Donald Trump’s decision overnight to pause US military aid to Ukraine has sent politicians across the world into a tailspin. Here in the UK, political leaders are still grappling with the fallout from Friday’s disastrous meeting between the US president and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. Keir Starmer has pitched himself as a ‘bridge’ between the two sides but the decision to halt aid, along with an escalating war of words, highlights the limits of his role. Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch has a fight on her hands controlling her MPs as there appear to be a series of mixed messages coming from her shadow cabinet and party on Trump and Ukraine.
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The Tory leader has today ordered her Chief Whip Rebecca Harris to warn Tory MPs against taking to social media to air their thoughts on the conflict. In a message sent to all Conservative MPs, she warns that ‘we do not need to tweet all of our thoughts in real time’:
We understand that there are many concerns about the unfolding events around Ukraine and US involvement. We do not need to tweet all of our thoughts in real time. When it comes to defence and national security, we need to raise the threshold for what needs to be said publicly and ensure the facts are clear first.
The ticking off comes after a number of MPs have failed to toe the line. Following Friday’s fracas, Alicia Kearns, shadow home affairs minister, suggested to the Mail on Sunday that Starmer ought to cancel or delay the US president’s upcoming state visit on the grounds that ‘state visits should be conferred to the most honourable of allies, not to curry favour’. This led to the leader of the opposition’s office making clear this was not the party line. The issue also came up at shadow cabinet.
Today the former minister Graham Stuart took to X to declare: ‘We have to consider the possibility that President Trump is a Russian asset. If so, Trump’s acquisition is the crowning achievement of Putin’s FSB career – and Europe is on its own’. The comment clearly triggered Badenoch into acting, but some Tories long in the tooth have been quick to complain that Badenoch was rather outspoken as a backbencher and minister – often taking to social media herself to put her version of events out in the face of media stories she took issue with.
Having now made her unhappiness with MPs public, the question is whether they will do as told and fall into line.
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