Labour’s “Special Relationship” with the US

Issue: 185

Charlie Whitham

The “special relationship”, declared prime minister Keir Starmer in his first official visit to White House in July 2024, was “stronger now than ever”.1The meeting in Washington was a triumph for him. It was the reward for shadowing dutifully the policy directives of the United States in his four years as Labour leader, even when faced with loud domestic and international opposition.2Starmer has been unreserved in his admiration for president Joe Biden ever since Biden won the election in November 2020. He claimed at the time that this victory would “fill the void in global leadership” and crowed that “for the USA and for Britain, this is the time to return to the world stage.” It would be “the time for us to lead”.3 Now, as head of a new government, the servile posture of “world leader Starmer” towards the US has intensified, and as perhaps the most right-wing Labour prime minister to date, this may come as no surprise. Yet, as this brief overview shows, in the Labour Party’s subservience to the wants of US imperialism, Starmer is far from exceptional. In fact, he is delivering on a historic pledge deemed so special it can withstand any major changes in the White House.

Starmer’s unqualified merging of the interests of the two countries—so rarely heard elsewhere—is all too familiar to British ears. Starmer’s attitude towards the US, like the one of his predecessor and mentor Tony Blair, follows a long and storied Labour Party tradition that it fully shares with the Conservatives. Maintaining close relations with the US has been the bedrock of British foreign policy since 1940 and has withstood a multitude of tests to provide unbroken support for American imperialism since the Second World War. Such grand phrases as “special relationship” and “Atlantic alliance” serve the vanity of politicians and civil servants but seldom disguise what is in fact a highly imbalanced attachment to the world’s preeminent power. It was a ploy originally fostered by a ruling class desperate to preserve its post-war status as the crown of world leadership was passed from one to the other. It was no coincidence that the notion of a “special relationship”, coined by arch-Imperialist Winston Churchill, was born at the eclipse of British power.

By cultivating a unique kinship with its former colony, Britain hoped to remain a first-rank international player in spite of its diminishing assets. It was a conceit of the highest order, but one that was sustained thanks to a unique combination of factors arising from the Second World War and its aftermath: the most notable being that Britain avoided the devastation suffered by the rest of Europe and finished with much of its Empire intact. Still, British wartime dependency on the US meant assisting the latter’s rulig class in erecting a post-war order that enshrined US global supremacy and a willingness to serve as the foremost ally in the containment of the Soviet Union. This last condition of the “special relationship” was activated just as a Labour government—the most “radical” of them all—found itself in office. As this article will show, Labour governments, far from being reluctant agents in perpetuating this strategy of subservience, have been every bit as eager as their Conservative counterparts. Indeed, that the obsession of Britain’s rulers with maintaining a leading world role has been nourished until today is due as much to Labour as it is to Conservative devotion to the principles of the “special relationship”.

Attlee

The seeds of the “special relationship” myth may have been sown by Winston Churchill as the sun began to set on the Empire, but the task of cultivating it fell to Labour. The US feared that the replacement of their war time collaborator Churchill, the architect of the “special relationship”, with the “socialist” Labour Party in July 1945, might cause problems for their post-war contract with Britain. They need not have worried. As the US secretary of state commented after the new prime minister Clement Attlee replaced Churchill midway through the Potsdam conference in August 1945: their stand on the issues before the conference “was not altered in the slightest… This continuity of Britain’s foreign policy impressed me”.4

As a member of the wartime coalition under Churchill, Attlee had always championed close cooperation with the US, especially on atomic matters. When the US broke up the “joint” research arrangements of the war, he became a staunch advocate for developing Britain’s own bomb.5 Attlee’s foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, assured the US that British policy “would not be altered in any way under a Labour Government”, prompting his outgoing Conservative counterpart Antony Eden to admit: “I cannot recall one single occasion when there was a difference between us”.6 On a range of key post-war issues, such as European reconstruction and military expansion, Attlee and members of his government worked alongside the US in forging the basic architecture of a US-led world order. Labour realised they needed American aid to survive strategically, economically and politically, whatever it cost. The readjusted British outlook was summed-up by chancellor of the exchequer Hugh Dalton in his plea to accept the harsh terms of a small loan offered begrudgingly by the US in 1946. Its rejection, he argued, “would mean the dissipation of all hopes of Anglo-American co-operation in this dangerous new world into which we have moved.” This meant, “We and the Americans, if peace is to be assured, must learn to live and work together”.7

Indeed, not everyone in the Labour Party was comfortable with Attlee’s
submission to American interests, notably the Keep Left group of fifteen Members of Parliament formed in 1947. This highlights a paradox for the reformist Labour Party with its historical links to the working class and its trade union representatives. In the foreign policy realm, Labour is unswerving in its support for British capitalists’ interests and eagerly presents these overseas advances as beneficial to British workers. As for the domestic field, Labour is compelled to listen more closely to the demands of workers, which at times conflicts with the party’s stance on foreign affairs.8 How the Labour hierarchy has dealt with this conundrum over the years has differed, but the result is always the same.

In 1947, the Keep Left group represented the anxieties of a war-weary British public that was less than receptive to entering the Cold War and the renewed austerity this would bring. However, Keep Left folded with the arrival of American dollars in the form of Marshall aid a year later. To properly recover, the European economies had introduced protectionist measures that threatened to derail Washington’s goal of dominating an immediately open post-war world market, for which it had so meticulously planned during the war. Marshall aid, therefore, provided a short-term injection of funds to stop Western Europe from creating a new “Fortress Europe” and to help them stem the leftward drift of their populations by enabling social reforms. Now, even the political left could sell the Cold War as beneficial to workers. So, the US decision to directly intervene to protect its long-term interests enabled the Labour government to build the welfare state and enact its progressive agenda. As Tony Cliff and Donny Gluckstein put it: “The price of Labour’s reformism was an alliance with international capitalism, and the Cold War”.9 To show his appreciation and to satisfy any lingering American doubts about the loyalties of his “socialist” government, Attlee created the Information Research Department in 1948. It helped to weed out any further “anti-Americanism” from Labour’s ranks.10

As their bruising encounter over the 1946 loan illustrated, Britain was still regarded as “just another European country” in Washington’s continental
programme. This led Bevin to protest that, as owners of an Empire with worldwide interests and obligations, to be treated as anything less than a “partner” with the US would destroy the “little bit of dignity we have left”.11 Bevin did not have to wait long to recover his Imperial pride. It was becoming clear in Washington that Marshall aid was not enough to avoid stagnation in Europe and the US, its major partner. The failure of such purely economic means to stabilise international capitalism led the US to employ the “artificial stimulus of rearmament” and postpone the forced opening of foreign markets to US business.12 The hardening of Soviet policy in eastern Europe, which followed the US decision to resurrect industrial Germany under the Marshall Plan, became the pretext for a rapid militarisation of the Western capitalist economies. It was a move that energised relations between Britain and the US. With its possession of territories in regions of high strategic value, and wielding significant armed force (then the third largest in the world), Britain offered fresh utility as a partner in the global containment of Soviet power. It also served as the cornerstone of a new transatlantic military alliance that could promote Western European integration.13

