We can list those people who expect to profit from the second coming of Donald Trump. They include the billionaire tech tycoons who were on conspicuous display at his inauguration, the oil companies who will be liberated to “drill, baby drill”, crypto-pushers and, um, Sir Ed Davey.
I don’t know whether you’ve clocked it, and I’m pretty certain that the target won’t have, but there’s been a flurry of Trump-hostile activity by the Lib Dems since he won the US election. Sir Ed describes the American’s return to the White Office as “a dark, dark day for people around the globe”, refers to him as a “dangerous, destructive demagogue” and greeted his oath-swearing as a “threat to peace and prosperity”.
Hardly novel thoughts from the Lib Dem leader, I know. Those remarks are almost polite compared with some of the vividly condemnatory language other British politicians have used. This is exactly the kind of thing that the foreign secretary, David Lammy, and other Labour ministers used to say about the president of the United States, and they did so in even riper terms, before they put a zipper on their authentic views because realpolitik demands that the Starmer government tries to get on terms with the Trump regime. Unburdened by the responsibilities of government and free of any obligation to try and make the relationship work, Sir Ed can say what he thinks. He is able to position himself as the voice of the Britons who are horrified by Trump redux.
Polling tells us that a great many Brits fall into that category and Sir Ed has reason to think that there will be advantage to be had from being a strong voice of anti-Trumpism. The better to project himself as a friend to “Britain’s fantastic farmers”, the Lib Dem leader used his slot at the most recent prime minister’s questions to demand that Sir Keir rule out any trade deal with the US that compromised food standards on these shores. It is a fair bet that Trump is going to be a topic at many future PMQs and often in ways that make life painful for the prime minister.
This is a taste of things to come – and it will be a bitter flavour in the mouths of Labour MPs. It is a very safe bet that the 47th president will regularly outrage centrist, leftist and liberal opinion in the UK. When he does so, there will be Sir Ed and a backing chorus of Lib Dem MPs clamouring their condemnation. They will be joined by the Greens and the independent left. Sir Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is already issuing warnings that western democracy is at risk from “resurgent fascism”. The next four years will be excruciatingly uncomfortable for Labour people whenever their representatives at Westminster are expected by their leadership to keep their opinions on mute in the name of not rubbing up the US president the wrong way.
We can add the name of Nigel Farage to the ledger of UK politicians who expect to gain leverage. To his pique, he didn’t get an invite to the inauguration and I ask you to get out your tiniest violin to mourn his falling out with Elon Musk. The leader of Reform was at one of the official balls in Washington and made the most of that proximity to the enthronement of the king of Maga. He will carry on trading on his friendship with the president and trying to gain traction from selling himself as a Trump whisperer. At the least, he will harvest even more media attention than he gets already.
“All the energy is around Trump,” sighs one Labour veteran and old friend of the prime minister. The British body politic is even more transfixed than usual with what is happening in America. The government has been intensively war-gaming how to handle the many areas of potential combustion with the White House, among them defence spending, tariffs and the Chagos islands. Regular outbreaks of destabilising, transatlantic turbulence are to be expected. Witness the chatter that the White House might refuse to accept Peter Mandelson as the next UK ambassador. That would be an extraordinary rebuff without precedent in modern history. British officials are keen to secure an invite to Washington for Sir Keir, but have to take care not to look frantic or needy about it.
Team Starmer will need to be braced for the concussive grenades that will be lobbed across the Atlantic, often in the middle of our night and sometimes when they will least expect it. While trying to navigate a notoriously capricious, thin-skinned and vindictive American leader, Sir Keir will also be walking a wobbly tightrope at home. Be mealy-mouthed about criticising the president for repugnant acts and the prime minister will be scorned from the left as craven. Be frank about differences and Sir Keir will be lambasted from the right for jeopardising Britain’s most important alliance. Talking about the Trump-Starmer relationship, one senior Tory remarks: “My party will say it is in the national interest that the relationship is good while doing our best to make it bad.”
For Tories of a certain bent, Trump’s return to the White House is inspirational. If he can come back despite everything, why not them? For hard rightists of the Reform variety or in the Conservative party, the lesson of his comeback is that they should borrow from his tactics to become more Trumpy themselves. It should also be said that I find there are people close to the prime minister who fret about the impact on the shape of British politics if Trump’s second term is seen to be a success. “What if it works?” one senior Labour figure worried to me recently.
At the same time, I also come across moderate Tories who see the significant peril for their party in being beguiled by Trumpery. He isn’t just a problem for Labour. He poses dilemmas and dangers for the Tories as well. Who was representing British Conservatism at the inauguration? The only Brit with a seat in the Rotunda was Boris Johnson, who is also, and more importantly, the only British prime minister to be forced out of the Commons for lying to it.
Liz Truss didn’t make the cut, but she turned up in Washington anyway to gurn for the cameras wearing a red Maga hat. Hers, you probably don’t need reminding, was such a calamitous reign that she became the shortest-serving British prime minister in the history of the office. The sight of this utterly discredited duo jostling for attention in DC was wince-making for any Conservative who hopes the voters can be induced to forget the rotten things they did with power when they last possessed it.
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It is likely to prove a mistake for Tories to think that a close association with Trumpism is a reliable path back to power here. He is very much a minority taste in the UK. At the end of his last four years in the White House, less than a sixth of British voters said they liked him. At the beginning of this presidency, one of his first acts has been to sign blanket pardons for those found guilty of involvement in the attack on the Capitol in January 2021. Do spokespeople for the Tories condone this or condemn it? Legitimising political violence, which included assaults on police officers, ought to be unconscionable for the Conservative party if it still claims to support the rule of law.
I am not convinced there are many votes to be had in Britain from being an apologist or cheerleader for Trumpism. He will be even less popular on these shores if, as is threatened, he pursues policies that harm the UK’s vital interests, such as undermining western security, or introducing punitive import tariffs and triggering a global trade war that inflicts damage on our economy.
Surveys suggest that Britons are more interested in strengthening links with our European neighbours than they are in having a closer alignment with America. A monster poll commissioned by Best for Britain reports that respondents saying the EU should be the government’s priority when it comes to trade outnumber by 2 to 1 those who think the focus should be on the US. Chew on that, Mr Farage. Take note, Sir Keir. Sentiment is likely to shift even further in the direction of Europe and away from the US if the Trump regime unleashes policies that are hostile to the UK’s well-being. One of the big winners from Trump 2.0 could be closer UK relations with Europe. What a lovely irony that would be.
English (US)