Leaked remarks by UK ambassador threaten to overshadow King Charles's US visit

Leaked audio has caught Britain's ambassador to Washington, Sir Christian Turner, telling students that the phrase "special relationship" is "backwards-looking", and that the US probably has only one true ally of that kind, Israel, not the UK. The remarks, made in February and obtained by the Financial Times, threaten to overshadow King Charles III's state visit to the US this week as they revive questions about Britain's standing with its most important ally.In comments made to a group of UK students in February, Turner said he disliked the phrase "special relationship" to describe Anglo-American ties, calling it "quite nostalgic, quite backwards-looking, and it has a lot of baggage about it.""I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States — and that is probably Israel," he said.The remarks came weeks before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began the current conflict in the Middle East.Turner also criticised America's political system for failing to hold US associates of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to account, calling it "extraordinary" that the scandal "hasn't touched anybody" in the US.He noted that by contrast, senior British figures — including his predecessor as ambassador, Lord Peter Mandelson, and "potentially the prime minister" — had been "brought down" by the affair."It's an interesting question about the different levels of accountability in our systems," he said.Turner also offered candid assessments of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's political future, saying that earlier this year, Starmer had been "pretty clearly on the ropes" and his future looked "quite touch and go."He noted that while Labour Party rules make it difficult to remove a sitting prime minister, requiring 80 MPs to publicly sign a letter, the local elections in May could be a turning point."If Labour does very badly... I suspect the party will be able to go over that threshold and remove him," Turner said. "That seems to me to be the conventional thinking."The leaked comments come as King Charles III and Queen Camilla begin a four-day state visit to the US, which includes an address to Congress on Tuesday afternoon.The royal visit has been regarded by British government figures as a salve for the bilateral relationship at a time of severe strain following President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on Starmer and criticism of Britain for refusing to offer more support to the US-Israel war against Iran.A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said Turner's remarks were "private, informal comments made to a group of UK sixth-form students" and "certainly not any reflection of the UK government's position."