This shift in Washington’s post-war attitude was a godsend for Attlee. Indeed, the militarisation of US policy towards the Soviet Union became the chief source of sustenance in his government’s quest to raise Britain’s international standing in the years that followed. In this quest, the maintenance of Imperial territory was crucial. At a time when the country could ill afford it, Attlee devoted huge resources in maintaining a hold over an increasingly rebellious Empire in the Middle East and Asia as well as bloodily imposing a monarchy on the Greeks.14 Attlee became the first prime minister in British history to introduce military conscription in peacetime. In 1947, he began the development of Britain’s own atomic bomb to show the American “big boys” that they were not the “small boys”. As foreign secretary Ernest Bevin bellowed: “We have got to have this thing over here whatever it costs…we’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it”.15

Over the next two years, British air fields were adapted to receive atomic weapons as Britain reprised its role as “the unsinkable aircraft carrier” for American air power. The rabid anti-communist Bevin worked feverishly to convince the war-wary European governments to form a military alliance with the US, even offering to sign an Anglo-American defence treaty to speed things along.16 When Bevin’s dream materialised in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was born, further strengthening British conviction in its imperial stature. Attlee rejoiced that Britain had been “lifted out of the European queue” and, in true Churchillian spirit, was a partner with the US “unequal no doubt in power but still equal in counsel”.17

The Labour government’s conviction in its ability to wield influence over international affairs was soon tested. In July 1950, London was required to fulfil its commitment to containing communism by providing troops alongside the US to fight in North Korea. After a quick trip to Washington, Attlee broadcast:

You may be certain that, in fair or foul weather, where the Stars and Stripes fly in Korea, the British flag will fly beside them. We stand by our duty. We stand by our friends.18

With the unanimous support of the cabinet (and only three Labour votes against in the Commons), Attlee dutifully supplied 30,000 troops to the United Nations’ (UN) force—the second largest contingent after the US. Lack of consultation and spiralling costs soon alarmed cash-strapped Britain. Then, after president Harry S Truman threatened to use the “ultimate weapon” against North Korea (now comprising mostly Chinese troops) to slow the UN retreat, 100 Labour MPs signed a motion of criticism and even Churchill’s Tories expressed alarm at the escalating conflict. Worried that US bombers stationed in Britain would make the country a Soviet target, Attlee flew again to Washington, yet was unable to win Truman’s guarantee to consult with London before despatching his nuclear-armed bombers.19

Britain’s military strength may have looked substantial against the backdrop of war-torn Europe, but Attlee found it increasingly difficult to sustain Britain’s “great power” status. From 1948, wage restraint, anti-strike laws and cuts in social expenditure became the hallmarks of a pro-business Labour government hell-bent on maintaining a large military and prioritizing exports and overseas investment to raise profits.20 In 1951, the decision to obey American demands over Western European commitments to NATO—by agreeing the largest rearmament programme of any British government in peacetime (and introducing charges for NHS treatment to finance it)—finally broke the government. Churchill returned. Attlee’s term may have been short-lived, but it helped set the parameters of British foreign policy for decades to follow. As Cliff and Gluckstein wryly state, rather than heralding socialism, the “real triumph” of the Attlee government “lay in its steering of British capitalism through a period of stress in the aftermath of the Second World War, and in assisting the USA to stabilise capitalism the world over”.21

In opposition, the Labour Party leadership was determined to appear more pro-American than even the Churchill government. For the next 13 years, right-wing leader Hugh Gaitskell was the driving force behind a “new view” of the US within the party that highlighted the “progressiveness” of the
superpower and silenced any criticism. He set up the Friends of the Atlantic Union to
promote Atlanticism within its ranks. Gaitskell believed it was essential to highlight the “special relationship” in order to obscure the weakness of Britain otherwise it would “look much too like a satellite”.22 The left crystalised around Aneurin Bevan and others who resigned over the defence spending row in 1951. However, the Bevanites, while powerful in the constituencies, never seriously weakened Gaitskell’s hold on the party machine. As with Keep Left in 1947, the Bevanites criticised foreign policy and closeness to the US, which they found easier than criticising domestic policy. Only ten years later, Bevan himself broke with the left on the issue of keeping nuclear weapons and endorsed NATO in a series of lectures in the US designed to “undo the bogey-man image of him depicted in their press and our own”. Before his death in 1960, he came to accept Labour’s official line that “close cooperation with the United States of America is vital to Britain and to the Commonwealth as a whole”.23

Thanks to Labour, as a continental and Imperial power and trustworthy military ally, Britain had shown its value in keeping European capitalism open to the US and had proved it could be relied upon to fight communism. Yet, the boost in stature enjoyed by the British since 1947 proved to be temporary. Under the stewardship of the Conservatives during the 1950s, the “special relationship” was tested to breaking point, leading to the worst rift between Britain and the US of the 20th century that highlighted the complexity of their post-war arrangement. In 1956, all eyes were on the Suez Crisis. The background to the crisis was the threat by Egyptian nationalists to British control over the Suez Canal, which had been a major artery for the British and French empires since 1869. When London and Paris hatched a secret plot with Israel to regain the canal by force, it was met with heavy censure from the US. Military adventurism was an unnecessary risk for president Dwight Eisenhower, who, in the middle of a presidential election, preferred to tread lightly in containing Arab nationalism in the Middle East. For prime minister Antony Eden, who had presumed that American sanction for the operation was implicit, the crisis revealed that the two nations did not have the same number of shared interests across the globe. London, moreover, was clearly not able to influence US policy, let alone manipulate it. Suez marked the replacement of Britain by the US as the predominant power in the Middle East and the beginning of the steady decolonisation of the Empire. “They want to replace us in Egypt”, Eden surmised, and “they want to run the world”.24

Despite this surprisingly late realisation of their impotence, British leaders were spared a wholesale re-evaluation of their post-war strategy as, within less than a year of the Suez debacle, the US came knocking at London’s door. Much to the relief of the British government, developments in the nuclear arms race provided fresh usefulness for the island as a vital link in the military encirclement of the Soviet Union. In a meeting with Eisenhower in March 1957, Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan agreed to the siting in Britain of 60 of the latest US nuclear missiles capable of reaching Moscow in return for joint control over their use. This agreement granted London access to a nuclear weapon long before it could have developed its own.25 It was a deal that promised to sustain Britain as only the third member of the world’s exclusive atomic club: the “special relationship” was back on track.

