A weakened Trump still leaves Britain on edge

President is a lame duck at home but his destabilising foreign policy may yet prove a challenge for the UK

Good morning. If you woke on Wednesday surprised at the scale of the Republican rout in the US midterm elections, you were not alone. "I think I speak for all my Labour colleagues when I say we were stunned -- and delighted -- by the result," said one beaming senior government figure, listing a raft of historic Democrat wins across the nation.

Another veteran Labour strategist groaned at signs the Democrats were at risk of embarking on "their own Corbyn moment", however, as socialist candidates on the fringes of the US party were among those who swept to victory.

"I worry they will learn all the wrong lessons from this win -- surmise that Americans love them and that they should therefore lean into their most leftwing instincts . . . that's the way they could yet lose the next presidential election."

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Elation tinged with unease

Labour officials quickly shifted from cheering and fretting for their sister party, however, to war-gaming how the result will impact the UK, as did other parts of the Whitehall machine. "The big question, of course, is what this means for Trump's behaviour in the international sphere -- Iran but also beyond," warned a British diplomat.

The Republicans' loss of both the House of Representatives and the Senate will limit US President Donald Trump's manoeuvre room domestically, leaving foreign policy as the only domain where he can operate largely without constraints. Lame duck at home, he nonetheless remains commander-in-chief of the American military.

At the Budget last week chancellor John Healey did not shy away from pinpointing the US-Iran war as a key cause of the "global economic storms" that have blown a hole in Britain's public finances.

Any escalation in the Middle East war threatens deeper pain for Britain: worsening the energy price shock and heaping more pressure on both households and the Treasury via the spectre of higher inflation and interest rates. Economists expect the Bank of England to raise interest rates for the first time in three years later today, with further increases anticipated next year.

Trump told the FT's Ed Luce in a phone call on Tuesday night that he had no immediate plans for fresh strikes on Iran, as he sought to play down suggestions he was preparing to step up his conflict with the Islamic republic after the midterm elections.

The early signs in the wake of the results have also been positive, with Trump continuing to signal restraint, vice-president JD Vance issuing a damning verdict on the war, and oil prices falling.

But the president's erratic approach to foreign policy in the past has also taught officials and analysts across the world not to bank any early optimism. Even Trump himself sought to keep the threat of an escalation alive, telling Luce: "I'm ready, we're ready. We're locked and loaded if we need to go."

In the aftermath of the president's crushing midterm results, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham urged fellow global leaders to seize the opportunity "to unite around the issue that is affecting us all -- and that's the cost of living".

While he stressed that addressing household pressures had been his priority since arriving in Downing Street three months ago, he was frank: "I can't get people's cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, the conflict in Ukraine started by Russia."

The war in Iran continuing to stall would unambiguously benefit -- and be championed by -- Britain. But London's stance on Ukraine is more delicate: it has committed to backing only a just end to the war for Kyiv, rather than a deal on any terms.

Ben Judah, former Labour adviser at the Foreign Office, acknowledged that a post-midterms Trump may find it harder to win domestic approval "to fund a lot of these extensive warfighting dreams that he might have" in the medium term.

If doubling down on the Iran conflict proves complicated, Trump may well go full throttle in pursuit of the Ukraine peace deal that he has long pledged to secure, Judah predicted. "I think that he's going to want to be seen as a peacemaker more than ever now because of this [electoral result]," he said.

Navigating and ultimately resisting any US push to end the war broadly on Vladimir Putin's terms -- as Ukraine faces an enormously difficult winter -- would be extremely challenging for the UK and its European allies, not least because Kyiv depends so heavily on American support to continue fighting.

London and other capitals across the continent have been on high alert in the wake of Trump's apparent rapprochement with Putin in the run-up to Tuesday's elections, with many European officials left agog at his dramatic deal to purchase millions of tonnes of diesel from Moscow in a last-ditch attempt to lower fuel costs for American voters.

There are a spate of other ways the midterm results will continue to have a ripple effect in Westminster in coming weeks and months.

Expect the government to sharpen its attack lines against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform leader Nigel Farage over their early criticism of Keir Starmer for refusing to back the US war against Iran and allow the use of UK military bases for initial American strikes.

With speculation afoot about whether the Democrats will try to impeach Trump again, or launch other new congressional probes into his conduct, Burnham's administration will also have to calibrate its reaction.

In the Commons yesterday Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper called on the government to support Democrat-led Congress in "any and all inquiries" launched against Trump in the wake of the midterms.

Burnham's de facto deputy Louise Haigh tellingly replied that it was "absolutely right to highlight the importance, always, of challenging power".

Cooper also remarked that the Republicans' devastating results this week clearly demonstrated that Americans were "sick of Trump's scandals".

It has raised hopes among rival UK parties that Reform will also face a mauling by voters at the next election, given the array of scandals engulfing party leader Farage and other senior figures, who face a series of parliamentary sleaze and police probes at present. Reform and Farage deny any wrongdoing.

The elation in Labour and the Lib Dem circles at the midterm results is unsurprising, given many in each party have defined themselves against the US president for over a decade.

But the elections offer no guarantee Trump's destabilising conduct around the world will abate. It could yet intensify -- and the consequences for Britain's economy and security may be seismic.

Now try this

Miranda's chai recommendations yesterday got me daydreaming about my own comfort foods now the weather is turning cooler. Nothing beats American-style banana oat pancakes, which are a Saturday morning tradition in my household, so I thought I'd share the recipe . . .

3 medium ripe bananas

2 cups of oats

2 eggs

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Big pinch of salt

Blitz in blender, heat a slick of butter in a big pan, cook three or four small pancakes at a time on goldilocks heat (not too high, not too low). It really is the secret to it . . . you work out the optimum stove temperature after a few goes.

Serve with raspberries and, especially if the bananas aren't that ripe, a dash of maple syrup. Delicious cold too.

Top stories today

* Cost of living | Rising energy prices will push UK inflation to its highest pace in three years around the start of 2027, according to economists surveyed by the FT, adding to pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates.

* Prevention first | John Healey has promised an overhaul of public spending controls, vowing that new rules to ringfence "preventative" programmes would save money further down the line.

* Trade infrastructure wasted | The taxpayer has spent billions of pounds preparing Britain for post-Brexit food checks that are to be scrapped as part of Andy Burnham's reset with the EU, the Times reports. This includes hundreds of millions of pounds spent on setting up temporary inspection units around ports that were due to implement phytosanitary checks, which show if plant products are free from pests or diseases, on foods entering the UK from Europe. Those checks have never been implemented.