Donald Trump arrives in the UK today on a state visit – and Keir Starmer has exposed his complete lack of political judgment.
Why did Starmer invite Trump? Why is Trump unfit for such treatment? And what does this say about the state of democracy in both the UK and the USA?
In this video, I argue that:
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Trump promotes genocide, economic warfare and racism.
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Starmer has embarrassed Britain by aligning with Trump.
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Both leaders are products of failing democracies that no longer reflect the will of their people.
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We urgently need electoral reform, a credible foreign policy, and accountability for leaders who normalise the far-right.
This isn't just about one state visit. It's about whether democracy can survive when opportunism replaces principle.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Trump is arriving in the UK today on a state visit. As a result, Keir Starmer has exposed his complete lack of political judgment.
He should never have invited Donald Trump in January because he's a man who supports genocide, promotes economic warfare, flouts world trade norms, and is a harm to the UK as a consequence. So why are we having a state visit?
There are three dimensions to this question. First of all, why did Starmer invite Trump? Secondly, why is Trump unfit for this treatment? And thirdly, what is it that connects the UK and the USA with regard to these two men? Could it be that we are both seeing our democracies falling apart?
Let's start with Starmer. You'll recall that in January - it seems like a lifetime ago, but I promise you it was this year - Starmer went to Washington with a letter in his pocket, which he dramatically pulled out while sitting in the White House and gave it to Trump and said, "The king would like you to come on a state visit. This is unprecedented. It's not happened to any other leader ever, and you are going to get the special privilege of having a second state visit to the UK."
It was a bizarre political act on Starmer's part.
What is now clear, and which Starmer should have been able to predict at the time, but apparently couldn't, is that Trump is pursuing economic warfare.
He's supporting genocide in Israel.
He's delivering not just racist rhetoric, but he's delivering racist policy. He's building internment camps in the USA.
And he's disrupting the world order by bullying to enrich a few Americans.
What happened was that Starmer showed that he had a massive lack of political judgment when he gave that invitation without checking out the facts about Trump in advance.
He should have realised that Trump was going to violate the norms of human rights that exist in the UK.
That he was going to violate international law.
That he was going to violate trade norms.
And he was going to try to bring down diversity, equality, and inclusion, which has become normal in the UK, but which Trump is trying to make abnormal everywhere.
The result is that Starmer has embarrassed himself, his government, parliament, the royal family, and the UK as a whole. And perhaps worst of all, Starmer has indicated that he aligns his interests with those of the far-right as represented by Trump.
Unsurprisingly, he's alienated a very large number of people in the UK.
And he's invited a man, let's be clear, who's arriving today, who is unfit to be treated as the recipient of a state visit.
On genocide, he's preventing the United Nations from recognising what is happening in Gaza and is offering US complicity.
He's corruptly seeking to gain from the ethnic cleansing that is going on in Gaza with his grand plans to make it a US protectorate, which he and his friends will then redevelop for their own personal profit.
He's courting Putin on and off, but regularly, and as a result, he's a threat to UK and global security.
His rhetoric is warlike. He's renamed the Defence Department as the Department of War. That is not the act of a person who's coming in peace to London today.
Those make a state visit, and the privileges that go with it wholly inappropriate.
And let's be clear, the world has noticed what Trump is up to. His approval ratings in the US are plummeting. He's profoundly unpopular in the UK, and Starmer's own favourability is weak. He's lost at least 10% of the support he had when he was elected to office last July, that is July 2024, and that's a massive swing away from his Labour Party.
The point is neither of these men, both of whom were elected in 2024 - although it does seem much longer ago - really reflects the genuine public will of their countries.
And nor did they win the hearts and minds of most in those countries to lead them.
They are, in fact, the products of failing democracies working with first-past-the-post electoral systems that produce outcomes that cannot, will not and never can do, and now never will reflect what people really want in the countries in question.
Their elections failed to reflect people's preferences. We need to restore democracy and not play with royalty.
There is deep embarrassment from this, but it's being created by these political failures.
We risk normalisation of the far-right, genocide and militaristic politics.
The irony of trumpeting Trump whilst imprisoning people for opposing genocide cannot be lost on anyone.
And the erosion of democratic values is obvious for all to see.
There's a trade-off here between the elite and the people, and what's very clear is that Starmer is supporting Trump in his opposition to the interests of the people at large.
We are looking incredible in the sense that UK foreign policy is simply not looking credible as a consequence of what is happening.
Starmer has shown severe misjudgment, but the symptoms of deeper democratic failure in the UK and the USA may be even more significant.
Actions are required. We need to reassess when visits are provided to the leaders of other states. There is no automatic right to a state visit to this country, and when somebody is violating human rights, they definitely should not be given one.
We need to push for electoral reform and proportional representation.
We need to hold leaders accountable via the media.
And we need to demand a foreign policy that aligns with national values and not opportunism.
In this world of distorted values, Trump and Starmer are together, seeking to declare that black is white this week with their support for odious policies, most especially in Gaza, but elsewhere as well.
What this visit proves is that we've gone a long way towards political depravity. We might not be there yet, but we are on the way.
Recognise this moment. Recognise it for what it is. This is a point where we realise things have to change, or they're going to get very much worse indeed.
Trump is a symbol of every one of our nightmares. And yet we're entertaining him here in the UK as if he were a person of virtue when he's anything but that.
