In February, former Prime Minister Liz Truss appeared at the right-wing CPAC conference, while Reform UK leader Nigel Farage joined Trump at his campaign rallies in 2016 and 2020. Both Farage and former Tory PM Boris Johnson attended the most recent Republican National Convention. Conservatives argued it was different for Labour now it’s in government.
Never relax
Freed admitted, however, that Labour had been clumsy in how its scheme became publicized — allowing Trump and his supporters to make hay. The free hit put a downer on long-standing work between Labour and the Democrats to coordinate and bolster the center left.
“There’s a general lesson in politics that everything that happens digitally happens in public and people need to be very careful and explicit and deliberate about what they are saying,” he said. “Everything is now viewed and interpreted through a partisan lens.”
The unnamed person quoted above agreed a long-standing, hitherto uncontroversial campaign scheme had been weaponized for Trump’s political purposes — using Starmer and the U.K. government as collateral. “They are trying to turn the whole foreign interference story on its head,” the person said about the MAGA camp.
The concern for Starmer is whether his delicate attempts to get Trump on side have been rendered pointless, or whether the damage can be repaired.
Farage, who is influential in the Trump camp, said Starmer had “insulted the incoming Trump administration,” while Richard Grennell, tipped in Washington as a possible Trump pick for secretary of state, criticized Labour on BBC television.
