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Saturday 22 November 2008

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Will the special relationship prevail?

As the US presidential race gathers steam, Westminster is abuzz.  Like the Derby Trials, MPs across the political spectrum are watching their horses anxiously.  Some are seasoned observers.  They know the trainers and even the thoroughbreds themselves.  Others are more recent spectators, but with no less passion.  The outcome of the presidential election matters in Westminster, for the course of US policy certainly, but also for UK domestic politics.

So far, Gordon Brown has refused to speculate on the race: it’s ‘a matter for America’ the Prime Minister insists.  But Labour’s links with the Clintons, some 20 years old, remain a powerful force within his party.  A Clinton victory would be a welcome shot in the arm for Brown, a demonstration that the centre left remains viable at the polls.  Barack Obama also has a significant following amongst Labour MPs, but ties are less advanced.  Hillary’s supporters stress Obama’s lack of experience, particularly in foreign affairs.  The unmistakable message of change delivered by an Obama victory would also rankle with Downing Street.  Talk of change is one of Cameron’s most potent weapons, and Brown has yet to develop a convincing rebuttal.

Among many Conservatives, support for the Republicans, their sister party, runs deep.  Groups such as Liam Fox’s ‘Atlantic Bridge’ have cultivated ties over the years, riding through the difficult period in US relations under Michael Howard, now referred to obliquely as a time of ‘personality clashes’ by senior Tories.  Links with John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, many developed personally by Fox and George Osborne, remain strong.  Mike Huckabee less so.  ‘He’s just off the wall’ said one Tory MP.

David Cameron recently declared himself a ‘great admirer of John McCain’.  The Arizona Senator addressed the Tory Party Conference in 2006 and is considered the favourite amongst Tory MPs today.  ‘I think his whole style: understated, self-deprecatory, wry and his background, a veteran, fits more neatly with Anglo-sensibility than any other candidate’ said one Conservative MP.  McCain’s tough foreign policy stance, and his support for tackling climate change, also chimes with Cameron’s approach.  Perhaps most importantly for Camp Cameron, a McCain victory would show that elections can be won by shifting a right wing party towards the centre, a welcome message indeed.

Intriguingly, Cameron has also spoken of ‘enjoying watching Barack Obama’: last year his office tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to arrange for the two to meet during Cameron’s visit to Washington.  Cameron is too shrewd a politician to expect such gestures to go unheeded.  His approach has given hope to a Democratic counterinsurgency, alive and well within the Conservative Party.  Simon Burns (MP for West Chelmsford) has little time for Obama, but is an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter.  He volunteered for her campaign in New Hampshire earlier this month and has the T-shirt to prove it.  ‘Being a Clinton supporter in the 1990s was a very lonely position in the Conservative Party’ he recalled.  ‘That began to change in 2002/3.’  Distaste for George W Bush pushed support for the Democrats to its high watermark in 2004.  Since then, as the end of the Bush era draws nigh, support for the Democrats has diminished, but not disappeared. 

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