Donald Trump has already set out his Christmas shopping list and New Year’s Resolution and it can be summed up in two words: sellout and betrayal. Not just the betrayal of Ukraine in favour of Putin, but also a betrayal of Europe generally.
You didn’t need to be a body language expert to analyse the grim faces of President Zelensky, Prime Minister Starmer, President Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as they posed for the cameras outside Number 10 on Monday pledging continuing support for Ukraine. But only Merz plucked up the courage to imply Trump’s latest ‘peace deal’ demands amount to a betrayal.
The Guardian front page headline next morning wasn’t wrong with: ‘A critical moment: European leaders rally behind Ukraine’. The leaders all agreed we are at that ‘critical moment’ in the Ukraine war story and you could argue we’ve seen similar headlines to the Guardian’s so many times before. But this time, it really does feel more dangerously critical than ever.
Why? Because President Trump really does seem to have finally run out of patience and chosen the season of peace and goodwill to turn up the heat on both Zelensky and America’s traditional European allies.
A collective chill ran down the spines of Europe’s leaders with Tuesday evening’s release of a headline-grabbing, ranting interview Trump had given to the leading US political website Politico. In it, the president strongly hinted at walking away from supporting Ukraine unless it quickly accepted his Putin-friendly peace deal, demanding Zelensky “played ball” because Moscow has the “upper hand” in the conflict. He accused the Ukrainian leader of “clinging to power” without acknowledging the constitutional and practical problems involved in holding an election in the middle of a war.
Trump branded Europe and its leaders as “weak” and “stupid” and the continent as “decaying” and “destroying itself through immigration”. It heavily reflected the ’great replacement’ conspiracy theory of the far right.
He also revived his feud with London Mayor Sadiq Khan who he called “incompetent, horrible, vicious and disgusting”. While, according to Trump’s vision, immigration is wrecking the once great cities of London and Paris.
Not much season of goodwill spirit there, then, or repeat of all those gushing tributes to Britain during his state visit hosted by King Charles. And, according to a Financial Times report, the US president wants Zelensky to accept his peace deal demands with a Christmas deadline.
Times columnist Lord Danny Finkelstein wasn’t wrong on Wednesday warning Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda “jeopardises 80 years of the liberal world order”. Not to mention risking ripping apart the NATO alliance, much to Putin’s satisfaction.
The Guardian claimed an exclusive, reporting that Keir Starmer’s controversial reaction is to urge fellow European leaders to ‘curb’ and modernise the European Convention on Human Rights to counter the rise of the continent’s far right. That duly sparked protests from human rights groups and others who argued it would equate to a victory for the Far Right instead. But the prime minister is determined to argue the case for reforming the ECHR at a series of upcoming meetings with European allies. He won’t, however, join Tory, Reform UK and right-wing media calls for a complete UK withdrawal. Beware a British withdrawal would be something else welcomed in both the White House and the Kremlin.
Walking the tightrope
Even before Trump’s explosive interview, European leaders privately acknowledged they are walking a tightrope between not offending the US president while defending Ukraine’s sovereignty and reluctance to surrender territory to the Russian invaders. The Europeans are acutely aware that should Trump’s anger extend to refusing to supply Ukraine with intelligence or continue to sell Europe weaponry to pass on to Ukraine then Zelensky would be in a desperate, doomed position. Simply because European allies don’t have the production capacity to compensate for the loss of US support.
Zelensky, meanwhile, is counting on a crucial European Council meeting on December 18th which could decide on the divisive issue whether to supply Ukraine with some of the 300bn euros in frozen Russian assets held since Putin’s illegal invasion. Tuesday’s Times led page one with Keir Starmer’s hope that up to £100bn could be released, although some European nations, particularly Belgium, are yet to be convinced it wouldn’t trigger a serious Kremlin retaliation.
