After an explosive leak, the British ambassador resigned. The special relationship has been propelled into a strange and uncertain new era

Donald Trump, president and showman, was staging a military pageant to celebrate the Fourth of July and independence from the British empire. George Washington’s soldiers, he told a rainsoaked crowd in Washington, toppled a statue of King George and melted it into bullets for battle.

Kim Darroch's fall from grace casts chill over Washington ambassadors Read more

“The faraway king would soon learn a timeless lesson about the people of this majestic land,” Trump said. “Americans love our freedom and no one will ever take it away from us.”

Three days later, history did not seem so cold or distant as UK-US relations, taken for granted since the second world war and cemented by Trump’s recent state visit, were shaken to the core.

A devastating leak of diplomatic cables led to an angry rebuke from the president and the resignation of the British ambassador. It also raised once unthinkable questions about whether the looming nexus of President Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, arguably kindred narcissists, poses unique dangers to both countries and the world.

Johnson’s attack on the ambassador is the first act of his subservience to Trump, a daring act of self-abasement Sidney Blumenthal

“It is the exact opposite of what began with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill,” said Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton.

“This is not a new stage; this is a radically different relationship. It’s not a special relationship; it’s a malicious relationship. It’s an alliance by the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain not to save the west but to slay the west.”

The rupture came last weekend when memos from Britain’s man in Washington, Kim Darroch, were published by the Mail on Sunday. Who was responsible for the leak, and why, remains subject to fierce speculation.

The cables contained sharp criticisms of the Trump administration as “dysfunctional” and “inept”, fairly uncontroversial for any observer of Washington’s daily chaos. As is his wont, the president hit back in undiplomatic language, lambasting Darroch as a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool” he would no longer deal with. For good measure, he savaged Theresa May’s handling of Brexit.

Darroch has spent much of his tenure putting a brave face on Brexit and might have attempted to ride out this storm. He certainly had the backing of May. But in a televised hustings for the Conservative leadership, Johnson conspicuously failed to give the ambassador a full-throated endorsement, prompting accusations that he put loyalty to Trump before loyalty to country. Soon after, Darroch announced his resignation. Diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic were stunned.

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Blumenthal, a biographer of Abraham Lincoln, said: “There have been few more transparently irresponsible, destructive and nakedly ambitious acts than that of Boris Johnson. Never before has a British ambassador been treated quite that way. This act is the rupture to create a new kind of special relationship. There have been disagreements and ups and downs but through it all there has been an extraordinary alliance, central to the western world as we know it.”

‘Trump wants Brexit’

The close ties were maintained by Harold Macmillan and John F Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton then George W Bush, who once joked of his relationship with the Labour prime minister: “Well, we both use Colgate toothpaste.” Indeed, Blair was derided as “Bush’s poodle” after backing the disastrous invasion of Iraq. There are now fears Johnson could become “Trump’s poodle” who, when told to jump, asks how high?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson walks with Sir Kim Darroch on Capitol Hill in Washington in November 2017. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Blumenthal said: “Trump is an America-firster who also supports Brexit and the destruction of the European Union and the western alliance as we know it. Johnson has lent himself to this so he rises to become prime minister and the little friend of Donald Trump, doing his bidding.

“Johnson’s attack on the ambassador is the first act of his subservience to Trump, a daring act of self-abasement. Trump will continue to humilate him; he’s not ready. Johnson is smarter than Trump, more educated than Trump and better read than Trump, but he is not crueller than Trump. As much as Johnson is willing to step on anybody to climb the greasy pole, he is nowhere near the malignancy Trump exhibits in his need to dominate everyone around him.”

Johnson has conceded that his perceived failure to back up Darroch at a hustings event last week contributed to the ambassador’s decision to quit. However, he insisted on Friday that his performance at the hustings, in which he refused to say he would leave Darroch in place if he became prime minister, had been “misrepresented”.

I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump. I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness Boris Johnson

Whatever his intentions, Johnson’s admiration for Trump’s willingness to prosper from the chaos he creates is well known. During a private dinner during his time as foreign secretary, Johnson asked his fellow diners to imagine how Trump would be handling the misfiring Brexit negotiations.

“I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump,” he said. “I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness. Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere.”

Hard Brexiters have long since seen a comprehensive trade deal with the US as their dream option after Brexit and Johnson’s team have been buoyed by Trump’s claim that he wants “a very, very big deal, very, very quickly”. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, senior politicians are clear that Britain’s hopes of securing a big deal that rejects tricky issues like US food standards or access to the National Health Service are doomed. The question now facing Johnson is how far he is willing to sidle up to an unpredictable president in search of a good deal.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, head of the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House, said: “Britain is in a very difficult position. Do you appease the American president to get access, or do you hold the line and try to manage it? Inevitably, management is the only way forward but with Trump I don’t see there’s any way, given who he is, that he can conciliate or back down. I suspect it is going to continue to be extremely difficult.

“Trump wants Brexit. He wants to work bilaterally with every single country that he can. It’s great for Trump – the question is whether he can persuade Britain to accept American standards. As we know, it comes at a high price for Britain, whether it’s chlorinated chicken or any number of things, it will make it more complicated with its trade talks with the EU.

“Trump has a longstanding world view, which suits his personal instincts, which is he does not like multilateralism. He believes the United States loses when it has to work collectively. He knows he can get a better deal if he works in isolation.”

‘We need to keep our options open’

Despite their superficial similarities in appearance and style, Trump and Johnson may not see eye to eye on every issue.

Play Video 1:11 Boris Johnson admits he should have been more supportive towards Darroch after heckle - video

Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “Trump and Johnson are very like-minded in their scepticism towards the EU and on trade issues, but I don’t think Johnson will agree so much on Iran or North Korea. My sense is he won’t find himself as like-minded with Trump as he hopes.”

Senior diplomats have watched developments in despair. Sir Nigel Shinewald, a former British ambassador to Washington, worries about the balance of the special relationship under a more right-leaning British government undergoing a hard Brexit, trying to appease a Trump White House.

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“I think it would be very damaging to our interests,” he warned. “We need to keep our options open politically and commercially. I don’t think our interests as a country align with the US 100% – but I’d be the last person to say that we shouldn’t remain allies to them and in very close contact with them.

“We have to be honest about this: this has never been an entirely equal relationship. David Cameron was explicit when he came to office in saying we were the junior partner and that is the reality. That is the reality even in Churchill and Roosevelt’s time.

“You can live with that as long as you are honest about it, stand up for British interests and appraise each issue as it comes up according to the UK national interest and no one else’s. That issue is going to get more difficult if Johnson becomes prime minister and tries to move in more of a Trump direction.

“The issue here is not America, but Trump. Trump is taking America into policy positions which most of the Republican party wouldn’t really agree with. The thing that will hold Boris Johnson back is British public opinion. On the issues, public opinion will not want a surrender of fundamental British interests.”