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LONDON — Former Donald Trump adviser Fiona Hill has been appointed by the new left-leaning U.K. government to lead a review of defense capabilities.
In a surprise move, the former White House security adviser will join the “formidable team” announced Tuesday to lead Britain’s Strategic Defense Review.
Her appointment is the latest indication that the newly elected Labour government is keen to make inroads with Republicans ahead of the increasingly likely prospect of a Trump victory in the U.S. election in November.
A British-born Russia expert, Hill served as a national security adviser to the former president for two years until 2019.
The daughter of a coal miner from the northeast of England, Hill moved to the U.S. to study her post-graduate degree in Russian at Harvard and later worked as an intelligence analyst under both the Bush and Obama administrations before being hired to work for Trump.
Since leaving the White House, she has continued to be an influential voice on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, last year telling POLITICO that the war in Ukraine is a “proxy war against the United States.”
“Putin would be thrilled if Trump would come back to power because he also anticipates that Trump will pull the United States out of NATO, that Trump will rupture the U.S. alliance system, and that Trump will hand over Ukraine,” she said.
The Labour Party is traditionally seen as allied with Joe Biden’s Democrats. However, in recent months, as it prepared for government, Keir Starmer’s team has been on a mission to reach out to Trump-supporting Republicans.
The prime minister was among the first world leaders to call Trump directly following the assassination attempt Saturday. He spoke to the former president for around 10 minutes, and has since joined other European figures to condemn the attack.
Making plans for Donald
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has met several Trump allies this year, and has praised the work of new vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance.
The new administration may have felt there was work to make up, after several members of Starmer’s Cabinet previously made critical statements about Trump, including Lammy, who called the then-president a “neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” in 2018.
During her time in the White House, Hill was senior director for European and Russian affairs, putting her at the heart of the Russiagate scandal that rocked Trump’s term in office.
She is viewed as a Russia hawk and her appointment is an indication that the U.K. government will maintain its predecessor’s firm line on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The defense review will be led by George Robertson, a Labour peer who previously served as defense secretary under former Prime Minister Tony Blair and as secretary-general of NATO. General Richard Barrons, former deputy chief of the defense staff, will also serve on the review.
Robertson Monday outlined a “deadly quartet” of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as posing threats to U.K. security.
The previous Conservative administration under Rishi Sunak had referred to China as an “epoch-defining challenge” but resisted calls from backbench Tory MPs to formally label Beijing as a “threat.”
Back in the game
Robertson is one of several New Labour figures that have been moved to top jobs under Starmer in his first week in office.
Cabinet Office chief Pat McFadden, part of the prime minister’s inner circle of top ministers dubbed the “gang of four,” served under both Blair and Gordon Brown, while newly elected MPs returning to the party after years of absence, such as Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary under Blair, were fast-tracked back into government roles.
The review is expected to conclude in the first half of 2025, throwing doubt over when the U.K. will hit the government’s stated ambition to hike defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP — Starmer previously insisted this review must be completed ahead of that commitment.
A defense department spokesperson said Defence Secretary John Healey saw the appointments as a “really formidable team” with varied experience.
“For Fiona, particularly, you’ve got that global expertise, and her understanding to Russia and the threats that Russia poses, is second to none,” they said.
“She’s worked under multiple presidents so she’s got experience of different administrations. It’s great because whoever wins, we will work with them whether that’s Trump or Biden.”
On Tuesday, Starmer’s administration was reminded of the struggles it will have with any potential Republican White House, after footage emerged of comments made by Vance in which he described the U.K. as an “Islamist country” following Labour’s general election victory.
Speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Washington earlier in July, where he shared the schedule with the U.K. Conservatives’ Suella Braverman, he said: “My Tory friends […] you’ve got to get a handle on this.”
