The British right ponders life after Donald Trump
The global energy crisis has escalated after Israel bombed South Pars, the Iranian-controlled part of the world’s largest natural gas field, while Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Ras Laffan, the site of Qatar’s main gas-producing facility.
Donald Trump said Israel was responsible for the South Pars attack and denied US involvement. He called for both sides to stop targeting energy infrastructure as the war slips out of his control. Market reaction was instantaneous. This morning, UK wholesale gas prices jumped 25 per cent to their highest level since 2022.
While there are some in Britain who still defend the idea that the war is justified, it is beginning to bear the hallmarks of a historic calamity for which Trump might not easily be forgiven. But this is a Westminster newsletter, so today I would like to look at how the British right, which has been broadly supportive of Trump since the start of his second term, is responding to fallout.
Reform is currently engaged in an inelegant reverse ferret. The latest polling shows that its supporters are the most pro-war of any British party, though such enthusiasm has fallen in the past fortnight. Nigel Farage, as a long-time Trump ally, originally supported the war. He has now changed tack, presenting himself as the answer to the energy price spike. In PMQs yesterday, Farage made optimistic claims about the potential for new North Sea oil and gas licenses to bring prices down.
Subscribe to the New Statesman today and save 75%
The Tories are in a similar position. After Trump’s victory, there were Tories who pointed out to their new leader, Kemi Badenoch, that there was an opportunity to pursue a Trump-sceptic approach that both aligned with public opinion and blindsided Farage and Starmer, then latter of whom was, at that moment, hugging Trump close for diplomacy’s sake. With the next election not due until after the expiry of Trump’s final term, the Tory leader would have little to lose.
Instead Badenoch followed the Trump line on most of the major questions until, yesterday, she criticised the president by calling his attacks on Starmer “childish”. While it might be the beginning of a new and more robust position, it might be too little, too late. Events have developed so quickly that now Starmer, not known for being politically nimble, has been able to position himself as the leading Trump-sceptic in British politics.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: Angela Rayner strikes back]
Content from our partners
Related
