Andy And Donalds First Date New Romance Or Disaster

Andy Burnham had the most nerve-wracking first date imaginable this week: a one-to-one with Donald Trump.

On paper, the soft-left Labour prime minister does not have much in common with the Republican president who is known for being painfully unpredictable.

Trump has waxed lyrical about all kinds of sensitive subjects during previous such meetings, going on to embarrass foreign counterparts in front of the press and upending years of sensitive diplomacy in mere moments.

Just ask Voldymyr Zelenskyy.

And in recent weeks, the US president has been on quite the rampage.

He announced his support for a united Ireland, expressed pity for Russia’s depleted oil industry, suggested he could withdraw US support for British sovereignty over the Falklands and warned Iran it faces “annihilation” if it doesn’t agree to a peace deal.

Trump repeatedly ripped into Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, too, saying he was no “Winston Churchill” and calling him “weak” after the pair clashed over the Iran war.

You can’t always pick and choose your international allies, however, and trying to maintain the US-UK special relationship, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office, is an essential part of being PM.

So, two months after he got the keys to No.10, Burnham finally sat down with Trump at the United Nations General Assembly in New York for an hour-long private chat on Tuesday.

They then had 10 minutes in front of the press – and, to Downing Street’s great relief, it passed off without any major drama.

Trump loves a winner and is evidently aware of Burnham’s popularity in the UK as he spoke warmly about the new PM.

The president claimed the Labour leader just “gets it,” while also taking a jab at his predecessor by saying US relations with Britain are “more up now” than they were when Starmer was in charge.

It was all going well up until Trump was asked about the UK’s plan to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius.

The deal would involve leasing the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia back at the cost of £9 billion over 99 years.

The president said it was a “terrible” and “ridiculous” plan, meaning the prime minister had to quickly promise he would find a “resolution” for the US concern.

Trump’s remarks were a gift to Burnham’s right-wing opponents, particularly Reform UK leader Nigel Farage who has been lobbying the White House against the agreement.

It’s also unclear just how the prime minister will find a workable solution to Trump’s gripes over having unrestricted and permanent access to the military base, while still giving Mauritius full sovereignty over the islands.

Other stumbling blocks loom for the fragile Burnham-Trump relationship, too.

The president wants Europe to hike its defence spending but the UK is struggling to find the funds.

Trump wants to unleash the full power of artificial intelligence – or super intelligence as he now insists on calling it – while Burnham used his UN speech to call for international co-operation to rein it in before it kills us all.

The Ukraine war is still a concern for European security, yet the White House remains curiously soft towards Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

Trump has continually expressed frustration over the UK’s use of wind power too, pressuring Britain to expand drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.

However, looking on the bright side, the president already appears to have offered the UK an olive branch after he declined to condemn the government’s to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

The president’s apparent neutrality on the move, despite his keen support for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, handed Burnham his first major international win.

That suggests the relationship the pair’s off to a good start.

But when it comes to Trump, no alliance is guaranteed – as Starmer discovered the hard way, after bending over backwards to ingratiate himself with the president.

Listen to this week’s Commons People as we analyse exactly how Burnham’s first encounter with the US president went down and what might come next.

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.