It was all going so well for Keir Starmer.
One prevarication has followed another, before time has been spent sitting on a fence, after which his instincts have cut in, and some far-right measure has grabbed his attention, followed by him watching his support ratings tank, yet again. But at least he thought (although no one agreed with him) that he had Donald Trump on side. Until 6.38 this morning, that was, when this landed on Truth Social, Trump's favoured social media platform:
I may be wrong, but I think even Starmer will have some problems getting the interpretation of this one wrong.
Trump does not like him.
Trump thinks he's a fool.
Trump thinks he lacks all judgement.
Trump says he must have Greenland as a result because with the likes of Starmer in Europe, then the US must control Greenland, or it will give them away.
Now, Chagos is complicated. Let';s not pretend otherwise. I think the UK has consistently got it wrong. I think, unsurprisingly, that Trump is wrong. But none of that matters much this morning. What matters is that Trump has proved three things.
First, there is no special relationship.
Second, he could not give a damn about the UK and what it thinks.
Third, he thinks Starmer is incompetent.
I happen to share that last view, but my reasoning differs somewhat from that Trump is using, and again, that does not matter. What matters is that Starmer cannot duck this: Trump is saying to Starmer he is not in the room to talk, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Whatever he might have liked to pretend until yesterday, Starmer can no longer suggest that talking will work, because it very clearly will not.
The questions are fourfold.
First, can Europe agree on what to do in the face of a threat? That seems like a big issue to me, not least because this is not the first crisis that will arise: Greenland is just the first domino in a sequence if it falls.
Second, will the pretence that we are allies with the US now come to an end, when we are so obviously not?
Third, will Starmer now describe Trump as what he is, which is a fascist, and then react accordingly?
Fourth, will the countermeasures begin, because they must?
And, I might add, why is Mike Johnson in parliament today? Isn't it time to stop pretending and get off the fence? It is, if you care.
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Trump has at least a couple of things to worry about on the domestic front.
First, he has not released all of the Epstein files. He is ignoring legislation passed by Congress, necessarily on a bipartisan basis. Will they continue to ignore that?
Second, there is a fair chance that the US Supreme Court will rule against his tariff policy this week, as it should because the constitution is clear about who controls taxes and trade.
If the legislative and/or judicial arms move against him, or even just try to block him, he will find things much more difficult.
Agreed.
The Supreme Court is meant to rule today.
I am assuming the fascists will prevail and that the rule of law in the US has been suspended.
Diego Garcia = Force projection.
One way to reduce the threat, UK takes back (control) one of the US bases in the UK (perhaps coordinates with Euro partners who do the same with a selected base in Europe). Make it clear to the USA, touch Diego Garcia and = no US military presence whatsoever in Europe. Doable. Could do it now. Should do it now. Greenland is +/- gone and the US has a fleet (at the moment) to cover Diego Garcia. These things will change.
Starmer, wrong man, wrong place, wrong time. He (& his penumbra of never-weres) has to go. As for Johnson, if the MPs had balls it would be rotten fruit time for this scum – pelt him with them.
I am inclined to agree.
Agreed.
The thing with the appeasement of extremists is that it just emboldens them – they’re already unhinged anyway by some belief or whatever or in this case just pure greed.
The gentleman from Louisiana looks to be from a long line of confederate thinking politicians who have no right to be at the centre of political power – not even as guests. All Johnson will do is think that God himself has rewarded him with a guest slot at the ‘mother of parliaments’. The feeling of superiority will emanate from him.
Really, this visit needs to be abandoned and if not I’d hope to see the commons rather empty.
The UK (and the EU) have their weapon at hand: the US debt! Cash it in or at least demonstrate in part. That will get Trump’s attention methinks!
(Apologies for my financial naivete Richard )
We discussed this yesterday.
There is no guarantee it will work. The US just uses QE to buy up the debt people want to sell and then what?
We must never forget this, and start to do something about it, urgently –
“The UK is wedded to UK tech – we need a divorce”. – John Naughton, the Observer last Sunday.
https://observer.co.uk/news/columnists/article/the-uk-is-wedded-to-us-tech-time-for-a-divorce
This is what “shoulder to shoulder” and “shared values” really mean in the UK’s “alliance” with Trump.
It means our “ally” accusing our PM of “WEAKNESS – & GREAT STUPIDITY”. It means being lectured to by fascist enabler US Speaker Johnson
What I am wondering is, Who will call this out? Which newspapers? Which broadcasters? Which party leaders (other than Polanski)?
Which of 400+ Labour MPs?
Is there ANY public humiliation and abuse which will provoke their resistance?
Starmer is now fascist Trump’s whipping boy, or worse, and while he remains PM, then he humiliates the whole United Kingdom.
