How to deal with US president-elect Donald Trump may dominate global politics in 2025. The question generates existential concern in Ukraine, but a sense of opportunity in Moscow and Tel Aviv. India's growing status makes prime minister Narendra Modi’s government less nervous about another Trump era than most. Anxiety about security, trade and diplomacy dominates European capitals.
Keir Starmer’s British government will seek as much ‘business as usual’ as possible in such volatile times. It may sound like wishful thinking, but no obvious alternative strategy is available. Peter Mandelson’s mission in Washington as UK ambassador will be to limit the damage that tariffs could do to economic growth, or that erratic diplomacy might do to NATO.The new year proved there will be no mutual non-aggression pact from Trump’s allies in America, as Elon Musk embarked on a freelance mission to destroy Starmer’s government.
Musk is now a key Trump ally in keeping America polarised – at least while their alliance lasts.
Musk seeks to be a global Citizen Kane for our age - trying to make and break governments by sending tweets across the Atlantic. Yet his interventions in British and German politics look more like impulsive, insomniac trolling than any kind of political strategy.
The Reform Party spent the Christmas holiday talking up how Musk could play a key role in making Nigel Farage prime minister. Newspapers were excitedly briefed about hopes of a record-breaking donation of £75 million and the election-winning machine a young party might build with Musk’s millions. Then Musk began tweeting about the need to free Tommy Robinson from jail. Farage sees Robinson's history of extremism, violence and criminality as toxic for any party with mainstream ambitions.
Yet Musk surprised Farage by calling on Reform to sack their leader – leaving the Tesla billionaire without a vehicle in British politics. Musk’s next political project is to persuade Germans to put the far-right Alternative for Deutschland into power next month. The populist party has a fifth of the vote in pre-election polling, but two-thirds of Germans see it as an extremist threat to the constitution, so no other German party would consider a coalition with it. The AfD has become too extreme for Marine Le Pen too. Musk’s claim that the AfD seems no more extreme than the Obama-era Democrats shows why he is losing credibility outside of America.
Having recently discovered Britain’s grooming gangs scandal of a decade ago, Musk has patched together a skewed, radicalised version of these grave events, calling for Starmer to be charged for complicity in rape. Starmer offered a robust defence of his own role in prosecuting grooming gangs. In calling Home Office minister Jess Phillips a ‘rape genocide apologist’ who should be in prison, Musk is spreading the type of language that incites violence against politicians. He could seem a cartoonish pantomime villain in British politics were it not for these dangerous echoes of last summer’s riots.Despite the tumultuous political new year on social media, 2025 may turn British politics into a waiting game. Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and Farage’s Reform insurgents are engaged in a frenetic sparring match, but no knockout blow is likely this year. There is a smaller local election map than expected with several county elections pushed back a year for new mayoral contests.
Despite Musk’s absurd appeal to King Charles to call another British general election already, Starmer may not face the voters again in a general election until Donald Trump has left the White House in 2029. That makes the prime minister the governing tortoise taking on the political hares, though Starmer will want his government to start producing results.
Louise Casey will lead a commission on social care reform. It may not report until 2028, but could prove a flagship reform agenda if its recommendations can survive the next general election intact, making the government and the commission’s engagement with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives significant.
The Labour government hopes that the shared project of managing Donald Trump will establish the pragmatic case for closer UK-European links after Brexit, though talk of a reset has been more about mood than substance so far.Outside politics, 2025 is a bigger year for women’s than men’s sport - with female world cups in cricket and rugby. England’s Lionesses defend their women’s football European title, while Thomas Tuchel navigates a gentle World Cup qualifying group before the men’s big challenge in 2026. India’s loss of the final two dramatic post-Christmas Tests in Australia means Australia will meet South Africa at Lord’s in June for cricket’s World Test Championship final. May’s 80th anniversary of VE Day will be the key national ceremonial moment in the British calendar. It will be a chance to be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy – and perhaps to even put the troubling world of Trump into perspective.
(The author is the director of British Future)