Arguably, the majority of UK newspapers haven’t given their readers detailed enough coverage of Trump’s new national security strategy, released last Friday. It coincided with Trump’s previous attack on Zelensky – falsely accusing him of not reading the US peace plan, falsely claiming the Ukrainian people ‘love it’ while praising Putin’s apparent enthusiasm for it.
A sinister strategy document?
The 33-page national security strategy is certainly a chilling document for anyone who doesn’t view the world through The Donald’s lens and share his philosophy that politics and diplomacy are essentially an extension of the real estate business.
The headline on Observer International Editor Steve Bloomfield’s column last Sunday captured the zeitgeist, as envisaged by POTUS and his team, not least VP JD Vance: ‘Trump crowns himself world king… but kindly lets Russia and China rule their fiefdoms’.
Bloomfield argued: “The strategy outlines in great detail the new world order: the western hemisphere belongs to the US; it must intervene to prevent Europe’s ‘civilisational erasure’. Democracy and human rights will not be promoted anywhere. In the meantime, there is no word of criticism of either Russia or China.
“The strategy criticises Europe’s migration policies, its censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition … and loss of national identities. It claims that certain NATO members will become majority non-European – that is, non-white – within a few decades. The great replacement theory has jumped from far-right fringe to US government policy. The Ukraine conflict is no longer in US eyes, an unprovoked war of aggression carried out by Vladimir Putin. It is, instead, a regional issue that needs to be mediated. The United States role is simply to manage European relations with Russia … and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states. Again, note that it doesn’t say, ‘to prevent Russia invading another European nation’.”
Even allowing for the fact neither Bloomfield nor The Observer are exactly Trump cheerleaders, it isn’t difficult to share their alarm. (The Observer’s main leader the same day was headlined, ‘Putin is laughing at Europe’… arguing he could afford to, given the US president’s obliging strategy.)
In praise of the far-right
For millions of us across Europe, the strategy document is loaded with glowing references to the ‘growing influence of patriotic European parties’ – in other words, the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Taken at face value, the strategy document suggests that, under Trump, official US policy is to interfere in European elections to boost the far-right. How else to interpret the words: ‘The US will prioritise cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations’?
Excuse me, but doesn’t that smack of the colonial dictator playbook?
The clear signs that Trump is heading for a betrayal of Zelensky and the majority of the Ukrainian people poses problems not just for Keir Starmer and our European allies, but for cross-party politicians in the UK and British newspapers right and left leaning. Unity has been the password when it came to supporting Ukraine, so what do they do if, as seems increasingly likely, Trump can’t be dissuaded from selling it out to Putin?
Only LibDem leader Ed Davey raised Trump’s vitriolic comments on Ukraine and Europe at PMQs on Wednesday, challenging Keir Starmer to condemn them. It was a challenge the prime minister ducked feebly, such is his fear of offending the short fuse figure in the White House.
What do you say now, Boris?
Where will it leave, for example, the Mail titles, with their fierce support for Ukraine, loud condemnation of Putin’s invasion, albeit with their support for Trump’s election victory. Where, especially, would it leave star columnist and former prime minister Boris Johnson whose fiercely unfailing support for ‘hero’ Zelensky and Ukraine’s cause was all too often linked to naïvely confident predictions that Trump, whose return to the White House he gushed over, would never fail Ukraine in favour of Putin?
Even Nigel Farage has been noticeably subdued over recent developments, despite the implied support for Reform UK in the US national security strategy document. As this column has noted before, some Reform strategists remain wary that Farage’s close personal ties to Trump and past history of lauding Putin (before belatedly condemning the Ukraine invasion) could yet prove the landmine in their march toward Downing Street. As one put it to me privately: “Having President Trump publicly urge the British people to vote for us at election time could be more curse than blessing.”
The risk would be all the greater in the event of a Trump betrayal of Ukraine to Putin which would only turbocharge the UK public’s existing dislike of the US president. There’s little doubt it’s a potential attack strategy opposition party planners are working on to target Farage with, both at next May’s Welsh, Scottish and local English elections and the next general election whenever it comes.