Wilson

After demonstrating just how far British power had fallen—thanks to serving as the forward operating base of the US in the escalating nuclear arms race—the Tories seemingly rescued the damaged “special relationship”. They figured it would elevate the country’s international standing. Would the Labour government of Harold Wilson be as successful? Wilson found that maintaining the “special relationship” during a period of rapid national economic decline against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s would be quite a challenge, but the former Bevanite gave it all he had. After all, as president of the Board of Trade in Attlee’s government, Wilson had been present at the creation of the post-war “special relationship” and fully approved of close political and economic ties with the US. His attachment to the Labour left was also transitory, as Wilson, like Bevan, eventually made his peace with owning nuclear weapons and membership of NATO. Indeed, on hearing that Democrat John F Kennedy had become president in 1960, Wilson’s dislike of the US, as Paul Foot observed, suddenly “passed from him”. In Kennedy, shadow chancellor Wilson appeared to have found a political soul-mate. In an attack on the Tories in February 1961, he declared:

Now in America, under a new and youthful President, they are flexing their muscles once again. They are looking to new frontiers, while this tired, discredited, caste-ridden Government…allows Britain to lag behind.26

Indeed, Wilson’s reborn pro-Americanism only accelerated when Lyndon B Johnson replaced the assassinated Kennedy and Wilson himself became premier in 1964. After his first meeting with Johnson in December of that year, Wilson mocked the Tories for arguing that under Labour, Britain would never sit at the top table when he had been warmly welcomed by the president. Later, he wrote that “both sides could feel we had laid down the basis for a satisfactory working relationship for the years ahead”.27 Wilson surely confirmed earlier estimates of US officials that the Labour left “have little influence in the party and would probably have even less in a Wilson led government”, and that they could trust him:

We do not expect a Labour government to make basic changes in Britain’s foreign policy. We believe that the foreign policies of a Wilson government, like those of the last Labour administration (1945-1951), will be more British than Labour.28

It was not long before Wilson was asked to show just how British a Labour government could be when the US finally invaded Vietnam in 1965. In principle, the conflict was a boon for Wilson as it aligned British and US imperial interests in South East Asia and neatly opened the door to American support in keeping the British economy afloat. It had fallen from third place in 1953 to fifth behind Germany and France. The problem for Wilson in helping more openly the one he dubbed the “great Texan” in Washington was timing. His official response to the war in Vietnam was complicated by several factors, the most notable being his reliance on the anti-American Labour left to maintain his slim parliamentary majority of just four seats and his government’s desire to join the now thriving European Economic Community (EEC). As a body, the EEC was solidly against the American intervention in South East Asia. Here, Labour’s complex relationship with the working class and the reformist left hampered the Labour government’s ability to promote the war as being in the interests of capitalists and workers alike. This was especially the case without the reward of a financial package such as the one offered by the US to the last Labour government in the form of Marshall aid. Wilson therefore found it difficult to follow the unflinching post-war tradition of his predecessors and send troops to fight alongside the US. Wilson, however, would not be beaten, and he quickly found other ways to help the US war effort.

As well as the direct sale of arms to the US and South Vietnamese forces, vital intelligence was sent to Washington by the British consulate in Hanoi and the British signals listening station in Hong Kong. The latter’s port was used by the US to stage battle operations. Britain also trained South Vietnamese troops and US dog-handlers in the British Jungle Warfare School in Malaysia, and the South Vietnamese police received training from a special British team along with technical and medical assistance. British special forces were also involved in covert operations alongside Australian and New Zealand units, which included raids into neighbouring Laos.29

Although Wilson was thwarted over openly sending troops to Vietnam, unlike his Western European counterparts, he refused to denounce American actions and readily backed them against their critics, both at home and abroad. In fact, president Johnson praised Wilson for “holding the line so well” against attacks from the Labour left over Vietnam. “I think you understand”, Johnson wrote to Wilson after the cabinet rejected support of US policy in Vietnam, “how much it matters that the government of the country which means most to us, aside from my own, is lending its support for what we all know is right”.30

When French president Charles de Gaulle tried to wrest Europe away from American control, it was Wilson who seized this opportunity to enhance the stature of Britain by rushing to Johnson’s side. By 1964, West Germany’s armed forces outnumbered Britain’s, replacing it as the main pillar of NATO. France and Germany, leading a mainland economy almost as large as the US, had become the de facto leaders of the Atlantic Alliance. To correct this drift, Wilson chose to scrap his election pledge to reduce Britain’s nuclear stockpiles and instead expand them—thanks to the exclusive offer of the latest Polaris nuclear submarines from Johnson. The US rewarded Britain for opposing de Gaulle and keeping the western military pact afloat in an continent increasingly critical of US foreign policy. Becoming a more reliable player in NATO, Wilson reasoned, might off-set the negative impact in Washington of his inability to send troops to Vietnam. In 1965, Wilson visited Washington to reassure the president that Britain would maintain a “world-wide defence role” (and pledge 70,000 troops to Malaya to contain rebellion in South East Asia). Back in Britain, he bragged to parliament that he had reached “a clearer understanding [with the US] than probably at any time since the Second World War”.31 Wilson also resurrected a plan hatched by the Tories to develop an air base for American use on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which entailed the forced removal of the islanders and the creation of a new colony titled the British Indian Ocean Territory.32

These acts were nakedly designed to foster American approval. As he admitted to his cabinet in February 1966, American financial support for the ailing economy “is not unrelated to the way we behave in the Far East,” adding that “any direct announcement of our withdrawal, for example, could not fail to have a profound effect on my personal relations with [Johnson] and the way the Americans treat us”.33 Wilson even offered himself as a mediator in the Vietnam conflict in a move simultaneously designed to relieve pressure from his Labour critics. However, such hubris was clearly too much for Washington. When Wilson called Johnson to broker a ceasefire while the Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin was visiting London in February 1967, the president left an embarrassed Wilson hanging on the telephone dismissing his efforts as a “sideshow”.34 Indeed, Wilson’s mission to boost British prestige by remaining close to the US backfired in more ways than one. Accusations that Britain was merely a Trojan horse for US influence over NATO countries killed Wilson’s application to join the EEC in 1967. This move was designed to improve Britain’s international position, and the cost of remaining in the elite five-member nuclear club became increasingly burdensome on the country’s ailing finances. As with the Attlee government, British determination to remain loyal to American imperialist policies had come at the expense of the domestic economy, which, by the end of the 1960s, was facing severe recession.

As he watched the European “economic miracle” from afar, in 1968, Wilson was forced to acknowledge the changed status of British power—something the Tories had sidestepped—by significantly reducing its overseas military commitments. It was a decision that Wilson had tried desperately to avoid, not least because it dented his ambition to be valuable to the US, which relied heavily on the British presence in the Persian Gulf, Hong Kong and Malaya. By 1971, Britain had withdrawn their military from everywhere except the Rhine and
Hong Kong, though spending on the cherished Polaris programme was safeguarded.35 This military retreat, combined with failure to join the EEC, compounded Wilson’s struggles to maintain British usefulness to the US. The British Embassy in Washington feared that now the US would “behave increasingly in a manner which reflects the fundamental inequality” of their relationship.36 Luckily for Wilson, the impact on Anglo-American relations was minimised after 1970 by the US decision to withdraw from its rampage in South East Asia. Nevertheless, even after these disappointments, the US was content that under Wilson the special arrangements between the two governments, over nuclear technology and intelligence at least, were left intact. Regarding the latter, the US State Department declared that both countries gave each other “a greater volume and wider variety of information than either does to any of its other allies”. Wilson would have been heartened by their conclusion that since he took office, “At no time in the post-war period have our relations with the United Kingdom been closer”.37 One US adviser recounted warmly how the suffering prime minister saw himself as a “small king on a tight-rope looking toward the big king with the power and leeway to extend a steadying hand”.38