Are there 80 Labour MPs ready to do the right thing?
Will it be costly?
Yes, opposing fascism has always been costly.
But it’s still the right thing.
Zack Polanski has already called out Trump for what he is in and article in the current New Statesman, reproduced in yesterday’s The National.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/01/trumps-threat-to-greenland-must-be-a-wake-up-call-for-britain
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25778222.uk-must-prepare-kick-us-troops-country-zack-polanski-says/
I a still waiting for a reference to it in the Guardian, but am not surprised they have neglected to cover it. Farage on the other hand, get plenty of coverage.
Very little I can diaagree with there.
Latest Guardian pod has a long interview with Polanski
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/politics-weekly-uk/id136697472
Good
All of Starmer’s actions since being elected have been very short term. Even after this very direct and personal attack on him from Trump, I can’t see his behaviour changing. I could see Trump snubbing Starmer in Davos (if Starmer goes to Davos) and Trump could highlight a meeting with Farage to twist the knife even deeper into Starmer. After all the USA NSS states that USA should support introduction or right wing governments.
One recent blog dealt with UK Treasuries. It would seem that somebody is “getting off the fence” on this one. Reported by Bloomberg:
“Danish pension fund AkademikerPension is planning to exit US Treasuries by the end of the month.”
Watch as more follow.
Interesting – the trade war is happening.
I think many more will start dumping US bonds. If China wanted to stick the knife in it would be very easy for them to do the same.
Who is going to buy them, at heavily discounted prices, which is all they are going to get? The US state might. Who else? Because, remember dumping US bonds means there must be buyers of them.
Even assuming, for some reason, the Fed decided not to intervene at a sufficient level, any kind of coordinated sell off would not be easy and most US debt is not foreign owned.
though “Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries hit record ​highs in November, rising after two straight months of declines as market sentiment improved ‌after the U.S. federal government ended the longest-ever shutdown in history.”
“Japan remained the biggest non-U.S. holder of Treasuries with $1.202 trillion in ‍November,”…”The UK, the second-largest owner of Treasuries, also raised its holdings” – “The UK is widely seen as a major custody hub, often serving as a proxy for hedge ‍fund investment flows.”
“Canada also boosted ‌its holdings ‌by 13%” In contrast, “China’s stash of U.S. government debt fell – Its holdings have declined by more than 10% since the beginning of 2025.” – Reuters
“These stocks and bonds are actually overwhelmingly held by the private sector: thousands of insurance companies, pension plans, banks and other institutional investors, and millions of ordinary people. Some of the money is held on behalf of investors elsewhere in the world. For example, much of Belgium’s holdings are actually in Euroclear.” – FT (Jan 19)
China has been doing a fairly big sell-off in 2015 and before but the US is not exactly quaking in its boots as a result. It would require a large number of separate entities in the holding countries to join in and they’d be making losses on their sales as secondary market price fell – every seller requires a buyer and if the sell-off were to work they would get increasingly fewer and then what do the sellers do with the dollars they acquire from their sales.
“While the US’s large current account deficit suggests that in theory there is the potential for the USD to drop should international savers stage a mass retreat from US assets, the sheer size of US capital markets suggests that such an exit may not be feasible given the limitations of alternative markets.” Rabobank’s analysts quoted by FT (19th Jan)
Thanks
Seems to a doom loop you are describing where everything is frozen where no one can do anything. I hope this not the case or we are all doomed.
90+ years ago we had a choice. A treaty with Hitler, the Duke of Windsor as King, Joseph Kennedy staying on as US Ambassador to the Court of St James, and Oswald Moseley? as puppet PM, with Lord Haw Haw reading the BBC Reich news on Home Service and Nancy Astor in government (for a while) and Lord Rothermere publishing The Reich Daily Mail.
Possibly still get invaded anyway. Fascist rule for ??? Years? Concentration camps on Isle of Man, Channel Isles, Shetland, & Orkney. Gas chambers for Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Socialists, disabled, gays, and those with special needs.
Or, oppose Hitler, go to war, without reliable allies, get invaded if Luftwaffe beat the Royal Air Force in Battle of Britain (they very nearly did).
For consequences, see above & history of Channel Islands.
Or, oppose Hitler, go to war, NOT get invaded (RAF beat Luftwaffe) and have 6 years of incredibly bloody conflict, but with help from Commonwealth and USA, with horrible losses and lasting trauma of body and mind, and at the end, get rid of Hitler, start the Cold War, borow massively from USA under Marshall plan, rebuild Gt. Britain & NI, with decent housing and an NHS, and a general agreement that the price had been horribly high, mistakes had been made, but the UK and Western Europe were a better place to live (for at least 40 years until Thatcher came along, – and yes, plenty of mistakes continued to be made 1945-80).
