Kamala Harris, Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump (Image: GETTY)
The so-called "special relationship" between the UK and the US has lasted, for better or worse, for more than a century. Over the years there have been many strong connections between Prime Minister’s and US President’s, perhaps most notably Margaret Thatcher’s warm relationship with Ronald Raegan which helped bring an end to the Cold War.
Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, even Tony Blair and George Bush eventually formed a tight bond, with both countries going to war in Iraq despite the opposition of some European allies. But there have been some awkward moments when that special bond political bond has been tested to its limit.
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Former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the Republican president Richard Nixon were poles apart, both politically and in their approach.
John Major and Bill Clinton fell out over the US issuing a visa to Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and the brewing conflict in the Balkans during the early 1990s.
While Gordon Brown and Barack Obama never really gelled during the relatively short period when their leaderships overlapped.
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George Bush and Tony Blair (Image: Getty)
Who could forget the frosty relationship between Donald Trump and Theresa May, the former US President famously gripping her hand as the pair awkwardly walked out of the White House together.
So how will the “special relationship” fair when the 47th US President is elected on November 5? Could Democrat candidate Kamala Harris forge a strong bond with Sir Keir Starmer if she becomes the first woman to lead her country?
But what if Mr Trump returns to the White House, how will he and the Labour leader get on as they try to navigate the world through precarious times.
Not very well, it would seem, after the presidential candidate furiously claimed the Labour Party was interfering in the US election.
Trump’s team have filed an official complaint with US federal election officials, and claimed the Labour Party had “made, and the Harris campaign has accepted, illegal foreign national contributions”.
Ronald Reagan with Margaret Thatcher (Image: Getty)
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It follows reports of senior Labour officials meeting with Kamala Harris’ campaign, and up to 100 Labour Party staffers volunteering on the ground for her campaign.
Sir Keir, who had dinner with Trump during a trip to New York last month, insists their relationship is not in jeopardy.
Having pledged to work with whoever America chooses as its president, the Prime Minister will have his work cut out to build bridges with Team Trump.
He’ll also have some extra grovelling to do thanks to a litany of previous remarks, made by current Cabinet members, about the ex-President.
In 2018, David Lammy, now Foreign Secretary, called Donald Trump a "woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath".
Writing in Time magazine he also wrote that Mr Trump is "a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long".
Barack Obama and Gordon Brown (Image: Getty)
He added: "It is because I cherish and champion those values that this Friday, I will march against Donald Trump."
More than half of Sir Keir’s cabinet, including deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and home secretary Yvette Cooper, previously criticised Mr Trump.
The year after his Time magazine attack, Mr Lammy called Mr Trump a “serial liar and a cheat” who was also “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic and . . . no friend of Britain”.
In January 2021 he said that “Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as president fills me with joy”.
Mr Lammy has more recently tempered his language, saying in May: “Whoever is in the White House or Number 10 in a big election year, we must work together.”
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said in 2021 after the Capitol Hill riots that Conservative ministers were “spineless” and “toadying” for failing to call out Trump’s “lies”.
She added: “The violence that Donald Trump has unleashed is terrifying, and the Republicans who stood by him have blood on their hands.”
Ms Cooper joined a women’s march in 2017 to “take a stand against Donald Trump”, saying: “We are marching because the most powerful man in the [US] thinks it’s OK to grab women ‘by the pussy’.”
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Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, wrote in 2016: “The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.”
A year later he called Mr Trump an “absolute moron”, and in 2018 castigated “his racist attacks . . . his lies, his admiration for dictators”.
Other now-cabinet ministers including health secretary Wes Streeting, culture secretary Lisa Nandy, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn and environment secretary Steve Reed have all written stinging criticisms about Mr Trump.