Trump’s move puts Blair on a collision course with PM

There was a time when prime ministers would quietly retreat into writing memoirs and lecturing on the after-dinner circuit. That age is now gone. Some, like John Major and Gordon Brown, carefully pick their moments to intervene on strategic issues where they think they could have influence: Europe for Major, and child poverty and assisted dying for Brown. To everyone’s surprise, David Cameron ended up rejoining the ranks of government as Rishi Sunak’s foreign secretary.

Tony Blair has carved an altogether different role: first, as envoy to the Middle East, and then, launching various global initiatives and lucratively advising governments around the world, including those with highly questionable human rights records. In 2016, he consolidated most of his work into the Tony Blair Institute, which has been described as a “McKinsey for world leaders”. It also does a considerable amount of work on UK domestic policy, and its influence on the Starmer government, which is not otherwise rich in ideas, is evident: digital ID cards have been championed by the TBI, for example.

Above all, he says he is “honoured” to join the executive board of Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, an initiative whose expansive remit makes it look designed to undermine the United Nations. In this brave new world where the old rules-based order is speedily unravelling, there are those around Starmer who will recognise the value of having this unofficial channel into the heart of Trump’s project. But, in a week in which the prime minister this week adopted his firmest stance yet in the face of threats of tariffs from Trump, declaring he “would not yield” over his support for Greenland and Britain’s European allies, it may appear to be unhelpfully pulling in the opposite foreign policy direction to the government.

Now that the board of peace has been formally launched by the White House, two things have become clear. The first is that Blair will indeed play a key role: alongside Jared Kushner, US secretary of state Marco Rubio, and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, he will serve on the initiative’s “founding executive board”, which will act as its operational arm. Second, this is no longer just about Gaza: in fact, its proposed charter does not even mention Gaza, instead claiming a far broader remit for global peace.

Europe is quite rightly treating the alarming prospect of a shadow UN, commandeered by Trump, with extreme caution. The French and the Dutch have declined outright; Denmark was not even invited to join. Even Georgia Meloni, one of the more Trump-friendly European leaders, has said she needs time to consider. Yvette Cooper has said that while the UK strongly supports Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, the UK will not be signing up to what it sees as a legal treaty with a broad-brush remit, amid particular concerns about Vladimir Putin’s potential inclusion.

But does it put the prime minister on a collision course with Blair? The latter must now contend with his predecessor — the most successful Labour leader in generations, with an agenda and ideas of his own — having a direct line to Trump and an alternative power base to preside over. That could make life complicated for Sir Keir. Trump has invited around 60 countries to join the overall board; extraordinarily, one has even been extended to Putin. A handful of these have already signed up and joined Trump on stage at Davos for the launch, including Viktor Orban of Hungary. Trump has set a $1bn price tag for countries looking for a permanent seat at the table and has made himself chair of the whole thing, with unilateral authority to appoint the executive board and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies. It comes across as classic Trump: high off the drama of the US’s Venezuela intervention and his threats to invade Greenland, why limit his ambitions to peace in Gaza or Ukraine?

It is not clear what Blair thinks about the board of peace’s radically expanded remit; when asked about it over the weekend, his spokesperson declined to say whether he supported the $1bn permanent membership fee. But having an informal connection with someone on its executive could be no bad thing for Starmer. US-UK relations have taken a public hit this week, with Starmer backing Denmark over Greenland, and Trump lashing out over the deal the UK struck with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands.

It might be that Starmer’s policy of trying to keep both Europe and the US close is nearing the end of its shelf life, and there is no question that, in that case, the right path is with our European allies. But behind the scenes, Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser and Blair’s former chief of staff — the man who some in the civil service reportedly refer to as “the real foreign secretary” — remains highly respected by those like Witkoff. Starmer’s business adviser Varun Chandra has built good relationships with many of Trump’s domestic allies. Trump may be an egotistical maniac, but he remains one of the most powerful leaders in the world, and the UK has to keep continuing to engage with him even as he tears up the international rulebook and repeatedly walks his supposed allies to the brink.