British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy insists he can find “common ground” with his Republican pal J.D. Vance, former US president Donald Trump’s pick for his presidential running mate. That is looking on the bright side. Vance was a fierce opponent in the US Senate of the most recent US$61 billion US aid package to Ukraine, whereas Britain’s Labour government inherited a strong commitment to Ukraine from its Conservative predecessor and intends to keep to it.
“We’re both from poor backgrounds, both suffered from addiction issues in our family which we’ve written about, both of us are Christians,” Lammy told the BBC.
True, Vance, the so-called hillbilly from Ohio, and Lammy, the son of Guyanese immigrants, made it to the top the hard way via scholarships to Ivy League universities, but Lammy omits another thing the pair have in common — they have both said things about Trump that they now regret.
Illustration: Mountain People
Lammy once called Trump “a neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath” and “a tyrant in a toupee,” while Vance compared him to Hitler.
Vance had a Damascene conversion after Trump got into the White House and made his peace. Lammy just tries to move the subject on, although the British media at every turn remind him of his unguarded remarks about the likely US president-in-waiting.
Like many Trump supporters, Vance objects to bailing out European allies who will not even pay the bare minimum NATO requirement of 2 percent of GDP to fund their own defense.
“America has provided a blanket of security for far too long,” Vance has said.
The Labour Party must therefore prepare for the worst in Washington and hope for the best. Lammy calls this diplomatic stance “progressive realism.”
As high office beckoned, Lammy learned to be more tactful: He clocked up air miles cultivating not only Vance, but also Eldridge Colby, Trump’s former Pentagon adviser; Robert O’Brien, a possible US secretary of state; Mike Pompeo, the Republican president’s last secretary of state; and US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
However, new friends can be fickle. Vance greeted Labour’s election victory with the throwaway line that Britain had become “the world’s first truly Islamist country” with “a nuclear weapon.”
It is not Vance’s clunking sense of humor that worries the new Labour government so much as his opposition to aid for hard-pressed Ukraine.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance told Steve Bannon’s podcast.
A US “go it alone” strategy focused on China would doom Ukraine to accepting a Carthaginian peace — Vance suggests any deal would accept territorial divisions “somewhere close to where they are right now.” That would confirm Russia’s conquests in the Crimea and Donetsk, and leave NATO allies on its eastern flank at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mercy.
Hoping for the best, Lammy told the BBC: “There is a lot of rhetoric from Trump, but look at the action,” adding that Trump was “the first to give Javelins [missiles] to Ukraine after 2015. He talked about withdrawing from NATO, but he actually increased troops to NATO. In a grown-up world, in the national interests of this country, we will work as closely with him as we can and we will seek to influence him where we disagree.”
In his Milwaukee convention speech on Thursday last week, Trump promised that he would “end every single international crisis” to save a world “tottering on the edge of world war three.”
Still, it is sensible to take out insurance just in case the next person in the Oval Office creates another international crisis by abandoning his European allies. Preparing for the worst, Lammy and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are therefore pursuing a parallel “reset” of UK relations with the EU that is far from smooth.
In April, the previous Conservative government committed to raising defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, but only by 2030. Starmer says his pledge to meet that target is “cast iron,” but he has put off the commitment until a strategic defense review — the fourth since 2015 — is concluded. Former NATO secretary-general and Labour stalwart George Robertson, who is leading the probe, would need to hurry if Trump triumphs on Nov. 5. Right now, the UK can scarcely field one army division.
Before Brexit, Lammy and Starmer were ardent supporters of British membership of the EU. The pair would like to use the UK’s military assets as collateral in negotiations with Brussels, but the EU’s Franco-German motor is sputtering. Berlin consistently underspends on defense and proposes to cut its aid to Ukraine by half next year. Paris’ support of Kyiv has been inconsistent — first lukewarm, but now running hot. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have no personal chemistry.
Starmer on Thursday last week hosted a summit of 47 European nations, with EU and non-EU leaders in attendance, at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of former British prime minister Winston Churchill. The European Political Community is the brainchild of Macron, created to encourage “strategic intimacy.” The agenda, dictated by Starmer’s predecessor, former British prime minister Rishi Sunak, largely focused on migration, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was the guest of honor.
King Charles III, a passionate Francophile, was on hand to host drinks; Moldovan President Maia Sandu was placed close to Starmer in the group photograph — her nation, which neighbors Ukraine, is next on Putin’s target list.
Blenheim Palace was a gift from Queen Anne to John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, for uniting a squabbling coalition of European allies against a mighty nation that once threatened the balance of power — France. Europe today is divided between Russia hawks such as Poland and the Baltic states, and outright Putin appeasers such as Hungary. In between, other nations waver.
Vance poses a tough, but fair question: “As we watch European power atrophy under an American protectorate, it is reasonable to ask whether our support has made it easier for Europe to ignore its own security.”
How Starmer and Lammy answer that might help determine the future of a continent.
Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Previously, he was editor of the Sunday Times and its chief political commentator. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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