Insomniac politics buffs are not the only ones who stay up to watch the US presidential debates.
In London, the new Labour government has delayed naming a new ambassador to the US. Prime minister Keir Starmer will only make the leap once he knows who has won the race between the Republican candidate Donald Trump and the Democrats’ Kamala Harris.
The UK’s incumbent ambassador in Washington, career diplomat Karen Pierce, is due to finish in February 2025. Former prime minister Rishi Sunak had lined up his national security adviser, Tim Barrow, to replace her. But the former Tory party leader’s decision to call an early election scuppered Barrow’s hopes.
Earlier this year, as polls stayed cemented in Starmer’s favour in advance of the UK election while the US race remained a toss-up, senior Labour figures grumbled to the foreign office about Barrow’s impending appointment. They argued Starmer should be able to make his own appointment for such a critical role – Britain revels in its “special relationship” with the US.
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This put the US state department in a bind. Officially the US would have to give its diplomatic approval – a process known as agrément – to the appointment of Barrow. This would also risk dragging it into the middle of a dispute between the Tories and Labour, a diplomatic headache.
Then Sunak stepped out into the late May rain at Downing Street to call a snap summer election, heralding the pre-election period of purdah, during which big government decisions are not supposed to be taken. Barrow’s appointment was halted, the US breathed a sigh of relief and Starmer resolved to wait and see what unfolded in the US.
Whitehall speculation about his preferred candidate has revolved around a bevy of high-profile names, although it is said to hinge on who wins on November 5th. A wholly different set of skills might be needed depending on the result.
If the rambunctious, unpredictable former president Trump wins , it is said that the UK prime minister might favour an orthodox civil service appointment, senior professional diplomat with the nous to keep their head down and diplomatic ties up. Don’t risk riling Trump. Just play it boring and safe.
But if Harris wins, some argue, Starmer might be better to make a more politically-minded appointment sourced from the Labour gene pool. Britain still covets a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, while the two nations’ close co-operation on issues such as Ukraine and Nato is also deemed vital.
A high-profile, suave, heavyweight Labour figure might have more sway with the US government if it was led by the current vice-president, whose politics are closer to Starmer’s than Trump. It is presumed that such a British ambassador would be less suited to a Republican presidency.
David Miliband, the Blairite former foreign secretary who has lived in the US for the past decade, has spent the past six months dodging questions about whether he is interested in the ambassador role. Yet he keeps showing up at London events, therefore the assumption is that he is after something. In May, about a fortnight before the election was called, he showed up on successive nights at a function in the Irish embassy, and again for a talk at Nesta, a social policy think tank.
This week he is back at Nesta again, two days (or barely more than one day, really, on Greenwich Mean Time) after the crunch Harris-Trump presidential debate in Philadelphia. Everyone in London will be talking about US politics. What coincidental timing for one of the presumed main contenders for the ambassadorial role in Washington to pitch up.
The urbane Miliband might suit a Harris presidency but he has made sharp comments about Trump in the past. The Republican candidate isn’t known to have much time for those who criticise him.
Former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson, who doesn’t carry that sort of baggage, has also been linked with the post. Yet in recent weeks he has tried to distance himself from the speculation as he runs a campaign to be appointed as chancellor of Oxford University.
Catherine Ashton, a baroness and former European commissioner, is another contender, along with Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair’s chief negotiator for the Belfast Agreement. Yet the potential reappointment of Pierce is also not being ruled out, especially if Trump wins – she is said to have cultivated good contacts among his team.
Pierce did, after all, reportedly joke at a recent embassy party that she would have to be “dragged out of [Washington] by my finger nails”.