Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, on Tuesday prepared to turn his back on US President Donald Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace”, as Britain’s fabled “special” relationship with the US reached a nadir.
Trump’s claim that Britain had shown “total weakness” by handing Mauritius ownership of the Chagos Islands — home to a US-UK air base — came at a time of growing tensions between the long-term partners.
Starmer said this week he was “talking to allies about the terms of the Board of Peace”, but British officials said he was not about to sign up to a body that charged a hefty membership fee for a permanent seat and included Russian President Vladimir Putin among its members.
One said: “The official position is that we are considering it. But you don’t have to be a political genius to work out that paying $1bn of taxpayers’ money to sit on a board with Putin isn’t going to fly. I don’t think people are going to sign up to it.”
The Kremlin said this week that Trump had invited Putin to sit on the body, intended to mediate in Gaza and other geopolitical hotspots. The board will sit above an advisory committee that will include Sir Tony Blair, former UK prime minister.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs on Tuesday: “Putin is not a man of peace, and I don’t think he belongs in any organisation with peace in the name.”
Washington has sent out invitations to dozens of heads of state and government to join the Board of Peace, which Trump will chair. Countries that join the board will serve a limited three-year term unless they contribute more than $1bn, according to the text of its charter.
Starmer chaired his stunned cabinet on Tuesday in the wake of accusations by Trump that the UK had shown “stupidity” over its plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, including the US air base of Diego Garcia.
Trump’s social media attack on Starmer for signing the Chagos deal “FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER” detonated in Downing Street on Tuesday morning. “There is no doubt that China and Russia will have noticed this act of total weakness,” Trump added.
British officials believe that Trump was trying to suggest that if Britain could surrender sovereignty over the Chagos Islands — even with US approval — then perhaps one day Denmark might hand over Greenland to China. “That’s the premise,” said one official.
The attack blindsided UK officials, even though Starmer and Trump had held a chilly conversation on Sunday over the US president’s aspirations to take control of Greenland, an approach described by the prime minister as “completely wrong”.
As Starmer digested Trump’s social media attack, in another part of Whitehall the government was about to give a long-awaited green light to a Chinese “super embassy” in London, a scheme that had previously attracted criticism in Washington.
The clearance of the new embassy, dubbed “a colossal spy hub in the heart of our capital” by shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel, clears the way for Starmer to visit Beijing next week, the first visit by a British prime minister since 2018.
With Trump claiming that China poses a threat in the Arctic that can only be addressed by the US taking control of Greenland, the timing of the embassy decision and Starmer’s visit has come at a highly sensitive moment.
Starmer has so far declined to travel to Davos to meet Trump on Wednesday, although he is open to the idea of attending a formal G7 meeting mooted by French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss a range of foreign issues.
Labour officials said that Starmer was determined to focus on domestic issues where possible, with one adding: “Going to a private meeting in the Alps to sit around in chaos isn’t a good use of his time. It would be different if there was an official multilateral meeting.”
In spite of the multiple flashpoints, Starmer’s instincts are to keep talking to Trump and to try to contain public rows. “What’s the alternative?” asked Lord Peter Mandelson, who Starmer sacked as UK ambassador to Washington last year. “Shouting at him from across the street with a megaphone?”
Mandelson added: “Do we think we can really do without US military expenditure? There’s a public sentiment that we should tell Trump where to get off. I can understand that. But it doesn’t lead to any cogent, alternative policy.”
One Starmer ally agreed: “We must stay the course.” But Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said on Tuesday that Trump’s comments on Chagos “shows Starmer’s approach to Trump has failed. The Chagos deal was sold as proof the government could work with him, now it’s falling apart.”
Within the UK government, views diverge over whether Britain should cleave closest to the US or Europe, with new attempts to forge stronger trading and military ties with neighbouring democracies. Starmer has insisted that he would not choose between the two.
Varun Chandra, the prime minister’s business adviser and US trade envoy, and Mandelson have been seen as champions of the former approach. Labour MPs have so far generally refrained from criticising Starmer over his attempts to stay close to Trump.
UK officials cling to the hope that those in the US administration with a more global outlook, such as Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, could help rein in Trump’s instincts.
On Tuesday, Bessent mocked the idea that Europe could respond forcefully to Trump’s threats of imposing tariffs if he is not given Greenland. “I imagine they will form the dreaded European working group,” he said in Davos.
A big test for the relationship looms with plans, not officially confirmed, for King Charles to visit Washington in July to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a visit that is notionally a matter for Buckingham Palace.
Trump’s public criticisms of Britain and his occasional suggestions that he would like to take over Canada, where King Charles is the head of state, have made the planned visit especially political and Downing Street will be closely involved.
Starmer has resisted suggestions that Britain might threaten the US with reciprocal tariffs to influence Trump’s Greenland ambitions. A trade war against a much bigger US economy would hurt Britain, the prime minister has warned. The royal visit is one of the few levers at his disposal.