Since 1917 Britain’s relationship with the United States has been the most important component of our foreign policy. When former US Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer was told by Number Ten to “crawl up the backside of the White House and stay there” he became merely the latest in a long line of diplomats whose job it has been to ensure that Britain was seen as primus inter pares among America’s allies.
Throughout the conflict in Iraq, Britain has stood alone alongside the US, but on a visit to Washington last week I detected a worrying trend in US political circles. Virtually everyone I spoke to, whether in the Bush Administration or not, whether Republican or Democrat, had a deep distrust of the Conservative Party and David Cameron in particular.
On the fifth anniversary of September 11th, David Cameron delivered a speech on foreign policy which was seen by the Bush Administration as anti-American. They felt that the new Conservative leader was playing fast and loose with the so-called Special Relationship. One leading State Department appointee said that “it would be a cold day in hell” before Cameron received an invitation to the Bush White House.
As part of the Conservative Party’s rebranding process this reaction might have been deemed a success, but as an exercise in transatlantic diplomacy it was woeful. Cameron’s assertion that the UK should be a “solid but not slavish” ally and that America’s foreign policy lacked “humility and patience” might have been excused in a run of the mill foreign policy speech – but not on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. The timing was crass and insensitive to American feelings. The fact that the rest of the speech was hugely pro-American was ignored or conveniently forgotten.
Nearly six months later those hurt feelings have not been assuaged and David Cameron is still being judged on that one speech. The US political elites see David Cameron as a politician who was willing to criticise America for party political advantage.
The irony in all this is that Cameron was right in what he said. A true friend is one who tells the truth, even when it is unpalatable. Churchill and Roosevelt were close allies, yet fought like cat and dog. Harold Wilson enjoyed a warm relationship with Lyndon Johnson, and that relationship survived Wilson’s refusal to send British troops to Vietnam.
Margaret Thatcher enjoyed a warm and mutually beneficial relationship with President Reagan, yet she was never ‘slavish’. She certainly let him know when she disagreed with him, mostly privately but sometimes publicly. When Reagan invaded Grenada she phoned Reagan during a cabinet meeting. Her shouting was so loud that Reagan took the phone away from his ear so the rest of his cabinet could hear and joked: “Isn’t she marvellous?”
It is difficult to imagine ‘Yo Blair’ doing the same to President Bush. And yet that’s why the Americans love him. They see him as an unquestioning ally who, to all intents and purposes, is a Conservative. When I interviewed US presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownback last week and asked him about the ‘Special Relationship’ all he wanted to do was enthuse about Tony Blair. Newt Gingrich was the same.
Sir Christopher Meyer, in his gossipy memoirs, believes that Blair has failed to use his ‘special relationship’ with Bush to the country’s advantage. It’s been one-way traffic. Cameron had every right to point that out, but it is the way he did it that jarred in Washington.
But the Americans can smell the coffee. They read the opinion polls, and it’s for this reason that the US Embassy in London now has a political secretary on full time ‘Tory Watch’. This official will already know that most of the Shadow Cabinet – including William Hague - is overtly pro-American.
Next week David Davis is off on a fact finding trip to New York, Washington and Dallas. No doubt he will want to concentrate on crime and homeland security issues. My bet is that by the time he returns he will be sick of having to reassure the Americans about the views of his leader.
But in the end it is the Tory Party leader himself who will have to do the reassuring. He should be in no rush to visit Washington. He will remember the terrible media coverage of a previous Opposition leader’s visit there, when Neil Kinnock was firmly snubbed by President Reagan. His strategy now should be to spend the next twelve months building bridges with both the Republican and Democratic parties with the aim of looking beyond the 2008 presidential election.
It’s probably too late for Cameron to convince the Bush administration that in his gut he is an Atlanticist. Bush’s people do not easily forgive or forget, but Bush will be gone by the time Cameron hopefully enters Downing Street.
David Cameron’s strategy must now be to build relationships with the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and, God forbid, Hillary Clinton. He could do worse than appoint his own personal American envoy whose sole job it would be to embed himself in the US presidential campaigns.
