UK-US trade deal a Whitehall win – but PM must show public how it directly benefits them | Politics News

In politics as in life, there can be a disconnect between what is said and what is heard.

Take the prime minister’s surprise announcement earlier this year to abolish NHS England.

In political circles, the move was well received.

Here was a government prepared to take a match to layers of red tape by axing the swollen administrative arm of the health service.

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But in County Durham, Labour activists on the local election trail reported something different.

On some doorsteps at least, concern was being picked up that Sir Keir Starmer was planning to axe the entire NHS.

I don’t claim these worries were widespread.

Simply that they serve as an example of how something chalked up as a win by the thinktanks of Westminster can be viewed very differently by the public at large.

Which brings us to the UK-US trade deal.

There is no doubt that on the policy wonk spectrum of political successes, this can be marked as a positive for the UK government.

Vindication was written all over the prime minister’s face as he announced the agreement.

For months, Starmer has played nice and held his tongue in his dealings with the White House.

Now it appears to have paid off.

A trade deal unveiled with typically Trumpian drama through a televised transatlantic phone call on the 80th anniversary of the allies’ victory in World War Two.

Not for the first time in recent months, this was geopolitics recast as reality TV.

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It’s here that we reach the possible point of disconnect though, where the Whitehall win is sent out into the wider world to be shaped and spun in the sitting rooms of the country.

There are active risks.

Remember, President Trump is deeply unpopular in the UK.

This agreement also contains easements on agriculture – a sensitive sector for this government after the changes to inheritance tax.

And some tariffs do remain.

That said, I would suggest the greater political danger – just as with the abolition of NHS England – is more passive: that the news simply fails to cut through or move the dial among the electorate.

Put another way, will people care about theoretical wins if they can’t identify the direct benefits to their lives?

The remedy to this – according to one Labour MP locked in a fight with Reform in their seat – is to focus more on telling a bigger story and weaving these policy developments into it.

This theory puts Labour’s current travails down to Nigel Farage simply telling a more engaging story than the government.

Policy albatrosses like benefits reform and cuts to the winter fuel allowance are packing a severe electoral punch because they are not part of any wider narrative of what this prime minister is trying to achieve.

In this world, delivering on your aims and breathlessly pointing at a piece of paper listing those achievements just isn’t enough.

There’s some evidence Downing Street gets this.

While Trump announced Thursday’s trade deal from the Oval Office, Starmer was at a car plant in the West Midlands.

He recited a well-worn campaign mantra of holding workers in his “mind’s eye” when negotiating the agreement.

“I was here with you just a few weeks ago and I promised you that I would deliver,” he told staff at the Jaguar Land Rover site.

The message to workers was clear – this is about you.

So what did our Reform-battling backbencher reckon to the deal?

“A real boost, but will my constituents feel it… I wonder what the specific examples and stories are of how the steel deal helps their cost of living,” the MP questioned.

They then added, “that’s probably the story I need to hear”.