Returning to Monday’s photo call of leaders after that Number 10 summit on Ukraine, Keir Starmer’s face was almost as grim and harassed as Zelenky’s. With good reason, perhaps.
By cruel coincidence, the front page Times scoop by its well-connected political commentator Patrick Maguire exposed the latest blow to his leadership. The extraordinary headline story: ‘Labour group that helped PM to power starts hunt for successor’.
Just what Sir Keir didn’t want for Christmas…
The opening paras wouldn’t have helped the PM digest his breakfast: “The influential think tank that ran Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign is canvassing party members on candidates to replace him. In the clearest sign yet that the Labour party is preparing for a change of prime minister, Labour Together, the campaign group once run by Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, this weekend asked activists for their views on contenders for the leadership.”
The Times had got advance hold of a survey going out to local Labour parties, prompting members to name the politicians who stood “the best chance of leading Labour to election victory at the next general election” compared to Starmer himself.
It then listed eight senior Labour figures, five cabinet members in Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood, Bridget Phillipson, Ed Miliband, Darren Jones, and three from outside the cabinet, former deputy PM Angla Rayner, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and recently-elected deputy party leader and ex-cabinet member, Lucy Powell.
Responders to the remarkable online survey, which invited them to place the nominated figures on a left / right scale and on PM / Deputy PM partnership potential, were offered a place in a 500 quid prize draw for participating!
Talking tough for The Observer
The Times revelation contrasted dramatically with the previous day’s Observer front page featuring an arty black and white image of Starmer with a clenched fist and the headline ‘Gloves Off’. The front page bullet points featured him defiantly declaring:
- The Greens are nuts.
- Reform is tearing us apart.
- Rayner’s coming back.
- I love the job.
Inside, in a long interview with political commentator Rachel Sylvester, the PM paid a glowing tribute to Angela Rayner and how a cabinet comeback would be great news for the party.
Whether he felt quite so charitable toward her by Monday evening is another matter.
‘Ambitious’ Angela comes out fighting
Rayner, still very much the choice of Labour’s left to replace him, picked Monday of all days to deliver her first Commons speech since she was forced to resign in the underpaid stamp duty furore. It was a spirited defence of her controversial workers’ rights bill and a stern warning against the government making further concessions under pressure from the House of Lords.
The headline on Sky News political reporter Jon Craig’s website article wasn’t wrong with, ‘Angela Rayner just showed Labour MPs what they’re missing’.
Craig wrote: “The former deputy prime minister delighted Labour backbenchers with a powerful Commons speech defending her workers’ rights legislation. With the House of Lords locked in a battle of parliamentary ‘ping pong’ with MPs, she told ministers: ‘Now is not the time to blink or buckle’.
“Her very public intervention came amid claims that her next move has the Labour party on tenterhooks and that she’s the favourite to succeed Sir Keir if she wants the job. Her speech, delivered from notes and clearly meticulously prepared, appeared to send a message to Labour MPs: I’m here to make a comeback”, concluded Craig. My own sources certainly weren’t arguing with that interpretation.
It’s also worth noting that allies of Rayner have gone out of their way to deny a Financial Times story suggesting Wes Streeting’s camp have approached her about running on a right/left joint ticket to take down the PM if next May’s elections prove as disastrous as the polls currently predict.
Not Nigel’s best week either…
But Keir Starmer and President Zelensky aren’t the only two leaders having a bad week or two, both politically and in the media cauldron. Step forward Nigel Farage, who is having the roughest time personally since Reform UK’s spectacular soaraway surge to the top of the polls and his position as the bookies’ favourite to become PM.
The Guardian’s allegations of racist, anti-semitic behaviour in his Dulwich College schooldays are refusing to go away, with 28 witnesses making claims and the story gaining increasing coverage across the wider media.
