Nuclear plans hand Starmer a way to woo Trump

LONDON — Keir Starmer will never persuade Donald Trump to love windmills. 

But by embracing sweeping reforms of the nuclear power system, the U.K. may finally have found an energy policy the White House likes. 

Downing Street on Thursday approved the Fingleton Review, a hefty report calling on the government to speed up building new nuclear power stations by relaxing planning rules, merging regulators, and working more closely with allies itching to invest in the U.K. — including the U.S. 

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband touted the report as a “landmark review.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed the reforms could deliver economic success in a “new era of global uncertainty.”  

But the real winners could be Stateside. “U.S. companies are eager to invest in the U.K., especially in the energy sectors,” Trump’s Ambassador to London Warren Stephens said in a newspaper column late last year. 

In the documents approving the Fingleton recommendations, Starmer’s government promised to build on existing deals with the U.S., as well as other countries, “to establish an international regulatory strategy and delivery plan by Autumn 2026.”  

That sort of rhetoric gives Downing Street a way to sell itself as open for exactly the sort of U.S. investment Stephens is encouraging, some insiders believe. 

“It’s something that No. 10 would probably have its eye on, [given] how much it’s been trumpeting the amount of successful U.S. investment here,” said one senior industry figure familiar with the government’s approach to U.S. nuclear investment, and granted anonymity to speak candidly. They added: “It’s something that No. 10 is very, very keen on,”  

Art of the deal  

Starmer’s pursuit of climate-friendly policies consistently threatens to drive a wedge between London and Washington. But the U.K. government used Trump’s state visit last September to announce a series of joint deals to build new nuclear.

This includes plans for British Gas owner Centrica and U.S. developer X-Energy to collaborate building 12 nuclear reactors in Hartlepool, north-east England, while Florida-headquartered Holtec has teamed up with EDF and Tritax to develop data centers powered by small modular reactors at an old coal power station in Cottam, in England’s midlands.  

Those firms will “ring up the Department of Energy, they’ll ring up [Trump’s Energy Secretary] Chris Wright … and be like: ‘This is good stuff … they put their money where their mouth is,’” said a second senior industry figure, familiar with talks involving U.S. developers and referencing Thursday’s announcement.

“You might not hear Trump talk about Hartlepool … but I think you would get some good sounds in the American administration,” they said.  

The U.K. government has been wooing Trump on nuclear ever since last summer. “Issues like nuclear cooperation are issues where we can work together with the U.S.,” Miliband said at the time, as an alternative to U.K. policies on fossil fuels and wind turbines, which the president openly derides. 

In his sites

Since then, Miliband has been opening up private routes to market for new nuclear, including reforms which relax siting rules so that new nukes, in theory, could be built anywhere in the country.  

He has also hinted at selling Oldbury, a plum U.K. site owned by arms-length body Great British Energy Nuclear — with space for up to five small modular reactors, or mini nuclear plants. 

Oldbury is “an absolutely prime site” for private firms to sweep in, he told MPs in February. “We have lots of companies from the U.S. working with U.K. companies on these other routes to market,” he said. 

Easing planning rules to build nuclear closer to urban centers could open up another site, Heysham in north-west England, to future development. That site is owned by French energy giant EDF but it, too, has been eyed for potential U.S. development. 

“If we have clear action, if the government were able to give clarity and certainty on Heysham, it certainly would be a site U.S. investors would look at,” the second industry figure said, citing technical advantages like its proximity to grid connections and local transport access.    

Warming up Warren and Whitehall

Any such moves could win over Stephens, the ambassador, who jumped on X last year to express his “extreme disappointment” when Miliband’s decision to build mini-nukes in north Wales deprived U.S. nuclear giant Westinghouse of the chance to build a full-size nuclear power plant on the same site. 

There are still hurdles to clear, insiders argued, whatever the political intent behind Friday’s decision. 

“The tricky thing with the Fingleton Review is not just the political acceptance of it, it’s the officials’ acceptance of it,” feared a third industry figure, citing supposed skepticism about nuclear among British civil servants.  

Ministers will have to ensure the plans are not “suffocated by officials,” they said, who could “just be slow, and delay and delay and delay.”  

Labour peer and long-standing nuclear advocate Jon Spellar was more optimistic. The bullish response from government to the Fingleton Review showed politicians have “made clear the direction” to Whitehall, and that fears of delay would be “much less of a problem now.”