The growing world economic crisis of the late 1960s, however, forced a recalibration of relations between all the major powers, not only those of Britain and the US. The decision by Washington to soften its stance towards the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in return for ending the costly Vietnam War, accelerated European, and British, disenchantment with the weakened US. Each nation moved to correct the downward trend of their economies. As president Nixon lurched towards protectionism and became consumed by his pursuit of détente (relaxation), Britain turned towards Western Europe for economic safety, a process Wilson’s government had already begun. In the end, it fell to the Tory prime minister Edward Heath—helped by the replacement of Charles de Gaulle with the less
anti-British Georges Pompidou—to successfully negotiate British membership of the European club in 1973. However, as the world recession worsened in the early 1970s, the European “economic miracle” lost some of its shine and, with the exit of Europhile Heath and the return of Labour’s Wilson in 1974, the building of bridges towards the US was resumed in earnest. As US national security adviser Henry Kissinger commented on his dealings with “his sincere friend” Wilson, “his generation of Labour Party leaders was emotionally closer to the United States than were many leaders of the Conservative Party”.39

Eager to make amends for shrinking Britain’s overseas military commitments in 1968, Wilson quickly renewed the Polaris modernisation programme with the US, which had been shelved by Heath. He kept this step secret from his cabinet and parliament. Moreover, under pressure from the US, he overrode objections from both his cabinet and the left to increase spending on NATO. In the 1975
referendum on remaining in the EEC, Wilson again thwarted the left by successfully campaigning to remain, much to Washington’s delight. The White House under Gerald Ford noted that relations had become “particularly warm and cordial” thanks to the Labour government’s “determination to ease the strain and tension that developed between us” in the final months of the Heath government.40

Callaghan

The premiership of James Callaghan is mostly remembered for its attempts to rescue a floundering British capitalism through assaults on the welfare state, the living standards of workers and the rights of trades unions. What is often overlooked is that, even more than Wilson, Callaghan was a devout Atlanticist. For him, the relationship was “unique and of supreme importance” and the route through which Britain’s world influence may be restored.41 He stood with the Labour right, opposite Wilson and the Bevanites, on the divisive NATO spending debates of the 1950s. As Treasury minister in the Wilson government, he cultivated close relationships with powerful US bankers, among them David Rockefeller (Chase Manhattan) and Al Hayes (President of the NY Federal Reserve), during the financial crises of the 1960s.42 As foreign secretary under Wilson in 1974, Callaghan worked hard to restore relations with the US, which he believed had been neglected by Heath in his determination to join the EEC.43 He struck-up a long-standing personal relationship with the now US secretary of state Henry Kissinger (also a patron of the “special relationship”). Kissinger, in an earlier
meeting in 1975, reassured Callaghan that even though he preferred their membership, British departure from the EEC would not have soured their relations.44

As prime minister in recession-hit Britain, Callaghan relied heavily on American support, especially when, in 1976, he asked the International Monetary Fund for a loan to escape a looming balance-of-payments crisis. Callaghan promised to avoid import restrictions from the US if a loan was granted. With some prodding, president Gerald Ford acquiesced. Callaghan’s recollection of this episode neatly expresses how closeness with the US was rationalised in his mind:

It may seem strange that a Republican President and a Labour Prime Minister could work so confidently with each other. The reason was that…we both accepted that the interests of our two countries and of the Alliance transcended political differences.45

True to his word, in January 1977, Callaghan rang Democratic president Jimmy Carter—yet to be inaugurated—to stress his long-standing devotion to the “special relationship”.46 On several key issues related to the heightening of the Cold War under Carter, Callaghan, like Wilson before him, sought to regain the trust of the US. He helped convince Germany to accept US cruise missiles into western Europe alongside Britain and backed the development of America’s controversial neutron bomb project (which destroyed humans but left buildings intact) against substantial European opposition. Callaghan also helped the US in their efforts to isolate the Soviet Union by nurturing the power of the PRC when he encouraged the first high-level exchanges between the British and Chinese militaries and sold weapons systems to them.47 The question of maintaining a British nuclear capability, which in the 1970s had divided both Labour and Tories (mainly due to cost), was definitively resolved by Callaghan. Callaghan remained committed to the idea of owning an independent nuclear deterrent. This was despite the fact that a Commons select committee of 1979 recognised its independence was a myth as the weapons’ “function and justification” was to “operate as a dependent adjunct of United States strategic forces.” The British deterrent, the committee found, “has been, from its inception, directed towards creating a specific type of linkage with the United States”.48 Callaghan successfully pushed to replace Britain’s aging Polaris nuclear missiles with the latest and highly expensive Trident models from the US. In January 1979, Carter promised Callaghan that the new missiles would be sold under the same terms as Polaris—a purchase completed by the Thatcher government later that year.49

With the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the “special relationship” reached new heights, but its revitalisation was thanks to the steady hand of Callaghan. On NATO, nuclear weapons and the “new” Cold War, the former Labour prime minister had much in common with his Tory replacement, for whom the “special relationship” was also an article of faith. In stark contrast to her Tory predecessor Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher believed Britain’s economic future lay not in closer union with Europe but in establishing even closer relations with the US.50 No doubt Callaghan would have likewise developed a close bond with the Republican cold warriors, but ultimately Thatcher was more successful than Callaghan: in both, establishing a more symmetrical closeness with her US counterpart as well as in further dismantling the post-war welfare system and depressing workers’ wages and rights.

The closer alignment of British interests with those of the US during the 1980s was less ideological than it was practical. The entry of Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1981 signalled an exceptional heightening of Cold War tensions. These provided—as in the immediate post-war era—a fresh opportunity for Britain to become useful to the US. Both governments viewed the continued stoking of anti-communism as the vital fuel with which to restore their imperial greatness. A revitalised military-nuclear relationship between the two states was a key ingredient in Thatcher’s quest to re-establish British influence on world affairs. For Labour, the period marked a prolonged spell in opposition and a further bout of introspection about the merits of staying close to the US. For most of the decade, the “special relationship” was denounced as the Labour left held sway on questions over defence spending and the nuclear deterrent, riding a European-wide wave of anger over the escalation in Cold War tensions courtesy of Reagan and Thatcher.51

With the dramatic ending of the Cold War in 1989-90, Anglo-American relations entered an uncertain spell. American transatlantic policy remained focused on bolstering (a reunified) Germany as the leader of post-Cold War Europe—not Britain, as in 1947. The US, led now by George HW Bush, was too cash-strapped to devise a new Marshall Plan to supply aid as it had after the Second World War and instead relied on Western Europe to integrate former Soviet-bloc countries into liberal capitalism. Washington prioritised economic expansion into Asia. With Britain once more relegated behind Germany, a senior Downing Street adviser warned: “The special relationship with the United States will remain vital in the years ahead.” They concluded: “We shall need to work harder to retain it”.52 It would be another five years and the return of a Labour government, no less, before the relationship would again resemble anything like special.

