I have lost hope in a Labour government which appeases Donald Trump
Headlines which do not sell newspapers: Keir Starmer fights back.
The Labour party and I go back a long way, since I defaced a Tory election poster of Anthony Eden in 1955. I have witnessed all of its fightbacks, since Hugh Gaitskell’s in 1960. I had a role in one of the most important, in 1981. But Keir Starmer will have to fight back without me. His Conference speech was better than I expected (only one mangled metaphor) but gave me no arrows of desire for my bow of burning gold.
For over fifty years I have regularly told wavering Labour supporters (including myself) that any Labour government is worth clinging onto. I can no longer say this about Starmer’s. It is not only in thrall to Donald Trump but has actually helped him in American domestic politics.
Although this help has been marginal, I find it unforgiveable.
I expect Labour leaders to resist fascist leaders wherever they appear, rather than abet them. As a student of the Twenties and Thirties, I am very ready to apply this over-used term to Donald Trump.
Keir Starmer’s relationship with him betrays all of his victims at home and overseas and all the principled Americans trying to resist him, often at great personal risk. That relationship is not only unprincipled but unprofitable. Trump does not “do” gratitude only gratification. In a short space of time, Trump has done more harm to Britain than any predecessor. At best, Starmer has secured some temporary mitigation. However, there is no guarantee that Trump will honour any promise or deal - or even remember it.
Starmer is especially foolish to rely on any soft words from Trump about Britain, still less about himself. Trump’s followers, including his Vice-President, regularly present Britain as a failed state in need of Trumpian remedies. They incite and finance his would-be imitators in our country. Their open ambition is to wipe out Labour’s basic values across the world.
Starmer’s government has served Donald Trump in American domestic politics by a deliberate asymmetric policy.
Dissent from Donald Trump’s policies is whispered privately (if at all) and therefore withheld from American voters. Conversely, Trump and administration members have been regularly showered with public thanks, tributes and flattery, often in singularly inappropriate circumstances. The most eager exponent of this policy, Peter Mandelson, has been tardily dismissed but the asymmetric policy remains: public flattery, silent dissent. Starmer was forced off it over Palestine under pressure from within his party, making a gesture which will not free or feed a single Palestinian. He has not been pressured to abandon his basic posture towards Trump, even though the road to an independent Palestine runs through him. Instead, he is publicly grateful for whatever Trump proposes: a small enclave for the suffering Gazans with Tony Blair as its part-time viceroy.
David Lammy, the good fishing buddy and Christian companion of J D Vance, is no longer Foreign Secretary. However, in her Conference speech his successor, Yvette Cooper hailed the government’s relationship with the Trump administration as a foreign policy success.
In fairness, Wes Streeting has called out his opposite number and his master as a menace to human health, but they really left him with no choice.
Some days ago I was very rude about the Office of Deputy Leader of the Labour party. But Lucy Powell had the chance to make the contest as significant as the one I (mis)managed for Denis Healey in 1981. I urged her to use her new freedom on the backbenches to say what I hope she thinks of Donald Trump and urge the end of the asymmetric policy which assists him. She has replied so far with a barrage of bromides.
Above all, I expect nothing better from Andy Burnham, if he took over. His not-a-leadership bid has made no use of Trump as a “wedge” issue. He has said nothing important about Trump since early this year.
I see a Labour party drenched in attentism.
Somehow we’ll get through the next three years of Donald Trump. The same coterie under Starmer (although minus Mandelson) will continue to try to make them a little less painful by placating him, and ask the country to be grateful for their skill. It is hard to top the recent state visit, but perhaps next year Trump might be invited to give the Gracious Speech from the Throne. Both American and British politics will then slowly return to normal. It is not an inspiring rallying call to the nation: things could be even worse. In domestic politics, Starmer’s accommodating stance towards Trump robs the party of its best attack lines against Nigel Farage. Indeed, it provides an unanswerable case for putting Farage in power – Trump’s good buddy who actually believes in him.
Millions of people worldwide cannot afford to wait out three years of Donald Trump and there is no guarantee that he and his influence will disappear. He has no intention of being a passing phenomenon. The western world as we know it, and Labour’s role in it may disappear for ever. Certainly, every day in which he retains his dominance in American politics will worsen all the problems of our country, and shrink Labour’s financial resources and political capital to overcome them.
People seeking an outlet for resistance against Donald Trump now have to look for it outside the Labour party. I do not wish to take on the baggage of any other political party, old or new. I wonder if there are any openings in Led By Donkeys?
Richard Heller was chief of staff to Denis Healey from 1981 to 1983 and to Gerald Kaufman from 1985 to 1987. He has reported or analysed six Presidential elections for British media. He is also the author of The Prisoner of Rubato Towers.
