The mood of Keir Starmer’s foreign policy advisers was funereal as they contemplated the return of Donald Trump. The weeks since Trump’s inauguration have shown that the government doesn’t know what to do with an American president who is hostile, capricious and, let’s face it, more than a little mad, except humour him as one might humour a screaming toddler.
Labour cannot attack Farage’s Trump worship for fear of alienating Washington
Who knows? Maybe that will work. Maybe all Starmer needs to do is flatter Trump, toss in a visit to Buckingham Palace and a banquet with the King, and the rheumy Eye of Sauron will move away from Britain and on to its next target. For, as things stand, there is no diplomatic strategy beyond hoping for the best.
The journalist’s cliché about living in “unprecedented” times is accurate for once. Since the Suez crisis of 1956, no UK government has seriously contemplated how it would manage in the world without the American alliance. Even the Suez crisis – when president Eisenhower turned on the UK, France and Israel for launching a war against Egypt – doesn’t provide a real precedent.
That crisis was over in months. The French were disgusted with America’s perceived betrayal and resolved to break with the US. The British reaction was the exact opposite. The UK vowed to stick with the American alliance come what may, and never again find itself in conflict with the US.
Eisenhower welcomed Britain back. Officials in his administration didn’t abuse Harold Macmillan as Elon Musk, Trump’s close ally, has already insulted Keir Starmer. Eisenhower didn’t threaten the territory of US allies, as Trump has threatened Canada and Denmark. A hostile US appeared to be an unimaginable prospect.
Now the unimaginable is all-too conceivable. France developed an independent nuclear deterrent after Suez. But our Trident programme cannot be described as independent of US control when the maintenance, design, and testing of the UK’s submarines depend on Washington, and the nuclear missiles aboard them are leased. Our intelligence services would be poor things without US support.
Given this brute reality, all the Labour government can do therefore is grovel before a Trump administration it would otherwise condemn as “far right”.
Strangely, given their political differences, Starmer risks falling into the same trap as Nigel Farage, who seems incapable of grasping that the UK is not the US.
Reform’s high opinion ratings and the euphoria on the radical right at Trump’s victory are temporarily masking the recklessness of Farage’s foreign alliances.
Trump is an American nationalist who puts America first, not Britain. Whether Trump truly defends American interests is a question for another day. But it is clear that Farage, and much of the Tory right, are failing to defend Britain. They claim to be patriots and display nothing but scorn for the supposedly globalist liberal-left. Yet they are leaving themselves wide open to the charge that they are acting as Trump’s poodles. Farage and his allies are openly infatuated with the Trump personality cult.
‘We are beginning to see a wave that is crossing the Atlantic from the east coast of America,’ Farage cried at a rally in Essex on Saturday. Donald Trump had ‘got off to the most amazing start…even people who don’t like him say “You know what, he gets things done”.’
Large sections of the British public will soon think it shameful for a British political leader to abase himself before a foreign leader.
You might think that Labour would be helping highlight Farage’s weaknesses. Despite the threat that Reform poses to Labour MPs, however, Labour cannot attack Farage’s Trump worship for fear of alienating Washington. The need to protect what’s left of the ‘special relationship’ comes before all else.
But Labour’s difficulties do not mean that others will bite their tongues. Do not forget how Trump alienates people across the UK: from the woke left, through traditional conservatives, to everyone with enough common decency to oppose yobs, bullies, loudmouths, and grifters.
The Lib Dems, Greens, and nationalists can all be openly anti-Trump parties and seek to peel away Labour voters by exploiting the government’s weakness.
Labour’s difficulties do not mean that others will bite their tongues
Earlier this week, the Lib Dems offered a preview of future politics. Trump was toying with the idea of annexing Canada – and illustrating as he did the collapse of American politics into banana republic decadence.
“What I’d like to see – Canada become our 51st state,” he said, when asked what concessions Canada could offer to stave off US tariffs.
Canada is a member of the Commonwealth and Charles III is its king. Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asked Starmer: Why weren’t we supporting our ally when it was under attack from the loutish leader of a hostile foreign power?
“Trump’s tariffs on our Commonwealth partner are a shocking way to treat a country that stood alongside both the US and the UK during the Second World War,” Davey said as he appealed to a patriotism Nigel Farage seems unable to comprehend.
Davey wanted Starmer to organise a joint Commonwealth response. Starmer would do nothing of the sort, of course, for fear of the consequences. But Davey’s intervention showed how dangerous being seen as an American poodle could soon become in British politics.
MAGA is motivated by a deep distrust of America’s allies rather than of America’s enemies. In Trump’s mind we have ripped America off and taken its friendship for granted. In these circumstances, nothing can be ruled out.
Davey made an excellent point when he continued: “The British government can’t just sit back and hope Trump won’t hit us with tariffs directly. He’s proven time and again how unpredictable he is.”
If Trump were to come for us, it’s possible to see the British following the French example and developing a patriotism based on opposition to America – and leaving Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer in the dust.
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