Trump’s poodle

Say what you like about Donald Trump, he certainly knows how to concentrate minds. Sure, he does it in much the same way that a man standing up on your plane with a bomb strapped to his chest makes you think about whether you lived a good life, but you can’t deny the effect.

So the 72 hours since his Oval Office meltdown have seen European leaders engaging their brains with the question of European defence, a subject that perhaps they should have thought about a little more seriously on, well, any day of the last decade.

Books are going to be written about that White House press conference: was it a deliberate trap for Volodymyr Zelensky, or did Trump and his gang simply expect that they would get the grovelling they’ve had from everyone else? It’s certainly clear that what the US president most values is seeing people crawl to him. To look at his entourage is to see a gang of sidekicks who have spent their lives searching for an Alpha Bully to suck up to.

Which brings us to Nigel Farage. The last couple of weeks have been tricky for this generation’s Roderick Spode. On the one hand, he has his undeniable keen instinct for the mood of the British public. But on the other there is the intense gravitational pull he feels from the alignment of not one but two strong-man bullies: Trump and his brother-from-another-mother, Vladimir Putin. Great powers plotting together to slice up a far-away country of which we know little: it’s the glory days all over again! Farage must feel the way that other people did when they heard Oasis were reuniting.

No fool, Farage is aware that his adoration of Trump, so intensely manifested for so long, has become a more problematic position in recent weeks. So, like the principled campaigner for his beliefs that he is, he spent last week in hiding. Finally, on Monday, he broke cover.

The day began with an appearance on LBC Radio. Sadly, he didn’t open with the traditional “Moscow Calling! Moscow Calling!” But he did go straight into the matter at hand. “You know what? If I turned up at the White House, I’d make sure I was wearing a suit and that my shoes were clean, absolutely,” Farage told us. This wasn’t hard to believe. If the price of getting into Trump’s White House was wearing a gimp suit, which of us doubts that Farage would be out shopping for leatherwear?

The problem, Farage explained, is that Trump “is incredibly old-fashioned about this stuff.” Who would have guessed it? People just don’t realise the US president is locked in a 1950s model of public behaviour.

How, Farage was asked, did he feel about the hot new Washington fashion for saluting your supporters in a way that feels very, well…? “Are they Nazi salutes? I don’t think they are for a moment,” Farage replied. “They’re not really Nazi salutes, because they’re out to the side.” The gesture isn’t Sieg Heil — it’s Sieg Hiya!

Finally, we had stumbled upon a subject on which the Reform leader has real expertise. But perhaps realising that he had revealed a little too much about how he spends his Saturday evenings, Farage tried to change the subject. “Look, we could drill down on it,” he said. I bet we could. Before the year is out he’ll be running an online course on the proper way to greet a Nuremberg rally for the bargain price of £995 an hour.

Did he think Zelensky had gone rogue? “If I try and put myself in a really neutral position in this,” Farage began, shutting his eyes as he ensured he was located precisely halfway between Moscow and Washington DC (2025 edition). “I’m not a fan of Ukraine.”

Why did he say that? “It’s a very corrupt country,” he went on. This is another area of Reform special knowledge: the party’s former Welsh leader was up in court last week on charges of taking bribes from a Ukrainian politician to make pro-Russian statements.

Of course, Farage is far from the only British leader treading a difficult line. Since Friday, Keir Starmer has been trying to keep close to both Trump and Zelensky. Interestingly, he has been completely open about what he is doing. “Some people may enjoy the simplicity of talking a side,” he told the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, dismissively. “We will never choose between either side of the Atlantic.”

Zelensky may not have been able to restrain himself from telling Trump he was talking rubbish, but Starmer is made of sterner stuff. If crawling is required, then he’ll crawl, and pretend he’s enjoying it. This is a man who spent four years pretending that he believed Jeremy Corbyn should be prime minister. What better training for pretending you believe that Trump’s tan is natural and JD Vance is a deep thinker?

What’s more, for the moment the prime minister enjoys almost total parliamentary support in this effort. After he spoke, Kemi Badenoch offered her backing. James Cleverly said Starmer had “not really put a foot wrong” over the weekend. Andrew Mitchell commended him. Tom Tugendhat (readers may not be aware that he was once in the military) said the prime minister was speaking for Britain. The SNP’s Stephen Flynn was similarly warm. There were points in the session when, as the prime minister talked about the importance of the US alliance, that the murmurs of support were significantly warmer from the Tory benches than the Labour ones.

Farage, finally rising to speak on the subject in parliament, pointed this out: “I also applaud him in making such positive words about President Trump and our relationship with America, even if nobody behind him agrees.”

Responding, the prime minister showed that, for now, he knows how to get his MPs behind him. “Can I just remind him: Russia is the aggressor. Zelensky is a war leader whose country has been invaded. We should all be supporting him, not fawning over Putin.” Farage rolled his eyes. If he gets that White House invite, this will all have been worth it.