Lord Peter Mandelson is anticipated to be introduced because the UK ambassador to the United States as Sir Keir Starmer prepares for a Donald Trump presidency.
The prime minister is alleged to imagine Lord Mandelson has the commerce experience and networking skills to bolster the UK’s pursuits throughout a fragile interval for relations with the US.
Lord Mandelson final served in authorities 14 years in the past when Gordon Brown was prime minister.
The Labour grandee has lengthy been seen as one of many main candidates for the job. He will substitute Dame Karen Pierce, whose service in Washington DC is anticipated to conclude in early 2025.
Lord Mandelson is usually described as one of many key architects of New Labour. He was the Labour MP for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, throughout which period he served as secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
In 1998, Sir Tony fired the previous enterprise secretary for failing to reveal a house mortgage from a senior minister.
Soon after his return, he was compelled to stop as soon as extra attributable to a passport scandal involving the billionaire businessmen, the Hinduja brothers. When he was elected to the Hartlepool seat in 2001, he famously declared that he was a “fighter not a quitter”.
He was later named Britain’s EU commissioner by Sir Tony.
Last month he risked infuriating Mr Trump after he urged he might mix the job with one other position. He stated changing into the UK’s man in Washington was not “incompatible” with being the subsequent chancellor of the University of Oxford.
He later misplaced that specific contest to William Hague, however remained the frontrunner for the US position because the Labour authorities is coming beneath growing strain to woo the president-elect.
Relations between the 2 are strained, after Mr Trump’s election marketing campaign crew hit out at Labour and accused it of trying to intrude within the election, in a row over UK activists serving to Democrats.
Sir Keir’s international secretary David Lammy has additionally tried to minimize feedback he made up to now through which he known as Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.
When it involves coping with the Trump administration, Lord Mandelson has urged that Britain has to “navigate our way through this and have, I’m afraid, the best of both worlds”.
“We have got to find a way to have our cake and eat it,” he stated.
In November, he additionally instructed the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that he was “more in favour of a new relationship rather than a special one” with the US. Pushed additional on whether or not he would have an interest within the Washington position, the previous authorities minister stated: “I would be very interested indeed in giving advice about trade to whoever is appointed.”
Weeks earlier than Labour entered No 10 this summer season, he resigned from the board of his lobbying agency.
At the time his resignation as a director of Global Counsel prompted hypothesis he can be free for a attainable authorities position.
Earlier this yr he dominated out a return to frontline politics after the reported part-sale of his advisory agency to Barack Obama’s former polling guru, Jim Messina.
At the time Lord Mandelson, as soon as dubbed the “Dark Lord” for his position as a New Labour spin physician, instructed The Telegraph: “I will continue to always be a cheerleader and champion of a Labour government but I do not intend to be a member of it.”
In March he raised eyebrows when he instructed Sir Keir he might stand to “shed a few pounds, and that would be an improvement”.
The transfer gave the impression to be a bid at even-handedness after he hit out on the then prime minister Rishi Sunak’s infamous slim-fit fits and thin ties, saying they “diminish him rather than expand him” on his podcast How To Win An Election.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/peter-mandelson-uk-ambassador-us-donald-trump-b2667479.html