If nothing else, it has exposed the normally-savvy Farage has a thinner skin than most people thought. Not helped by Reform UK’s contradictory policy of varying between total denial, accusing his accusers of being political troublemakers, and that possible schoolboy banter of almost half a century ago and in a different climate aren’t relevant in judging his fitness to become prime minister today.
Farage’s mood wasn’t helped when he – rightly – had to revoke the party membership of Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire County Council, one of the flagship local authorities Reform won in May’s local election surge.
Cooper, a former Reform parliamentary candidate and ally of Farage, was shown to have racially abused London Mayor Sadiq Khan online, calling him a “narcissistic Pakistani” and saying migrants are “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”.
Of Justice Secretary David Lammy, born in Tottenham, Cooper wrote: “No foreign national or first generation migrant should be allowed to sit in parliament.”
Turning to the British-born lawyer and women’s rights activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, he called her “Dr Shaga Bing-Bong” and suggested it was “time she fucked off back to Nigeria. She’d feel more at home there.”
The Cooper affair followed on the heels of two suspensions of Reform UK politicians. Laura Jones, the party’s sole member of the Welsh Senedd, used a ‘racial slur’ in a discussion about China, while Lancashire councillor Tom Pickup has been suspended for calling Keir Starmer a “dicktaker” in a WhatsApp group post where members called for “mass Islam genocide”.
Farage versus whistleblower
Now Farage has found himself facing a police probe over a claim his Clacton election campaign broke electoral spending law in 2024. It follows a front page exclusive by the normally pro-Farage Daily Telegraph, quoting former campaign aide-turned-whistleblower Richard Everett. He alleges Reform failed to declare spending on Farage’s campaign leaflets, banners, utility bills, refurbishing a bar in his campaign base and the use of an armoured Land Rover – all of which would be subject to election law declaration. Reform strongly rejects any wrongdoing and has branded Everett a “disgruntled councillor”.
All this with the party still recovering from Nathan Gill – its former Welsh leader and close Farage ally from their MEP days together – being jailed for ten years for taking Russian bribes.
While the ongoing Dulwich College ‘race’ issue triggered an extraordinary press conference row last week with the BBC and Farage threatening to “boycott” the corporation. (Something that would delight the LibDems who have launched an Ofcom complaint accusing the BBC of giving Farage and his party ‘disproportionate’ airtime!)
It ain’t half satire, Nigel
At the press conference flare-up Farage had rounded on the BBC for “double standards”, arguing much of its 70s and 80s output would be considered “racist, sexist and homophobic by today’s standards” and calling on them to apologise for shows like ‘Til Death Us Do Part’ and ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’.
It certainly won the approval of the increasingly Farage simpatico and BBC hostile Daily Mail whose December 5th splash headline screamed ‘Farage’s ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ attack on BBC double standards… Reform UK leader turns tables on broadcaster over 1970s shows after it accuses him of schoolboy racism’.
Maybe people are missing the point that Alf Garnett’s creator Johnny Speight was a lifelong Marxist who saw him as the satirical embodiment of the bigotry he personally despised?
A very familiar playbook?
Predictably enough, the Guardian took the opposite tack to the Mail over the Farage / BBC bust up, with Media Editor Michael Savage arguing, “The response to racism claims is straight out of the Trump playbook… when Nigel Farage angrily denounced the BBC and insulted one of its presenters for raising questions about his alleged schoolboy racism, those who have been studying the tactics of the right noted that his behaviour felt familiar.”
Savage went on to quote Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University, saying: “The Trump playbook? That’s exactly what’s going on with Farage, becoming his new modus operandi, turning defence into attack. It’s exactly the tactics the White House press secretary uses. There are a lot of journalists in this country who just aren’t used to it.”
As the political / media climate in Britain gets hotter and hotter, the Trump style playbook won’t be closing in the foreseeable future, so our journalists certainly will have to get used to it on an unprecedented electoral scale. Whether we and the public think that’s good or bad news for democracy is the Big Question.
