Lord Mandelson set to be appointed as UK ambassador to the US

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Lord Peter Mandelson is set to be announced as the UK ambassador to the United States as Sir Keir Starmer prepares for a Donald Trump presidency, The Independent understands.

The prime minister is said to believe Lord Mandelson has the trade expertise and networking abilities to bolster the UK’s interests during a delicate period for relations with the US.

Lord Mandelson last served in government 14 years ago when Gordon Brown was prime minister.

The Labour grandee has long been seen as one of the leading candidates for the job.

He will replace Dame Karen Pierce, whose service in Washington DC is expected to conclude in early 2025.

Lord Mandelson is often described as one of the key architects of New Labour.

He was the Labour MP for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, during which time he served as secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

Last month he risked infuriating Donald Trump after he suggested he could combine the job with another role. He said becoming the UK’s man in Washington was not “incompatible” with being next chancellor of the University of Oxford.

He later lost that particular contest to William Hague, but remained the frontrunner for the US role, as the Labour government comes under pressure to woo the president-elect.

Relations between the two are strained, after Trump’s election campaign team hit out at Labour, accusing it of attempting to interfere in the election, in a row over UK activists helping Democrats.

Sir Keir’s foreign secretary David Lammy has also had tried to play down comments he made in the past in which he called Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

When it comes to dealing with the Trump administration, he also suggested that Britain has to “navigate our way through this and have, I’m afraid, the best of both worlds.

“We have got to find a way to have our cake and eat it,” he said.

In November, he also told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that he was “more in favour of a new relationship rather than a special one” with the US. Pushed further on whether he would be interested in the Washington role, the former government minister said: “I would be very interested indeed in giving advice about trade to whoever is appointed.”

This is a breaking news story, more follows…