Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, said he could strike a trade deal with Donald Trump and avoid punitive tariffs on the UK as he dismissed as “noises off” Elon Musk’s strident criticism of his leadership.
Starmer, speaking to the Financial Times on a visit to Kyiv, insisted Trump’s inauguration on Monday would not add to his political woes, saying they had a “constructive” relationship that would survive the outpourings of the incoming president’s ally Musk, the world’s richest man.
“What matters to me is my relationship with the US and my relationship with president-elect Trump,” Starmer said, shrugging aside the FT’s recent revelations that Musk had been exploring ways to oust him from Downing Street.
“In the end my experience is that you have to focus on what matters,” he said, referring to Musk’s suggestion that he is the leader of a “tyrannical” government. “Ignore the noises off.”
Trump has asked Musk to help his new administration slash US bureaucracy. Starmer too said he would be “ruthless with cuts” if needed to keep to Labour’s fiscal rules after the rise in UK borrowing costs in recent months.
Starmer sets great store on what he believes is a strong early relationship with Trump, despite the president-elect’s close ties with his domestic rival Nigel Farage, and the Trump campaign in October accusing his Labour party of interfering in the US election.
Starmer has repeatedly harked back to the president-elect hosting him for dinner at Trump Tower in New York last September.
“He made a huge effort,” Starmer said, sitting in a puffa jacket in Kyiv’s traditional Kanapa restaurant, a log fire burning in the corner. “He came to New York to have dinner with me and I was very grateful for that.”
The relationship is now about to be tested, especially if Trump follows through on his threat to impose new global tariffs.
“Tariffs aren’t in anybody’s interests,” said Starmer, as plates of dumplings and mushrooms begin to arrive. “Our ambition is to have a deal of some sorts with the US, a trade deal. That’s where our focus is.”
Some kind of UK-US trade deal has been the dream of successive British prime ministers since Brexit, but has never materialised. Starmer rejected the “false choice” that he would have to choose between a deal with Trump or a better trade deal with the EU.
The timing of Starmer’s visit to Kyiv on Thursday — days before Trump’s inauguration — was a symbolic show of the UK’s continued support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy: the two men signed a “100-year partnership” between the two countries.
But it was also an opportunity for Starmer to indicate to Trump that Britain was prepared to join France and other European allies by stepping up to the plate — possibly by putting peacekeepers on the ground — if Ukraine agreed to end the war with Russia.
Trump last month told Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron that he expected Europeans to secure the peace, but Starmer said he was confident the new US president would help put Ukraine in “the strongest possible position” ahead of any peace talks.
“He’s acutely aware of the contribution the US has made here,” said Starmer, whose visit to Kyiv was accompanied by Russian drone activity over the city. “That’s very important to both of us. I think he absolutely understands the critical role the US will play in relation to this.”
Zelenskyy on Thursday listed the US as one of those countries — along with Germany, Hungary and Slovakia — that oppose Ukraine’s membership of Nato. Starmer said he would “urge” those countries to keep the door open.
Meanwhile, Starmer has had to put on hold a deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands — home to the US/UK Diego Garcia military base — from the UK to Mauritius amid fears from some in the Trump team that it could surrender influence to China.
“I think it’s right that he scrutinises it,” Starmer said, after the prime minister bowed to a request from Trump to study the deal before it is signed. But he insisted the deal would secure the long-term legal future of the base.
Would Trump be happy to see Starmer’s continued rapprochement with Beijing, including his attempts to generate more UK-China trade? “Let’s see,” he said. “The US is our closest ally. It’s usually best not to get ahead of ourselves.”
Starmer has enough economic problems without Trump making them worse, as Britain battles the threat of “stagflation”, with inflation above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target coupled with near-zero growth. Business and markets have become increasingly gloomy.
But the prime minister insisted that his long-term economic strategy was working and that his critics should stop being hung up on daily economic data, rejecting suggestions that Rachel Reeves’ future as chancellor in some way depended on whether inflation last month was 2.5 per cent or 2.6 per cent.
“I’ve always said it would take time,” Starmer said, arguing that investment into Britain was strong. “I don’t think that overreacting to each and every single decimal point on a daily basis is necessarily reflective. We know it’s going to be a long-term journey.”
The UK’s 10-year gilt yield hit a post-financial crisis high of 4.93 per cent last week, but has since fallen to 4.65 per cent on Friday. Gilts have rallied as weaker than expected inflation, growth and sales data prompted investors to increase their bets on interest rate cuts from the BoE.
Starmer claimed that if borrowing costs exceeded expectations and blew a hole in Reeves’ fiscal plans, he would not hesitate to act, even if it risked a big confrontation with Labour MPs and many of his own ministers.
“We will be ruthless with cuts if that’s what’s necessary,” he said. “In the end the fiscal rules and our commitment to them is iron-clad.” Starmer insisted that last year’s Budget, with its £40bn tax increase, had laid the foundations for growth.
“It’s about setting conditions, it’s about stability, it’s about certainty,” he said. “It’s about not chopping and changing — it’s about sticking to the decisions that were made, tough though they were and right though they were.”
Starmer’s approval ratings have plummeted since the general election and Labour, according to one YouGov poll, is now just one point ahead of Farage’s Reform UK party. Nerves on the Labour benches are jangling.
“I love fights,” Starmer said, as he contemplated the long train journey out of Kyiv. “I had to fight to get the leadership of the Labour party, I had to fight to win the election. Five years ago people said, ‘he wouldn’t be able to do it’, but I said, ‘watch this space’.”
Additional reporting by Ian Smith in London
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