Lesson – “doing the right thing” is costly, risky, very painful and uncertain.
Doing the “wrong” thing is more costly, more risky, more painful but less uncertain, because you KNOW the bad guys will win.
It’s never right, to do the wrong thing.
We are currently doing the wrong thing.
My wife and I often discuss the choice German Christians had to make between the “DeutscheKristen” Nazi-version of Christianity wihin the state church, or the “Confessing Church” who chose to follow Jesus rather than Hitler, and often died for it.
What would WE have done?
Which road would WE have chosen?
We will never know what we WOULD have chosen. That’s in the past.
But as C.S. Lewis points out in his Narnia children’s books, you CAN know what WILL happen, if you do the right thing NOW.
How?
By DOING the RIGHT thing NOW.
Much to agree with.
RobertJ, I agree with most of that, but I think we should also mention the enormous contribution that the USSR made – and the huge price that their peoples paid in blood – to bring the victory of the Allies in 1945 (after their own earlier misguided attempt to do a deal with the devil by dividing Poland). We don’t look with particularly friendly eyes towards Russia right now for good reason, and we should not to overlook the many bad things that they and their leaders did then and have done since, but I doubt the UK and the US would have defeated Germany in 1945 – and perhaps not at all – if the Germans had not been fighting so hard in the east too. We were allies for most of both world wars.
On another tack, I wonder what the “right thing” is for Chinese Christians to do today – to conform with the state approved church, or to dissent. (The Uighurs don’t even get that choice.) What was the “right thing” for “Kirishitan” Japanese believers in the Edo Period. Is it better to have died as a martyr in the arena, or instead do what you have to do to survive with as much dignity and morality as you can? I’m not sure there is a right answer.
Agreed re Russia.
And the moral dilemmas – always a personal question.
@Andrew,
agreed, about Russia’s huge sacrifice later in WW2, but in the beginning, the time of UK decision, they were allied with Germany. (and 400 words limited me!)
Re. Russia (Putin excluded) I acknowledge the geopolitics of their borders and problematic NATO expansionism in the 90s onwards, I think we demonise them unfairly and did them no favours in 1989. But Putin is evil. Corbyn knew it in 2014 but Tony Blair wanted his help to kill Muslims…
Re: Chinese Christians & the Three Self Patriotic Movement cf. underground housechurches – I don’t feel there is a clear parallel with Nazi Germany – Xi has his moral weak points, not least Uighurs, but how many countries has he invaded and how many wars has he started? China has a credible historic territorial claim to Taiwan/Formosa and USA has very much moved into China’s back yard whenever it gets the chance.
Christian freedoms in China depend very much on local issues (local issues have been important through history, right back to Roman era as in many countries today – Nigeria, Pakistan & in MENA )…
I have heard speakers with a diplomatic background give credible testimony of local CCP officials having no problem with Christians in their teams, liking their honesty and freedom from corruption as long as they kept quiet about their faith.
There’s always a “simple” “geopolitical rivalry” story, which needs comparing with the more nuanced reality on the ground. There is much real persecution, but there is also a geopolitical version from both sides, which I never take at face value.
Some suggest a majority Christian population in China by 2050, others that it levelled off at around 2% at end of 20th C – others suggest 9%. But it is the largest Christian national group globally and has been in China since Tang dynasty in 7th C.
Final factoid – the fastest growing Christian church globally? Iran, currently thought to be about 1m. Only non-Farsi speaking churches are legal, and Farsi bibles are banned. Current geopolitics makes that another v complicated story on the ground.
Thanks for commenting.
Thanks.
Starmer is our Chamberlain.
And I’m not convinced he has the guts to change,
What we’re watching now has all the hallmarks of an administration that knows its window for unilateral action is closing. Trump faces the prospect of losing the ability to drive policy after the mid‑terms, and so his instinct is to accelerate everything — push harder, move faster, force through as much as possible before the clock runs out. That urgency can easily spill over into recklessness, because the calculation becomes “now or never”.
And that’s what makes this moment so dangerous. Decisions that would normally be subject to debate, diplomacy or restraint are suddenly being treated as items on a countdown list. The panic isn’t just visible in the pace of announcements; it’s visible in the tone, the lashing out, the need to demonstrate dominance before the opportunity evaporates.
The tragedy is that this frantic push doesn’t strengthen anyone’s position. It destabilises alliances, undermines institutions, and leaves the rest of the world dealing with the fallout. If anything, it reinforces the point Richard is making: when someone is acting from fear of losing power, not from a stable mandate, the responsible response from others is clarity, unity and a refusal to be dragged into the chaos.