6 December, 2025. Release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy November 2025 confirms that it’s the huge American Embassy in London that the Labour Government in the UK should be more worried about than the planned new Chinese Embassy.
When the new Chinese Embassy rises from the ground near Tower Bridge, as it now surely will, it can no longer be expected to present a serious security threat. It’s naïve to complain that it will contain many intelligence officers under diplomatic cover because the embassies of almost all states (including the UK) do likewise, and MI5 have already indicated that the problem will be manageable; helping this is the fact that China’s seven existing diplomatic premises scattered across London will all be concentrated in the new embassy. More worrying is the new threat from the US Embassy at Nine Elms formally opened in January 2018. This is of great concern because this mission now has formally advertised responsibility for intervention in British politics,
This responsibility is spelled out in unmistakeable terms in the new and thoroughly racist US National Security Strategy. This says that so many ‘non-Europeans’ (obviously meaning ‘non-whites’, as apartheid era South Africa used officially to call them) are being allowed to flood into Europe that within a decade or so the continent faces ‘the stark prospect of civilizational erasure,’ and in consequence will probably not be ‘strong enough’ to provide the United States with reliable allies. The chief role of ‘American diplomacy‘ relative to Europe is thus clear. It should ‘continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit,’ the National Security Strategy continues, ‘and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism. Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory.’
It doesn’t require great genius at code-breaking to grasp that this means that the top priority of US diplomacy in Europe is now support for far-right parties throughout the continent and open hostility to the institutions of the European Union. Predictably enough, Russia has immediately applauded the National Security Strategy. Forget Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, which specifically says that diplomats ‘have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs’ of the state to which they are accredited .
The US Embassy at Nine Elms in London was formally opened in January 2018. It is purpose-built, has over 1,000 staff and is the largest American embassy in Western Europe. The ambassador, Warren Stephens, is – of course – a billionaire investment banker and was a financial backer of Donald Trump’s election campaign. No embassy in London could be better tooled up to interfere in British politics in support of far-right Reform UK led by Trump-adoring Nigel Farage, whose party is already well ahead of any other in the polls.
What form the US Embassy’s support for Reform might take is difficult to say but it should not be difficult to detect. Moreover, in principle it looks as if it might be exposed by a requirement publicly to register any such activity under Britain’s new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), and even cause the USA to be listed as ‘a specified foreign power’ together with Russia and Iran under the more general ‘enhanced tier’. It’s true that diplomats and their families are properly exempted from FIRS registration but only if acting in their ‘official capacity’. And having contact with opposition parties (and think tanks) for purposes of information-gathering is one thing; having it for purposes of active support is quite another.
FIRS was launched as recently as 1 July 2025 and inspired, ironically enough, by the US government’s own Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, itself prompted by concern about foreign fascist influencers on the ground. With all of Britain’s existing entanglements with the USA in trade, intelligence and defence, it will take a tougher and more charismatic leader than Keir Starmer, and much stronger national defences, to wave FIRS in the face of the malign Trump/Vance/Musk treble act.