Will Trump do for Farage? On Friday, Donald Trump launched a wholly unjustified attack on the British armed forces and their contribution to NATO campaigns.

Whether the war in Afghanistan was justified or not, 450 or more British troops died there. Many more were injured, a great many of whom will bear the scars for life.

Trump's condemnation of troops who very clearly were in the heat of battle, as evidenced by the losses they suffered, claiming that they avoided the frontline, has consequences.

One is that Starmer rightly condemned him.

A second is that Trump then backed down, admitting a mistake.

But there is a third. That is for Nigel Farage, who has always sought to highlight his links with, and support for, Trump, as part of his appeal.

Farage also likes to play to the British veterans lobby, which is usually quite right-wing in its political orientation. Nothing suits him better than a D-Day parade. That is his stomping ground, and that of those who support him. However, reconciling those two positions would now appear to be especially hard.

Will those in this group make the link? Will they see that those, like Farage, who are using them for political gain whilst most definitely acting against their best interests in every way they can, from seeking to undermine the NHS and the benefits on which many of them depend onwards, are in fact the enemies of all that they need and want? I cannot, of course, be sure. That depends on the effectiveness of the messaging.

I have always loathed the use of the Union flag, in particular, in politics. I do not care who uses it: the use always seems to have been about faux patriotism, when, as I have explained here of late, real political patriotism is about building a country fit for people to live in without fear, which is a task all our leading politicians gave up on some time ago. But what these comments by Trump show is that the far-right have treated the forces with more contempt than most. The question now is, will they be seen through? If so, this could have a major political impact.

I have, for some time, said we might be witnessing peak Farage right now. The possibility seems to be very real at this moment.

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