Blair

The 1997 election of the first Labour government in 18 years kickstarted a new era of closeness between the two governments, one that would match that of even Reagan and Thatcher. Well before the party’s fourth consecutive general election defeat in 1992, the Labour right had regained control of the party machine and policy on nuclear weapons; it was now almost indistinguishable from that of the Tories.53 In fact, under Tony Blair’s leadership, Labour’s fascination with the US entered overdrive. Re-branded New Labour owed much to president Bill Clinton’s model of political centrism that targeted middle-class voters. Blair and his close aide Gordon Brown visited Clinton’s transition team in 1993 and recruited staff that had worked in Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 campaigns. In April 1996, the symmetry between the policies of the two leaders was capped by an invitation to the US that introduced the aspiring British leader to America’s chief powerbrokers. Blair assured a meeting of business leaders that his pro-European views would in no way obstruct the Atlantic alliance.54 The US-led neoliberal economic project emphasising consumption, speculation and privatisation of state provision was the hallmark of New Labour in office—what Tariq Ali called “an unpleasant amalgam” of the agendas of Thatcher and Clinton.55 On hearing of Labour’s election win, a White House aide remarked that “Blair is the younger brother Clinton has been yearning for”.56

In foreign affairs, Blair sought to correct the American post-Cold War fixation with Germany. He made his ambitions clear when he invited Clinton to London within weeks of winning the general election to affirm that “Britain does not need to choose between being strong in Europe and being close to the United States”.57 In true Atlanticist fashion, Blair was convinced he had an opportunity to put Britain back as Washington’s primary European ally by serving as the bridge in Clinton’s new Euro-Atlantic alliance to include the former Soviet bloc states, including Russia. Blair’s Ambassador to Washington was told: “Your job is to get up the arse of the White House and stay there”.58

Yet, as in all prior renditions of the bridge approach, the closeness of Britain to the US was met less favourably by the major European powers. Blair soon found he was alone when he joined the US in the bombing of Iraq in December 1998 for encroaching on the UN-imposed no-fly zone. The same happened again when he snubbed a Europe-only solution to the lingering Balkan crisis and supported US planes in attacking Serbian targets in Kosovo in 1999. It was in matters of international conflict that Britain discovered fresh value for the US and stood apart from, rather than alongside, global opinion. This did not faze Blair, who boasted, “When Britain and America work together on the international scene, there is little we can’t achieve”.59 Europeans accused Blair of being Clinton’s poodle. What this obscured is Blair’s personal devotion to the use of military force to advance globalisation through the old-fashioned fusion of self-interest with bourgeois morality. Indeed, his enthusiasm for using military might was stronger than that of all previous Labour prime ministers and proved to be a continuing theme in his premiership that peaked with the infamous war in Iraq.

Well before the attacks on the US of 11 September 2001, the Labour government ingratiated itself with the new president George W Bush. Despite his friendship with Clinton, Blair wished to avoid the mistake made by John Major in 1992, who publicly backed the losing side in the presidential race. Blair prepared hard to impress the president during their first meeting in February 2001, including on deciding what gift to bring. The items he eventually chose could not have been more symbolic: a 1946 bust of Churchill and an annotated copy of the
Atlantic Charter, the template for a new post-war order signed by Churchill and president Franklin Roosevelt in August 1941. The summit was a triumph for Blair, who had feared his relationship with the Republican president would have suffered from his closeness to Clinton. Bush emerged exalting “an alliance that has made a huge difference in the world” and one that “will stand the test of time”. Blair’s team “felt a sense of euphoria after that first meeting”.60

Still, all this groundwork amounted to nothing as Bush quickly turned away from Clinton’s internationalism and adopted a more strident protectionist outlook. He highlighted differences with Britain and Europe over trade, biodiversity and biological weapons. Bush also reversed policy towards Russia and a long-standing tradition of arms control by abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The treaty freed the US to develop weapons systems designed to undermine the so-called deterrent philosophy of mutually-assured destruction. On his first tour of Europe in June 2001, Bush did not include London.

However, after the events of 11 September 2001, the Bush administration undertook a major recalibration of its international posture. This, if only temporarily, reversed the unilateralist tendencies of its early policies as the US looked frenetically for international institutions for support in avenging the attacks. The neo-conservative ideologues that constituted Bush’s advisory team were now able to develop the military dimension to their doctrine of muscular imperialism. In London, the opportunity once more beckoned for Britain to raise itself on the world stage: it was Labour at the helm. Immediately following the attacks, Blair purposefully and methodically carved for himself a role as the champion of US foreign policy. One aide noticed how, from the day of the attacks, Blair was “emphatic” about what he needed to do, as the response of the US “would define its relations with the rest of the world, and Blair believed that it was crucial that we were part of that decision-making process”.61 Besides, there was an obvious connection between the militaristic propensities of the neo-cons in Washington and Blair’s own predilection for using armed force to spread “western values”. As the pro-war journalist William Shawcross wrote at the time, Blair was the “British neo-con”.62 Indeed, his speech at the Labour Party conference on 30 September 2001 framed the imperialistic vision better than anyone in Washington:

“This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us”.63

For all this convergence, the apparent closeness of London and Washington accounted for little when it came to prosecuting military power. Blair’s
unstinting support was rewarded by American permission for a British military role in the Afghanistan invasion. However, the US remained in complete charge of the UN-mandated, 17-nation invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for shielding Osama Bin Laden. Furthermore, Blair’s resolute support for US actions served to isolate Britain from mainstream European opinion: first, on what became the drawn-out war in Afghanistan; then, the subsequent “war on terror” narrative being spun out of Washington. It seemed the transatlantic bridge really did only go in one direction. In fact, the bridge had more accurately collapsed leaving Britain arm-in-arm with the US.

In March 2002, the situation worsened as Blair was told the US intended to invade Iraq with or without international backing. “A coalition would be nice”, vice-president Dick Cheney told Blair, “but not essential”.64 Despite this pardon, Blair spent 12 months trying to convince the rest of Europe to support the invasion of Iraq on the—since proven—lie that Saddam Hussein was building a weapon of mass destruction. As Washington’s Ambassador at Large, in the eight weeks after 11 September, Blair held 54 meetings with world leaders covering 40,000 miles, holding just one meeting with his full Cabinet in the same period.65 If there was any doubt, Blair sent a clear message to Washington that it could rely on Britain. In July 2002, he addressed the US Congress using language straight from the Churchill phrasebook:

“And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you. You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us”.66

Most observers viewed British actions to secure international approval for the invasion of Iraq as mere cover for the US exercise of brute force in realising its national interests in eradicating an unfriendly regime in the oil-abundant Middle East. In fact, as it later emerged, Blair had always assumed that he would “take part in any military action” with or without Western Europe.67 “Our alliance was with them”, he recalled, “I had made a commitment after September 11 to be ‘shoulder to shoulder [and] was determined to fulfil it”. Blair was also aware that breaking with the US over Iraq “would have done major long-term damage” to the Anglo-American relationship “and would be the biggest shift in foreign policy for fifty years”.68 To win over his Cabinet, Blair had only to recount the beloved fantasy of British post-war policy: “I will tell you that we must stand close to America.” “If we don’t”, he explained, “we will lose our influence to shape what they do”.69