Taking further action
If you want to write a letter to your MP on the issues raised in this blog post, there is a ChatGPT prompt to assist you in doing so, with full instructions, here.
One word of warning, though: please ensure you have the correct MP. ChatGPT can get it wrong.
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And with the murder of Charlie Kirk and the sacking of Mandleson any other leader would have found a reason to cancel at short notice. This is going to be so much worse than the May visit and I suspect without the humour of the big orange balloon. Both leaders are intensely unpopular here and totally unable to read the room. And as a staunch republican I even feel sorry for Charles who has no choice but to receive Trump. I feel no such sympathy for Starmer who created this situation and should have cancelled given everything that has happened in the last week. Another one that is going to look very bad in the history books!
[…] I have already noted this morning, Trump arrives today to promote his fascist regime of racist violence in the […]
The Westminster establishment has completely convinced themselves that the old colonial supremacy still applies. Spoiler alert – the rest of the world and half the UK population recognise a busted flush when they see it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gw25w9841o
“The rest of the world will be looking at London and Windsor, burnishing the UK’s wider international standing.”
And then there is the question of integrity:
Channel 4 to mark Trump’s UK visit with ‘longest uninterrupted reel of untruths’. Broadcaster to dedicate Wednesday night schedule to unpicking US president’s false or misleading statements. [theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/15]
I welcome this
Channel 4 has a degree of independence the other channels lack and is still able to do some decent journalism. I miss Jon Snow, but Channel 4 news is still good and questions and scrutinises.
Cathy Newman’s interview of Corbyn was dire and wholly unnecessarily aggressive last night.
Thanks Richard for summarising how most of the people I engage with feel at the moment. To borrow your term ‘political depravity’, it seems to me that the entire political class (I cannot bring myself to refer to them as an ‘elite’) have become so depraved and detached from ordinary peoples’ lives that they exist in a parallel universe. Thus the gap between them and the rest of us widens so that it enables events like Saturday’s ‘Tommy Robinson Fan Club’ march in London to gain traction. Starmer’s pathetic response about England flags and his near total silence on the threat that the far right pose shows his absolute unsuitability as Prime Minister. He does not lead, he does not even follow, he just splashes around like someone drowning at sea. But it’s worse than that because this is being replicated across the ‘western’ democracies. There is an interesting item about Japan in the latest online London Economic edition. It seems to me that there is a political vacuum opening as the global neoliberal economy starts to collapse. If Rachel Reeves (surely a fine example of today’s political imbeciles) introduces a further round of austerity and tax rises on ordinary people in the coming budget, the flash point will move ever closer.
And whilst Trump is here, will we hear from all those Brexit promoters like Rees-Mogg, David Davis and the idiot ‘Lord’ Daniel Hannan who argued that the UK did not need to be in the Single Market and the Customs Union because we could rely on WTO rules? I think not. Trump has put two (small) fingers up to the whole concept behind those rules.
We are truly in desperate times. The down trodden being governed by an incompetent, imbecilic and depraved political class.
It is time for those of us who believe in compassion, the environment, justice, fairness and equality to find our voices and take the fight to the fascists.
Much to agree with
Can I give a shout out to Jimmy the Giant’s recent You Tube video on why we are being lied to over immigration? It is lively and entertaining yet extremely informative. It is a good example of how the far right (who it must be said are extremely adept with social media) can be challenged. A rare beacon of hope in a darkening world.
Behind the scenes what machinations happen? This link (bit too long) exposes how the Labour Party General Secretary is benefitting from Israel’s war and is no doubt one piece of the jigsaw of Starmers refusal to ban arms sales to Israel, and his complicity with the genocide. https://youtu.be/Z7ZSCziolic?si=8dTCAesDxUBjdgdp.
What, one wonders, is behind the foolish partnerships being announced to day on mini nuclear reactors and Google AI. (How long / when will we be told that taxing Google has stopped?) The UK is being sold down the river; a minion being strapped onto a far right fascist regime.
Max Hastings was interesting on Radio 4 this evening. He doesn’t blame Keir Starmer (reasoning not clear to me) yet he still agrees Trump is terrible (reasoning clear) & will be out on the streets protesting (which he last did in 1968).
> what is it that connects the UK and the USA with regard to these two men?
That they both have weaponised anti-semitism in the service of political gain?
Today, September 16th 2025 the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has just found Israel guilty of genocide following the Jan 26 2024 International Court of Justice finding it to be plausible. All states who are signatories to the genocide convention are obliged to “employ all means reasonably available to them so as to prevent genocide as far as possible” Responsibility may be incurred if a state party manifestly fails to take all measures to prevent genocide that were within its power including ceasing arms transfers and imposing sanctions. The judgement implicates Netanyahu, Gallant and Herzog and possibly others as well as covering Israel’s unlawful occupation and repression in the West Bank and other areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territory even before Oct 7th 2023 covering “decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring removal of the Palestinian population from their land”
Will this change anything? hope so.
A very strange thing has just happened. I wrote a comment revealing that the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry had just found Israel guilty of genocide requiring all parties who are signatories to the genocide Convention to stop arms transfers and impose sanctions. When I tried to send it I was told I had already sent it and I was merely repeating the process….but actually I had not! There was no sign of the comment already printed. Weird?
It was here…
But I ignore the blog after 9pm