Donald.’“At which point he said: ‘Oh thank you so much, Theresa – who do you particularly like among them?’ Which left her a bit stumped, so she just said: ‘Oh, well, all of them, Donald.’”The lesson being that too much flattery can get you into trouble if you do not do your homework.Dealing with, and responding to, Trump in his self-appointed role as ultra-provocative would-be global peacemaker is requiring other leaders the world over to perform near-impossible balancing acts when framing their responses.View image in fullscreenMany of the US president’s statements on the Ukraine conflict, such as those suggesting that Ukraine was responsible for the Russian invasion and that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is a dictator, are regarded by European governments, including the British one, as patently ludicrous.Yet at the same time, no one can say so for fear of what the man who said those things will do next and what revenge he might wreak in return.Peter Ricketts, former UK ambassador to Paris, said that Starmer should himself tune out from Trump’s rhetoric. “He should focus not on what Trump says but what he does. He needs to get into Trump’s mind that a rushed deal with [Vladimir] Putin over the heads of Ukraine/Europe is bound to be a deal that serves Putin’s interests, and that Putin would be seen as strong and Trump weak.”Another senior UK source agreed, saying that Starmer needed to convey to Trump that the only thing that would stop him earning his place in history would be by getting a great peace that was not seen as a “fair deal”. “He needs to make Trump think that his success rests on not giving in to Putin, because if he does he will himself seem weak,” said the source.While cross-continental mud-slinging has intensified, UK political leaders have had a painfully difficult few days trying to adapt to Trump’s barrage of remarks, the latest of which was to say neither Starmer nor Macron – who will meet Trump at the White House on Monday – have done anything of note to sort out the war in Ukraine.Even Nigel Farage, who prides himself on his closeness to Trump and the Republicans, has had to equivocate and throw up a cloud of deliberate confusion around his own responses, so he can claim to be both distancing himself from the US president and validating his interventions at the same time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking to Sky News on Thursday about Trump’s statement that Zelenskyy was a dictator, Farage said: “Take everything Trump says truthfully, but not literally.”The Reform UK leader then tried to argue that Trump “doesn’t literally say Ukraine started the war”, and was instead focused on bringing peace. When, however, it was put to Farage that Trump had told Zelenskyy: “You should have never started it [the conflict],” Farage then replied: “OK, he did. If you’re happy.”With UK public opinion overwhelmingly critical of Trump’s comments on Zelenskyy and Ukraine – today’s Opinium poll for the Observer shows the Trump administration has a -40% approval rating on Ukraine compared with -2% for the previous Biden administration – the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, also felt the need to part company with Trump, tweeting on X that “President Zelenskyy is not a dictator”, though she backed him over the need for European nations to increase defence spending.About 61% of Tory voters disagree with the Trump administration on Ukraine, so for Badenoch not to express some reservations over the US president could have left her in big trouble in her own party.The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, looking for more seats and votes behind the “blue wall” have spotted an opportunity as the anti-Trump party. Calum Miller, their foreign affairs spokesman, said the Lib Dems had a duty to stand up for people in his constituency and others who flew Ukrainian flags in their villages and had taken in Ukrainian refugees.“It is our role to be their voice in parliament,” he said “to say that Trump is a narcissist who is not to be trusted.”Government sources suggested on Saturday nightthat Starmer would probably try to speak to Macron on Sunday before the French president flies to Washington, so as to agree the broad outlines of a European position.But another senior source said the last thing Starmer should do when he meets Trump is try to speak for the Europeans or represent a European position.“Trump has made clear what he thinks of European leaders [last]week. Starmer needs to be his own man, to say the UK was the first country to offer to send troops to Ukraine and do its bit.“If he does that, and succeeds in persuading Trump that it will look terrible to the world if he allows Putin just to get everything he wants, it could be a big moment for him.” More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump asked May at debut meeting why Boris Johnson was not PM, book says