Again, the compulsion to remain as cheerleaders for US power placed Britain outside of world opinion and opinion at home, which proved as divisive as the Vietnam War.70 Labour’s complex relationship with workers and the reformist left meant that opposition to the Iraq War exerted enough pressure on Blair so that he distanced himself from some of Bush’s policies. This included military action against Iran, no debt relief for Africa, and action on the environment—the latter being one of the few strands of British foreign policy that was shared with the EU at this time. Nevertheless, Blair so closely identified himself with the US government that he welcomed the re-election of Bush in 2004 as “a defeat for Bush was a defeat for Blair”.71

Labour clung onto office in 2005 but with a significantly reduced parliamentary majority and, in 2007, a war-tarnished Blair was relieved by Gordon Brown.72 The stain of Iraq and the continuation of a Blairite agenda aided Labour’s defeat in 2010. The Blair government’s unswerving commitment to internationally unpopular US foreign policies in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq heavily
reinforces the argument that, since 1945, Britain will stick to the side of the US no matter what—even if it faced isolation from its continental neighbours. As Blair reflected: “I always reckoned that even the ones who didn’t like me (quite a few) or didn’t agree with me (a large proportion) still admired the fact I counted, was a big player, was a world and not just a national leader”.73

The replacement of neo-con Bush with Democratic president Barack Obama in 2008 evidenced more continuity than change in US foreign policy. The Guantanamo prison was not shut down as Obama had promised, and US troops remained in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years. In fact, through the expanded use of drones, Obama increased the lethality of US intervention in the Middle East. Generally, however, Obama’s foreign policy was muted as he wrestled with rebuilding the domestic economy when the world dealt with the onset of the global economic crisis. This meant there was little room for Obama to develop close relations with Britain. Both, Gordon Brown and Tory David Cameron failed as prime ministers to build relations with the US despite both leaders maintaining support for US operations in the Middle East.

The election of the right-wing populist Donald Trump to the White House in 2016 and his brutish style sent shockwaves around the world. Nations were left wondering how they should deal with a (declining) superpower even more inclined than Bush to shun world opinion and ignore the established rules of international discourse. Nevertheless, while most hesitated, it was prime minister Theresa May who made sure she was the first European leader to visit the new president. Yet, Trump’s devout anti-European outlook (expensive, left-leaning and competitors) denied a special place for the British leader, however fawning. Trump dangled the promise of a “fantastic” trade deal with Britain but nothing came of it as Washington’s priorities did not include fostering transatlantic relations. This was a devastating blow for prime minister Boris Johnson, as he looked to cushion the exit from the European Union (EU) with a sympathetic deal with Britain’s next-largest trade partner.

Starmer

During 14 years of Tory rule, establishing close relations with the US has been more challenging, mostly because the US, with the exception of the Middle East, had slowed its military interventions overseas. After all, since 1945, their relationship has only really flashed specialness in the military-nuclear realm rather than the political or economic. The Anglo-American military and intelligence sharing (spying) arrangement is second to none, surviving the lowest political ebbs between the two governments. As a result, Britain maintains no fewer than 42 military bases overseas, far more than any other European state. The rise of the Labour left under Jeremy Corbyn threatened these Anglo-American ties, but, as in the 1950s and 1980s, failure at the polls meant these policies were never tested and the parliamentary right swiftly and brutally took back command of the party.74 This transition has coincided with the rise of US activism over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, meaning once again opportunity knocked for Labour to outdo the Tories in waving the stars and stripes.

As a full-blooded Atlanticist with proven credentials and now as prime minister, Starmer hopes to correct the recent drift in Anglo-American relations. Even before, as director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, he worked closely with US officials to ensure British laws on terrorism did not interfere with Washington’s ability to extradite and torture in their “war on terror”.75 On assuming the party leadership in 2020, alongside the wholesale routing of Corbyn and his supporters, Starmer worked fast to erase all traces of Corbynism in foreign affairs, which entailed the adoption of US-friendly policies on China, Russia and Israel. In true Blairite fashion, Starmer reaffirmed the party’s loyalty to NATO, revitalised the party’s Friends of the Armed Forces initiative, proclaimed his “non-negotiable” backing for nuclear weapons and supported the Tory plan to raise military spending to its highest level since the Thatcher era. “I’m pro-American”, he told the Fabian Society in January 2021, “America is our most important ally… I believe that Britain’s national interest lies in once again being the bridge between the US and the rest of Europe”.76

Over the last three years, Starmer and his team have been busy behind the scenes cultivating links with Biden’s administration. In 2023, this included: talks between shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the merits of “Bidenomics”; a meeting between David Lammy, then shadow foreign secretary with Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser; and attending workshops run by Democratic Party think-tanks on Biden’s winning election strategy.77 That a Starmer government is unwaveringly pro-American—as already shown in statements over the Ukraine and Gaza wars and rising Israeli aggression in the Middle East—is not solely based on romantic associations with the US (which doubtless persist). It is because Britain’s ruling class and its state apparatus still deem it necessary to be so. The US remains Britain’s second largest trading partner, and its military might is vital to the protection of British interests overseas. British capitalists, after all, are still craving a favourable free-trade agreement with the US to ease the transition away from the EU bloc, something the Tories have failed to deliver after five years of trying. This underlying fact of dependency is not altered by the political complexion of the White House, whether it be Democratic or Republican, Harris or Trump, only mediated by it.78

There is no doubt that dealing with a protectionist-minded, Putin-friendly and NATO-sceptic Trump presidency is more problematic for Starmer (as it would be for many other states) than enjoying the continuity provided by the more transatlantic-facing Democrats. Nevertheless, in the shifting context of imperialist competition and the rising challenges to the US-led order from the PRC and various regional imperialisms, Starmer will look to provide fresh utility in bolstering his Atlantic ally. As Blair before him, he would serve once more as an able lieutenant extending an indispensable bridge to Europe.79 Blair pulled off a similar feat in managing to sustain the relationship across the two very different presidencies of Clinton and Bush, and Starmer is quickly laying the groundwork for such an eventuality. Lammy, for example, has been minimising the thorny matter of British differences over Republican policy on support for Ukraine by highlighting Trump’s militarisation of the country in his first term, stressing that “there’s been a lot of heat, rhetoric and a lot of intensity, but let’s look at his actions”.80 However, on several other key issues there exists considerable harmony between the global outlook of Starmer and Trump. This includes an instinctive pro-Israel stance and a shared commitment to the global war on terror (for which British assets are particularly valued by Americans), their common animosity towards the PRC, and agreement over the question of European contributions to NATO. There is already a recognition by the perplexed Western European states that they must pay more if they wish to win over Washington doubters about the alliance, something that Starmer was very vocal about in his meeting with European leaders in July. This was followed by his pledge to expand the armed forces and accelerate plans to exceed the NATO-minimum requirement of 2 percent (of GDP) spending on national defence—music to the ears of Trump.81 Starmer’s determination to build-up the British armed forces is directly linked to being able to offer credible military assistance to the US.

