Daybreak had barely damaged, and nor had Kamala Harris publicly conceded, when Keir Starmer tweeted his congratulations to the not-quite-officially President-elect Donald Trump.
Britain would, he stated, stand “shoulder to shoulder” with its outdated ally, because it at all times does. Although he acquired the early alternative he needed to congratulate the brand new president-elect much more fulsomely down the cellphone, these phrases could have been gut-wrenching for many individuals. How can or not it’s enterprise as typical, with a president whose personal former chief of employees stated he met the definition of a fascist? What on earth makes Starmer suppose he can affect Trump for the higher, the standard rationale for partaking with unsavoury leaders, the place Trump’s personal advisers repeatedly failed? The one individuals he ever actually heeded, the British-born former White Home adviser Fiona Hill as soon as informed one in every of Theresa Could’s aides, had been the now late Queen and the pope.
Starmer’s apparent reply, after all, is that it will be an act of breathtaking negligence to not even hassle attempting; that he can’t be squeamish when there are staff afraid of shedding their jobs in a commerce warfare, Ukrainians dying underneath Russian bombardment, and future generations who would pay a horrible value for the US reneging on its local weather commitments. The much less apparent one, nonetheless, is that if he can’t get Trump’s ear then Trump will get his scorching takes on the British nationwide curiosity elsewhere. Starmer might have gotten that cellphone name, but it surely was Nigel Farage who spent election night time on the Trump victory get together in Mar-a-Lago.
Although this isn’t the end result a Labour authorities needed, it’s the one it has war-gamed hardest. The appeal offensive started months earlier than Starmer and Trump’s comparatively cordial dinner in September, with the international secretary, David Lammy, making surprisingly deep inroads in Republican circles for a person who as soon as referred to as Trump a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sociopath. However as Lammy’s allies level out, JD Vance as soon as referred to as Trump an fool who is likely to be the US’s Hitler, which didn’t cease Trump selecting Vance as a operating mate. The president-elect is each intensely transactional – if something, he might even see British desperation to make up misplaced floor with him as helpful – and wildly unpredictable, a mix providing each alternative and risk.
The lesson Downing Road takes from finding out Trump is actually the one many Republican voters do: that he says a variety of wild stuff however doesn’t at all times imply it, and if he does he typically unexpectedly modifications his thoughts. Already there are hints he would possibly give Ukraine extra time to win its warfare, if solely as a result of he hates being related to shedding, whereas senior Republicans are signalling that “friendly” nations might escape his threatened commerce tariffs – a crude sign that there will likely be rewards for compliance.
However there’ll absolutely even be a value: Starmer might simply discover himself pushed to select a facet in commerce negotiations between the US and Brussels, simply as he’s attempting to fix fences with Europe. What if a British authorities that has staked every part on financial development finds its enterprise pursuits pulling a method, and its shared curiosity within the defence of Europe towards Russian aggression pulling the opposite? On the very least, these finances forecasts – and the cash put aside for further defence spending – might properly quickly want revisiting.
In her memoirs, Theresa Could describes the acute anxiousness of standing beside then president Trump at a press convention the place he was purported to ship a essential sign to Russia by stressing his dedication to Nato, not figuring out whether or not he’d truly say it till he opened his mouth. However at the least she might plan for that situation prematurely: more durable to cope with was Trump’s tendency to blindside Britain with issues no person noticed coming. For her, that meant Trump pulling troops out of Iraq and Syria with out warning or concern for British forces preventing alongside them, lobbying her to deliver Farage into cupboard, and casually retweeting incendiary social media posts by the British far proper. This time, he received’t simply be browsing X when he’s bored however actively integrating its proprietor, Elon Musk – who’s already recurrently kicking lumps out of Starmer, most lately over slicing inheritance tax aid for farmers – into his administration.
The Southport riots, throughout which Musk tweeted that “civil war is inevitable” and promoted conspiracy theories about white protesters being extra harshly handled than ethnic minority ones, satisfied many Labour MPs that hate and disinformation on-line have to be tackled. However how courageous are ministers ready to be if which means a direct hit on somebody in Trump’s interior circle?
Labour MPs in seats the place Reform got here second in July are, in the meantime, now visibly rattled, and newly scared of handing Farage additional sticks to beat them with. Although Starmer discovered his personal lesson concerning the salience of immigration or the dangers of alienating white working-class voters method again in 2019, Harris’s defeat is just more likely to underline that message for him.
There’s no denying that for progressives, the world now appears to be like lonelier than it did; that the selection the US has made could have penalties smaller international locations can solely achieve this a lot to include. However that doesn’t imply Britain can afford to take a seat the approaching battles out, assuming another person will do the soiled work. Starmer’s job now’s to drag no matter levers he can attain, in alliance with whoever he can persuade to affix him; ours, in the meantime, is rarely to surrender hope.
