The Foreign Office this week warned British travellers to be aware of the disturbances in Los Angeles, where president Trump has sent in the National Guard to quell demonstrations – despite the city saying they were not needed – leading to dramatic scenes on TV.
Speaking at Abta’s Travel Matters seminar on Wednesday (11 June), Lord Kim Darroch – who was the UK’s ambassador to the US until 2019 – said Trump had installed TVs in every White House office and his agenda was guided by rolling news coverage.
It’s a starting point for him that he wants to dominate every 24-hour news cycle," said Darroch. "Sometimes it’s a victory lap, sometimes it’s just lighting fires on an issue, but it’s absolutely a key target for him.”
He said Trump’s decision to send the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests against immigration enforcement operations in parts of the city last week was designed purely to appeal to his supporters watching those news channels.
"Never understand Trump’s innate political sense and his understanding of what connects with his base," said Darroch. "In one sense, as a political move, this is brilliant – it is so dramatic.”
Darroch said he found Keir Starmer’s meeting with Trump, when he invited him to make a state visit to the UK, “toe curling”. “I almost hid behind the sofa,” he said, adding he “would have waited a bit to see how things panned out” before issuing such an invitation.
He said former prime minister Theresa May had challenged Trump. “Keir Starmer has not done that.”
He warned: “You are always on a tightrope with Donald Trump – it is a tightrope for the next three-and-a-half years.”
Darroch said during his first term, Trump’s inner circle was largely people he had not chosen himself, unlike now. “They held him back then. The guard rails are not there anymore; this is Trump unleashed.”
Darroch, who also served as former British Representative to the EU, said there was one upside to Trump’s presidency – the UK getting closer to the EU because of the situation in the White House. “In a way, we are going faster on Europe because of Trump.”
This, he added, meant some pre-Brexit benefits would be restored following the recent UK-EU Summit: “We will get a youth mobility scheme at some point,” he predicted.