Beyond this grandstanding by Starmer, Labour has also tempered its language regarding the political right in the US and Lammy, a regular in Washington, has for some months been cultivating relations with the Trump camp. He claimed that the populist candidate’s extreme policies should not be taken too seriously. As a small-c conservative himself, he believed he could find common cause with Trump and his far-right vice-presidential selection JD Vance. As a Labour spokesperson succinctly added in Lammy’s defence, “As part of the special relationship, Labour figures have always maintained close relationships with their counterparts from both parties”.82 When Republicans condemned the Labour government for its closeness to the Democratic camp during the presidential election, Starmer was quick to play down the matter by reaffirming he had a “good relationship” with Trump and that the “special relationship” with the US “sits above whoever holds the political office”.83 It is therefore clear that whichever party occupies the White House, the stream of support for American initiatives will continue to flow from Downing Street laced, as ever, with hefty doses of the special tonic.

No surprises

To conclude, the basic contours of present-day Anglo-American relations were established during the watershed moment of the Second World War and have since been adhered to by whichever British party was in office. Since 1945, in an effort to preserve influence after surrendering leadership to a new superpower, each British government has encouraged a “special relationship” with the US by supporting US global interest in return for perceived benefits to the international status of Britain—in a world it no longer controls. This principle lies at the very core of British foreign policy and remains the orthodoxy of its rulers to this day. For this reason, it behoves any party that takes the helm of the British state to work within an Atlanticist perspective, rooted at a bare minimum in the highly enmeshed military and intelligence spheres.

As this overview has shown, Labour governments have been more than mere custodians of the underlying principles: they were instrumental in the creation of the “special relationship” and in nurturing its existence ever since, especially in the post-Cold War era. With every opportunity, Labour governments have sought to elevate British capitalism by serving as cheerleaders for American imperialism, fusing the interests of both states every bit as explicitly as the Tories—even if it meant backing the US when all others had turned away (for instance, over Vietnam and Iraq). As such, Labour in office has been far more successful in defending the interests of the US state than those of British workers. Critical of the US in opposition, the influence of the left has fallen away as soon as Labour assumed office, a pattern destined to repeat itself so long as genuine socialists believe that entering government is an indispensable pathway for change. What has been proven time and again is that any Labour government must obey the laws of the British capitalist state—being more “British than Labour” as the Americans say—which in terms of foreign policy means serving as a loyal aide of US imperialism. As history shows, this is a commitment the Labour Party has enthusiastically honoured.


Charlie Whitham is a former Reader in US History at Edge Hill University and has published extensively on Anglo-American relations, US corporate influence during the Second World War and the rise of US power since 1945.


Notes

1 Kleiderman, 2024. This article was written in October 2024.

2 See Choonara, 2022 & 2023.

3 Elgot, 2020.

4 Miliband, 1975, p283.

5 Attlee, 1954, p162.

6 Cliff and Gluckstein, 1987, pp240-241.

7 On Labour’s outlook see Woods, 1990, p4; quote in Gardner, 1956, p232.

8 For a useful analysis of this relationship see Phillips, 2017.

9 Gardner, 1956, p248.

10 Callaghan, 2007, p202.

11 Hogan, 1987, p49.

12 Kolko and Kolko, 1972, p18; 455 and p476; Harman, 1984, pp78-81.

13 See Hogan, 1987, and Woods, 1990.

14 Kolko and Kolko, 1972, p633.

15 Jones,1997, p59.

16 Campbell, 2015, p18; Jones, 1997, p68.

17 Hogan, 1987, p401.

18 Manchester Evening Herald, 1950.

19 Campbell, 2015, p33.

20 See Armstrong, Glyn and Harrison, 1984, pp149-153.

21 Cliff and Gluckstein, 1987, p255.

22 Callaghan, 2007, pp202-203.

23 Lectures comment from Bevan’s wife Jennie Lee in Birchall, 1986, p229; also Cliff and Gluckstein, 1987, p263.

24 Boyle, 2006, p18.

25 Campbell, 2015, p101; 109.

26 Foot, 1968, p207;208;211.

27 Wilson, 1971, p51.

28 A State Department comment of October 1964 in Colman, 2004, p10.

29 Young, 2003, p78.

30 Smith, 2015, p29.

31 Miliband, 1975, p371.

32 Young, 2003, p24.

33 Cliff and Gluckstein, 1987, p294.

34 Hughes, 2009, p76; Foot, 1968, p217.

35 Hughes, 2009, p98.

36 Colman, 2004, p169.

37 Colman, 2004, p6; Young, 2003, p22.

38 Richard Neustadt after visiting the UK in August 1965 in Smith, 2015, p7.

39 Kissinger, 1979, p92.

40 Hickson and Seldon, 2004, p157.

41 Morgan, 1997, p442.

42 Callaghan, 1987, pp107-109; Morgan, 1997, p437.

43 Callaghan, 1987, p295.

44 Callaghan, 1987, pp319-320.

45 Callaghan, 1987, p430.

46 Morgan, 1997, p589.

47 Hickson and Seldon, 2004, pp163-164.

48 See Campbell, 2015, p94.

49 Campbell, 2015, pp160-161.

50 See Dumbrell, 2006, pp106-107.

51 See Jones, 1997, pp186-204.

52 Charles Powell, February 1992 in Dumbrell, 2006, p126.

53 See Jones, 1997, pp208-209.

54 Coughlin, 2006, pp8-9.

55 Ali, 2005, p10.

56 Coughlin, 2006, p4.

57 CNN, 1997.

58 Ali, 2005, p4.

59 Corthorn and Davis, 2012, p213.

60 Coughlin, 2006, pp124-125.

61 Coughlin, 2006, pp154-155.

62 Shawcross, 2004, p51.

63 Blair, 2010, p367.

64 Davis and Rentoul, 2019, p268.

65 Corthorn and Davis, 2012, p211.

66 Blair, 2010, p458.

67 See “Downing Street Memo on Iraq, 23 July 2002” in Ali, 2005, p94.

68 Blair, 2010, p412 and p424; Campbell and Hegarty, 2013, p279.

69 Corthorn and Davis, 2012, p221.

70 See Cliff and Gluckstein, p435.

71 Blair, 2010, p512.

72 See Kimber, 2005.

73 Blair, 2010, p410.

74 See Thomas, 2016.

75 Eagleton, 2022, pp28-29; 32.

76 Eagleton, 2022, pp174-175.

77 Parker, Pickard, Politi, Fedor, 2023; and Maguire, 2023.

78 Driver, 2023.

79 Fisher, 2024.

80 Hancock, Fisher, Parker, 2024.

81 Fisher and Foy, 2024.

82 Pickard and Fisher, 2024; O’Carroll and Stacey, 2024.

83 Courea, 2024; Mason, 2024.


References

Ali, Tariq, 2005, Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror (Verso).

Armstrong, Philip, Andrew Glyn and John Harrison, 1984, Capitalism since World War II: The Making and Breakup of the Great Boom (Fontana).

Attlee, Clement, 1954, As it Happened (Heinemann).

Birchall, Ian, 1986, Bailing out the System: Reformist Socialism in Western Europe, 1944-1985 (Bookmarks).

Blair, Tony, 2010, A Journey (Arrow Books).

