Labour's Foreign Policy begins to fray

Good afternoon. As Donald Trump lets his feelings about the Chagos “deal” be known, what role might Nigel Farage have played in this bolt-from-the-blue intervention? And as the Chinese embassy – similarly unpopular with the US president – is given the go-ahead, for how much longer can Keir Starmer walk the diplomatic tightrope? Annabel Denham, Senior Political Commentator. Daily Telegraph Donald Trump has just made a blow-your-socks-off intervention on Chagos. His Truth Social post, dripping with sarcasm about “brilliant” Britain, was a rebuke – some would say long overdue – to Keir Starmer’s decision to surrender the archipelago. Foreign policy is drifting into turbulent waters, and Starmer is not going to be able to chart a course with “calm discussion” alone.

The Prime Minister had justified the deal on the grounds our allies supported it. Now the US president has described it as an act of “GREAT STUPIDITY”. If America is the rock, the hard place is the Starmeresque worldview that assumes supposedly noble self-sabotage is a substitute for hard power. Nor was Chagos an isolated misstep. Today, the vast new Chinese embassy in London was approved after years of wrangling. Once again, the warning signs are obvious – including, perhaps, that Trump is opposed – yet the Government has waved it through. And it has done so right in time for Starmer’s visit to Beijing early this year, the first Prime Minister to do so since 2018, something else that might get up the presidential nose. Starmer risks casually compromising Britain’s national security at the precise moment the world is becoming more dangerous. Chagos is an important strategic asset, which we are handing over to a country which considers China an ally and has about as much claim to the islands as I do to being the Queen of Sheba. But don’t expect a U-turn: Labour MPs are broadly ambivalent towards the deal, but they are viscerally anti-Trump and would not welcome the US president being seen to bounce the Government into a climbdown. A spokesperson for Starmer said this afternoon that “categorically, our position hasn’t changed”. However, throw in the Hillsborough Law – if the PM does capitulate once again to single-issue campaigners and force a duty of candour on the intelligence services – and it’s a hat-trick of security self-harm. From foreign to domestic sagas… I was in Newark yesterday evening, debriefing with Farage and Robert Jenrick after a frenzied week which saw the former shadow Cabinet minister ejected from the Tories and hastily welcomed into Reform. Around 2,500 people packed into the freezing hall, invited at just a few days’ notice. Farage in Newark at a Reform rally Reform held a rally in Newark last night “Zen”. That's how Jenrick described his current state after a week so chaotic it could have been scripted by Josh Safdie. Backstage, he awkwardly pointed out that this defection isn’t like the others, given his profile. Will more follow? Almost certainly. “But it does take balls to do it,” he said. Jenrick looked tired, but not weary. In the hall were farmers, the self-employed, people who feel hammered by the state rather than supported by it. Farage said he’s “increasingly of the view that the biggest divide in British politics is between workers and out of work”. Reform, he knows, will need to find a way to bridge it. Chagos was also referred to. Farage said he has spoken to Trump and “numerous members of the administration” to “stop the betrayal”. He was furious the Lords declined to kill the “deal” last week, describing this as a key reason why Andrew Rosindell finally defected, although some may feel this is stretching it a bit given Kemi Badenoch’s longtime opposition to the scheme. But it raises the question: does Farage have more discretion than Starmer nervously hanging around Trump looking as if he wishes he was at an Arsenal game instead of the White House? Trump is putting both party leaders in a tight spot. Even the PM’s detractors would argue he has handled the capricious Trump well – but he’ll no longer be able to pal up quite so easily with The Orange One. Farage, meanwhile, faces a slightly different challenge: to keep Trump close without entrenching any association in voters’ minds between Reform and Maga. Here, as in the rest of Europe, the US president has long been toxic. After the Greenland escalation he’s radioactive.