The so-called “special relationship” between the UK and the US appears to be at its lowest ebb for decades. As he sat alongside the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, at a White House press call on March 3, Donald Trump bitterly criticised Keir Starmer for his refusal to let the US use British bases to launch initial strikes on Iran.
Declaring he was “not happy with the UK”, he added: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” Churchill was, of course, the first person to talk of a special relationship between the UK and the US in a speech made at Westminster College in Missouri in March 1946.
Over eight decades since then, successive British and US governments have projected an image of exceptional closeness, particularly in matters of defence and foreign policy. But Trump’s return to the US presidency and his pursuit of a more aggressive foreign policy, including most recently his decision to launch, with Israel, a campaign of airstrikes against Iran in pursuit of regime change, has revived an old question for the Starmer administration: how far should the UK publicly diverge from Washington given the significance of this relationship?