Boyle, Peter (ed), 2006, The Eden-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1955-1957 (U. North Carolina Press).

Callaghan, James, 1987, Time and Chance (HarperCollins).

Callaghan, John, 2007, The Labour Party and Foreign Policy: A History (Routledge).

Campbell, Alistair and Bill Hegarty (eds), 2013, The Alistair Campbell Diaries, Volume 4 (Arrow Books).

Campbell, Duncan, 2015, The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier: American Military Power in Britain (Paladin Books).

Choonara, Joseph, 2022, “The Devastation of Ukraine: NATO and Russian Imperialism”, International Socialism 174 (spring), https://isj.org.uk/devastation-of-ukraine.

Choonara, Joseph, 2023, “A second Nakba?”, International Socialism 181 (winter), https://isj.org.uk/second-nakba.

Cliff, Tony and Donny Gluckstein, 1987, The Labour Party: A Marxist History (Bookmarks).

CNN, 1997, “Blair Welcomes Clinton to Britain” (29 May), https://edition.cnn.com//allpolitics/1997/05/29/clinton-blair.

Colman, Jonathan, 2004, “Special Relationship”? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B Johnson and Anglo-American Relations “At the Summit”, 1964-1968 (Manchester University Press).

Corthorn, Paul, and Jonathan Davis (eds), 2012, The British Labour Party and the Wider World (IB Tauris).

Coughlin, Con, 2006, American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror,(Ecco).

Courea, Eleni, 2024, “Starmer Insists He Van Have a ‘Good Telationship’ with Trump Despite Election ‘Interference’ Claim”, Guardian (23 October), www.theguardian.com/politics/Oct/23/2024/keir-starmer-donald-trump-labour-election-interference-claim.

Davis, Jon, and John Rentoul, 2019, Heroes or Villains? The Blair Government Reconsidered (Oxford University Press).

Driver, Tony, 2023, “Britain Pins Hopes on Trump Trade Deal After Biden Scraps Talks”, Telegraph (18 December), www.thetelegraph.co.uk/worldnews/2023/12/18/britain-pins-hopes-donald-trump-trade-deal.

Dumbrell, John, 2006, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations from the Cold War to Iraq (Palgrave-Macmillan).

Eagleton, Oliver, 2022, The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right (Verso).

Elgot, Jessica, 2020, “Keir Starmer Urges Labour to Learn from Joe Biden’s ‘Broad Coalition’”, Guardian (8 November), https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/08/ keir-starmer-urges-labour-to-learn-from-joe-bidens-broad-coalition.

Fisher, Lucy, 2024, “Joe Biden Tells Keir Starmer UK Is ‘Knot Tying Transatlantic Alliance Together’”, Financial Times (11 July), https://www.ft.com/content/4f760b29-b8e5-4d88-a026-41140cd0f4663.

Fisher, Lucy, and Henry Foy, 2024, “Keir Starmer Plans “Road Map” for UK to Hit Higher Defence Spending Goal”, Financial Times (9 July), https://www.ft.com/content/cdaaab5e-eead-47ec-890c-cf66473b7a82.

Foot, Paul, 1968, The Politics of Harold Wilson (Penguin).

Gardner, Richard N, 1956, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy: Anglo-American Collaboration in the Reconstruction of Multilateral Trade (Clarendon Press).

Hancock, Alice, Lucy Fisher and George Parker, 2024, “Keir Starmer Warns Europe Needs Greater Self-Reliance on Defence”, Financial Times (18 July), https://www.ft.com/content/dacd0166-1298-47c8-9ff8-108cc86b1ae2.

Harman, Chris, 1984, Explaining the Crisis: A Marxist Re-appraisal, (Bookmarks).

Hickson, Kevin, and Anthony Seldon (eds), 2004, New Labour, Old Labour: The Wilson and Callaghan Governments, 1974-1979 (Taylor & Francis).

Hogan, Michael J, 1987, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 (Cambridge University Press).

Hughes, Geraint, 2009, Harold Wilson’s Cold War: The Labour Government and East-West Relations, 1964-1970 (Royal
Historical Society).

Jones, Peter, 1997, America and the British Labour Party: The Special Relationship at Work (IB Tauris).

Kimber, Charlie, 2005, “Labour’s Organic Crisis”, International Socialism 106 (spring), https://isj.org.uk/labours-organic-crisis.

Kissinger, Henry A, 1979, The White House Years, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson).

Kleiderman, Alex, 2024, “US-UK Relations ‘Strong’ Says Keir Starmer as He Meets Joe Biden”, BBC News (11 July), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn086gyq70jo.

Kolko, Gabriel, and Joyce Kolko, 1972, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954,
(Harper & Row).

Maguire, Patrick, 2023, “Starmer Plans Foreign Policy Test for Labour”, Times (3 November), https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-plans-foreign-policy-test-labour-comment-m8zkpg57w.

Manchester Evening Herald, 1950, “Union Jack to Stay in Korea with Old Glory”, (6 December), p6, https://cdn.manchesterhistory.org/news/manchester evening herald_1950-12-06.pdf.

Mason, Rowena, 2024, “Keir Starmer Meets Donald Trump in Push for Good Relationship”, Guardian (26 September), https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/26/keir-starmer-to-meet-donald-trump-in-new-york-in-push-for-good-relationship

Miliband, Ralph, 1975, Parliamentary Socialism: Study in the Politics of Labour (Merlin Press).

Morgan, Kenneth O, 1997, Callaghan: A Life (Oxford University Press).

O’Carroll, Lisa and Kiran Stacey, 2024, “David Lammy Says He Can Find Common Ground with JD Vance”, Guardian (18 July), https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/18/david-lammy-says-he-can-find-common-ground-with-JD-vance.

Parker, George, Jim Pickard, James Politi and Lauren Fedor, 2023, “Labour Held Covert Meetings with Democrats During Sunak’s US Visit”, Financial Times (27 June), www.link.gale.com/apps/doc/A754788756/STND?u=edge&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=8d5706da.

Phillips, Tony, 2017, “Trotsky on the Labour Party”, International Socialism 153 (winter), https://isj.org.uk/trotsky-on-the-labour-party.

Pickard, Jim and Lucy Fisher, 2024, “Labour Cabinet Ministers Called Donald Trump ‘Sociopath’ and ‘Absolute Moron’”, Financial Times (12 July), https://www.ft.com/content/14de4470-b33d-4bf4-bad3-15ea460e6db3.

Shawcross, William, 2004, Allies: The United States, Britain, Europe and the War with Iraq (Atlantic Books).

Smith, Simon C., 2015, The Wilson-Johnson Correspondence, 1964-69 (Routledge).

Thomas, Mark L., 2016, “A House Divided: Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party”, International Socialism 149 (winter), https://isj.org.uk/a-house-divided-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-labour-party.

Wilson, Harold, 1971, The Labour Government, 1964-70: A Personal Record (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).

Woods, Randall Bennett, 1990, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941-1946, (Univerisity of North Carolina Press).

Young, John W., 2003, The Labour Governments, 1964-1970, Volume Two: International Policy (Manchester University Press).