      by

      Trump asked May at debut meeting why Boris Johnson was not PM, book saysFormer president reportedly asked indelicate question at White House in January 2017 when Johnson was foreign secretary In his first White House meeting with a major foreign leader, Donald Trump asked Theresa May: “Why isn’t Boris Johnson the prime minister? Didn’t he want the job?”Kushner camping tale one of many bizarre scenes in latest Trump bookRead moreAt the time, the notoriously ambitious Johnson was foreign secretary. He became prime minister two years later, in 2019, after May was forced to resign.May’s response to the undiplomatic question is not recorded in Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, a new book by the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Eagerly awaited, Haberman’s book has been extensively trailed. Sensational stories revealed include startling instances of Trump’s racism and transphobia and his attempt to order the bombing of drug labs in Mexico.Trump’s presidency would begin, proceed and end in chaos but in January 2017, Britain’s May was seen to have achieved an important diplomatic success by being the first foreign leader to visit Trump in the White House.Describing the meeting, Haberman cites “extensive notes of the discussion” as she reports that “for May, getting Trump to focus on any issue was impossible”.The new president, Haberman writes, bragged about the White House and talked about both the size of the crowd for his inauguration and the Women’s March, a huge national protest against him.Trump also treated May to a discourse on abortion, a hugely divisive issue in the US but less so in Britain.“Abortion is such a tough issue,” Trump said, unprompted. “Some people are pro-life, some people are pro-choice. Imagine if some animals with tattoos raped your daughter and she got pregnant?”Haberman says Trump pointed to his vice-president, Mike Pence, saying “He’s the really tough one on abortion”, then asked May “whether she was pro-life”.Again, May’s response is not reported.Trump then asked about Johnson. The former London mayor’s ambition to be prime minister was well-known, the defection of a key ally, Michael Gove, having torpedoed his hopes of succeeding David Cameron after the Brexit vote in 2016, effectively handing the job to May.Trump, Haberman writes, told the prime minister it sounded like she had a “team of rivals” – the title of a famous book about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet – but said he could not pursue such a course.“John Kasich wanted to work for me after the election, but I couldn’t do that,” Trump said, referring to the former Ohio governor who opposed him in 2016 and after.Haberman says Northern Ireland was also discussed, though Trump “appeared to get bored” and instead talked about an offshore wind farm near one of his Scottish golf courses.He also reportedly asked if immigration had been a major factor in the Brexit vote and criticised European leaders.Telling May “crime is way up in Germany”, Trump brought up rape a second time, claiming “women are getting raped all over the place” and predicting Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, would lose an election that year.In this instance May’s response is reported: Haberman says the prime minister “contradicted” Trump, “saying that Merkel, in fact, was Europe’s best politician”.Elsewhere, Haberman reports that Trump called Merkel “that bitch”.How Donald Trump’s hand-holding led to panicky call home by Theresa MayRead moreIn the Oval Office, Haberman says, May pivoted to “one of her primary interests for the conversation – sanctions against Russia and whether Trump planned to discuss them with [Vladimir] Putin”.Told by aides he was scheduled to speak to the Russian president the next day, Trump complained that he had not yet done so, cited Russia’s nuclear arsenal and said: “I need to talk to this guy … this isn’t the Congo.”Haberman also reports what happened when president and prime minister left the Oval Office and took the steps to the White House colonnade: “appearing to need to steady himself”, Trump took May by the hand.The move caused controversy. Citing Guardian reporting, Haberman recounts the prime minister’s “bewilderment” and a call to her husband to “explain why she was holding another man’s hand”.“He just grabbed it,” May told aides. “What can I do?”TopicsBooksDonald TrumpUS politicsTheresa MayBoris JohnsonnewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      How Donald Trump's hand-holding led to panicky call home by Theresa May

