The UK risks infuriating Donald Trump after the frontrunner to be Britain’s next ambassador to the US suggested he could combine the job with another role.
Former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson said that becoming the UK’s man in Washington was not “incompatible” with being next chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Lord Mandelson is seen as the leading contender for the Washington job, as the Labour government comes under pressure to woo the president-elect.
Relations between the two are rocky, after Trump’s election campaign team hit out at Labour , accusing it of attempting to interfere in the election, in a row over UK activists helping Democrats.
Sir Keir’s foreign secretary David Lammy has also had to try to tried to play down comments he made in the past, in which he called Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.
Lord Mandelson is also currently in the race for the prestigious post with the university, where his challengers include ex-Tory foreign secretary William Hague. At the weekend, he said “if I were lucky enough to be elected chancellor, I would never let the university down”.
But on his How To Win An Election podcast he said: “If by some chance these two things were to happen, they are not…incompatible with each other. And the university has made that clear to me. They’re not incompatible.”
He added: “Look, if I was in the United States, I would be promoting Oxford as a great, iconic premier university that is revered in the US. And if I was in Oxford as its ceremonial figurehead, I would be helping to bring in the best of American philanthropy. So they’re not incompatible. And I think anyone who thinks for one moment will realise that.”
He also suggested that when it comes to the US, 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.”An announcement on the UK’s next ambassador to Washington is expected within days.
The current ambassador Karen Pierce is is widely credited with building good links with the Trump team and at the weekend told CBS’s Sunday morning politics show that “I have always found him and his team very willing to listen to our point of view.”
However, it is thought her term will end soon after Mr Trump enters the White House.