26 February 2025, 07:20

By Simon Marks

It is not hyperbole to suggest that Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday will be the most consequential encounter between any British and American leader since Winston Churchill joined Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Peace Conference in 1945.

So comprehensively has Trump upended the trans-Atlantic relationship in the last fortnight that it is currently hard to divine whether Washington is still an ally of the U.K., is already an adversary, or might be something in-between.

Either way, this will not be a “business-as-usual” summit in the Oval Office. Which made it all the more astonishing that Security Minister Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP for Barnsley North, told LBC’s ‘Nick Ferrari At Breakfast’ on Monday that “a further cementing of the special relationship” between Washington and London would “constitute a successful trip” for the Prime Minister.

Earth to Dan Jarvis MP: the “special relationship”, if it ever actually existed, is now an artifact of history. The phrase – hackneyed and over-used for decades – must be officially consigned to the ash heap of bilateral clichés.

As Prime Minister Keir Starmer heads to Washington DC for his first meeting with President Trump, follow the latest updates as they unfold. Get expert analysis, live reports, and exclusive insights — on Global Player.

A successful summit will not be one in which the “special........

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