      by

      For the former prime minister Theresa May, one of the most pressing matters she confronted during her encounter with Donald Trump a few days after his inauguration went beyond mere diplomacy.May had travelled to Washington in 2017 with the intention of persuading the new US president to make a supportive statement about Nato. Little did she expect that she would be calling her husband, Philip, to warn him that images of the US president of holding her hand as they walked through the White House would soon be flashing around the world.With Trump out of power, those who had ringside seats during four years of dangerous and often chaotic foreign policy are now describing their – often bruising – encounters in a major new documentary series.The three-part BBC series, Trump Takes on the World, by the award-winning documentary maker Norma Percy, reveals extraordinary access to key observers of the president.With testimony from a who’s who of world leaders and senior US officials, it offers an unmediated reflection of Trump shorn of political hypocrisies.It was not just May who found Trump unsettling: to European diplomatic observers, he seemed a “strange creature”. And he also triggered alarm among some American officials in the room with him, with one defence official noting that the president’s notoriously short attention span suggested a “squirrel careening through the traffic”.May’s encounter with Trump, which is described to Percy by British aides as well as Trump insiders, was a taste of what was to come. May was seen as “not strong” by Trump, according to KT McFarland, the former US deputy national security adviser. But the prime minister had gone into the meeting determined to persuade the president to make a statement backing Nato and warn him over his closeness to Vladimir Putin.The meeting took a bizarre twist as they walked through the White House. “He held her hand going through the colonnades, which took us all by surprise, and as it turns out, took Theresa by surprise,” Fiona McLeod Hill, the former joint chief of staff at No 10, told Percy.“She couldn’t really take her hand back, so she was stuck … And the first thing she said [afterwards] was ‘I need to call Philip just to let him know that I’ve been holding hands with another man before it hits the media’.”Before May had the opportunity to call her husband, Trump hosted her for lunch, where another boundary-shattering episode was waiting. First May was treated to the “full bloom” – one of Trump’s stream-of-consciousness rants, described by Thomas Shannon, then US undersecretary for political affairs, as running “the gamut from his own inauguration to his disdain for the press”.Then, keen to raise the issue of Putin, May asked Trump if he had spoken to the Russian leader, which Trump denied. At that point, however, Trump’s chief of staff intervened to tell the president that Putin had actually called, but not been put through.Hill takes up the story of the “toe-curling” outburst. “Trump at this point looks not orange but red. He flipped. Furious.” In front of May, he scolded his advisers in what Shannon recalled as “an unseemly moment”. “He said: ‘You’re telling me that Vladimir Putin called the White House and you’re only telling me now during this lunch?… Vladimir Putin is the only man in the world who can destroy the United States and I didn’t take his call’.”May was far from alone in being exposed to Trump’s flagrant disregard for boundaries. From his unilateral withdrawals from the Iranian nuclear treaty and the Paris climate accord to his dealings with the Palestinians, Russia and China, few – even those close to him – could ever fully grasp the extent of his unpredictability or his disdain for detail.The former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was thrown off balance by Trump’s behaviour during an encounter at a G20 meeting in Hamburg also in 2017.Like May, Turnbull had important issues on his mind, in this case steel tariffs. Taking his chance, Turnbull collared Trump, who was obsessing about something else. “Donald said: ‘Malcolm, do you want to see my SCIF? It is so cool.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he was talking about a boat [a skiff]. We turned around a corner and there was this big steel box about the size of a shipping container.”Trump pulled Turnbull into what turned out to be a “sensitive compartmented information facility”, an ultra-secure communications hub, with the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, also in tow.“He said: ‘This is so cool – when you’re in there, nobody can hear you, not even the Chinese. It’s so secret.”Expectations of Trump from European leaders were not so much low as non-existent. For the former French president François Hollande, who dealt with Trump only briefly, an early red flag was raised when the US leader asked him in all earnestness who he should appoint to his team in the White House. “I thought he was just being courteous; it was pretty outrageous. Imagine I phoned Obama and said: ‘You know France well, who should I appoint as an adviser?’” Later, briefing his successor Macro during the transition, Hollande was clear how he regarded the US leader – sentiments Percy herself regards as a summing up how many foreign leaders viewed the Trump era.“I said to [Macron],” Hollande recalls, “don’t expect anything from Donald Trump. Do not think you’ll be able to change his mind. Don’t think that it’s possible to turn him or seduce him. Don’t imagine that he won’t follow through with his own agenda.”“Some friends asked me why I was doing it,” said Percy, who has made the documentaries The Death of Yugoslavia, End of Empire and Watergate, and who filmed the new series under lockdown. “The view was that we knew what Trump was like. He was on the news every night. But this is the inside story of those who had to deal with him.”Trump Takes on the World begins on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC Two More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Lies, suspicion and silence in the Tory party | Letters

      by

      In your admirably concise analysis of the government’s failings over the past week, there are two flaws: one of them delusional, the other an omission (The Guardian view on Boris Johnson’s government: an omnishambles week, 20 August).First the delusion: “Much depends on Conservatives with consciences” may have made sense until 12 months ago. Then MPs who dared to challenge the leadership on a range of topics, not just Brexit, but crucially the unlawful prorogation of parliament, were thrown out of their party. Others who shared those opinions decided not to seek re-election, and as a consequence the Conservative parliamentary party can now easily be passed off as a slightly more media-friendly version of Farage’s Brexit party. If any are left who have the conscience necessary to challenge “the New Tory party”, they will be fearful of showing themselves until such time as things are much worse and they have no alternative.The omission: aside from citing one opinion poll that suggests Labour is beginning to eat into the Tory lead, the opposition does not feature.I hope that MPs from all other parties are hatching plans to harry ministers at every turn, challenge every decision and use the full force of parliamentary procedure to expose the lies and to investigate the growing suspicion that public money is being misused to feather friends’ nests.Les BrightExeter, Devon• Martin Kettle quite rightly sees Boris Johnson as a threat to parliamentary democracy (Johnson vowed to strengthen parliament. Yet he and Cummings are silencing it, 19 August). But we should not be surprised. “Johnson talked about how MPs didn’t count, they were just marriage-guidance counsellors on a Friday,” Tony Benn wrote about a radio discussion between the two in 1997. “I just went for him. I shouldn’t lose my temper, but actually it was quite good.” And good too if a few more people now lose their temper about what Kettle chillingly identifies as already almost amounting to “a quiet coup”.David KynastonNew Malden, London• What an amazing speech by Barack Obama to the Democratic national convention. Perhaps Theresa May could download it, replace the words Donald Trump with Boris Johnson, president with prime minister and America with the United Kingdom, and then deliver it in the Commons. If only parliament was sitting.Elizabeth BrettWelling, Kent• Join the conversation – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters More