Starmer’s ‘Love Actually’ Moment With Trump May Never Come

WATCH: Starmer says Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on the UK and other European nations over their stance on Greenland is “completely wrong.”Source: Bloomberg

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By Alex Wickham, Ellen Milligan, and Joe Mayes

January 19, 2026 at 6:01 PM UTC

Updated on

January 20, 2026 at 8:17 AM UTC

What was billed as an “emergency” Monday morning press conference offered Keir Starmer a now-or-never chance to hit back at Donald Trump over his latest assault on the transatlantic alliance.

Some — especially on the left of British politics — hanker for a moment reminiscent of when the prime minister played by Hugh Grant in Love Actually says he fears the UK-US relationship has become a bad one based on the US president taking “exactly what he wants.” Instead, the UK prime minister explained to a weary public why he will never stop exhausting diplomatic avenues with the US president, futile as they may currently seem.