Michael Shanks (L) and Anas Sarwar. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)
You know something serious is about to go down when London lobby journos start saying things like: “We should pay attention to what’s happening in Scotland.” Many of us up here are not only resigned to our junior status in this dysfunctional constitutional family, but we lean into it, like a sunburnt drunk leans in to embrace a cactus. And while we’re always slightly bashful at the prospect of any unusual spike in attention, we understand that the interest will be short-lived. For it is always the case that eyes in London only turn in a northerly direction on those rare occasions when whatever’s happening up here may have some kind of impact down there.
This week, that thing was the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. A two-horse race between the SNP and Labour, the result of which was supposed to offer important clues as to the direction of political travel both north and south of the border. Or at least, that’s what all the commentators and analysts were saying.
They know that the only way Labour can win a significant majority at the next UK general election is if a sizeable chunk of Scotland flips from yellow to red. And Rutherglen and Hamilton West had done exactly that on three occasions since 2010, which is why the SNP and Labour were on a war-footing there long before disgraced MP Margret Ferrier was recalled and then ousted for breaching Covid rules in 2020. Yesterday, there was a 20.4 percentage point swing back to Labour.
The two politicians fighting it out were the SNP’s Katy Loudon and Labour’s Michael Shanks. They are young and energetic. And even though relatively unseasoned, it is clear that each has already acquired the necessary affectations to bullshit their way through a live political debate. So rather than a battle of ideas, during their television debates we saw a battle of the brands fought with all the authenticity of a used-car salesman gesturing towards a smoking electric car, assuring you that “it’s a great little runner”.
We had Loudon, a South Lanarkshire councillor since 2017, pressing Shanks on his change of heart over Brexit and the two-child cap, which places not only him but Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar out of step with Keir Starmer. And she accused Labour of flip-flopping on its commitments, which might have landed more powerfully if only her party, in government now for longer than the Tories, were not also serial flip-floppers.
And then we had Shanks, delivering political platitudes and then failing to press Loudon on her party’s indecision over arts funding, free school meals for all kids, abolition of the council tax, and its position on nuclear weapons. He then turned on her for supporting tax hikes in a cost-of-living crisis, knowing perfectly well that the hikes would be on high earners, living in the most valuable properties — the sort of progressive taxation you’d expect a Labour up-and-comer to support.
What was utterly lacking was anything specific about the actual constituency. The whole campaign has been an exhibition of nervous insincerity. The candidates know what’s at stake; they know they’ve been pulled in off the bench in the 80th minute in the wider war between the SNP and Labour. The sheer volume of heavy-hitters who have made cameo appearances to bolster both campaigns speaks to the height of the stakes here — and to the painful truth at the heart of this by-election: the most deprived locals are merely useful pawns in a tribal game.
Swathes of South Lanarkshire — the local authority in which a decent chunk of this constituency sits — are unglamorous, grey-washed urban purgatories rendered nondescript by post-industrial malaise. Maybe that’s a little harsh. We have some wonderful partially closed Sixties swimming pools.
Poor health and poverty are also embedded across this part of the country. Three years ago, South Lanarkshire Council published public health statistics that didn’t make comfortable reading: two in three people were deemed overweight. One in three was obese. Just 19% of babies were exclusively breastfed — significantly lower than the Scottish average of 27% — and around 20% of children lived in poverty. Out of a population of over 300,000, 41,000 were income-deprived. And the poorest residents of Rutherglen and Cambuslang — two areas which fall within this well-publicised contest – were, at that time, regarded as among the unhealthiest in Scotland.
Some will argue that’s because of their poor choices. But what choices do they have when their community consists of too much traffic on too few rush-hour expressways connecting rundown retail parks to gambling facilities, charity shops and junk food outlets?
The above statistics were published before Covid. Since then, every metric by which inequality is measured is flashing red. We have bouncers on the doors of Tesco Express. Security tags on baby food. And more food banks than we have McDonald’s, all while a billionaire class enters a new space race and no politician has yet suggested taxing them upon re-entry. On the plus side, energy prices are now so high the Tories can only afford to gaslight us for another four months.
Given the level of media interest in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, the scale of political campaigning, and the partisan chatter on social media, the casual onlooker would be forgiven for thinking the contest is of great material significance to local people. They’d be wrong.
This wasn’t about Rutherglen and Hamilton West. This by-election was both a progress report on First Minister Humza Yousaf’s wobbly early spell in Scotland’s top job, and a litmus test for how a resurgent Labour may fare at the next UK election. Pundits obsessed over possible turnout: would SNP voters stay home, unenthused by the lack of movement on indyref2? Or worse still, would more moderate pro-indy supporters sense a chance to oust the Tories and, perhaps worse than staying home, vote Labour. What would become of the Tory and Lib-Dem vote, which, if combined, is significant enough to swing the result if deployed tactically? And what do Jackie Ballie, Angus Robertson, Keir Starmer and Fiona Hyslop think of it all? Utterly riveting stuff.
This was politics at its worst. There were no big ideas here. No grand visions. Even the insults rang hollow. The reason for this is simple: all that separates these two broadly progressive parties are their respective positions on constitutional issues which grow less salient by day — yet they must engage in the charade that there are profound differences.
According to the SNP, Labour are just the same as the Tories. Labour, meanwhile, wants us to believe the SNP are not the same as the Tories — they’re worse. This level of debate is worryingly disingenuous. Either these people actually believe the pish they talk — or they’re so cynical they willingly talk pish they do not believe. You would find more consistency of logic on the stands of a local football stadium. Yes, it’s politics. Yes, there are forces at play which constrain political discourse in ways that politicians cannot always control. But does it all have to be so tedious and predictable and insincere?
You can really see the draw of becoming a political diehard. Of nailing your colours to the mast and warring till the bitter end. It’s a far simpler existence. You train your eyes and ears for the errors of others, while remaining blind to your own. Behind the impressive professional facades both parties project, what we see are flawed, embittered, manipulative and often quite delusional people. There’s no craft, no skill, and no courage. Just both sides constantly trying to pin things on their opponent that they themselves have been guilty of in the past, or worse, are actively participating in as they speak.
Take the tit-for-tat over public services. The very day Scottish Labour talked up rumours of closures to local police stations, including three in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, blaming SNP cuts, the Labour-controlled council in neighbouring North Lanarkshire was forced into an embarrassing U-turn following a backlash to its planned closure of no less than 39 cultural and leisure facilities. Labour insisted the by-election was a mini-referendum on two failed governments at Holyrood and Westminster — but Labour is the party in control of both this constituency’s councils. Whether centrally controlling their parties, marginalising critical voices, or announcing policies they have no intention of actually implementing for fleeting traction in the press, the idea that one of these political shitshows has a moral high ground above the other is utterly laughable.
It suits both the SNP and Labour to portray themselves as diametrically opposed, but they’re two flaps of the same fanny. Most of us see clearly that these apparently rival factions are variants of the same essential strain of managerial centrism — both holding the belief that you can radically change society without doing or saying anything radical.
Anas Sarwar, while steering Scottish Labour assuredly through some choppy political waters, claims Scotland needs fundamental change and says he can provide it. But I’ve looked up “fundamental” in the dictionary and that doesn’t match his actions. As far as I know, he has been out chapping doors for days in the plusher parts of the contested constituency, warning those comfortable homeowners cloistered around the best-performing schools that the SNP plans to punish them by raising their council tax to something approaching fair. This, from the same Labour Party that simultaneously lambasts the SNP for failing to reform local taxation after 16 years in government.
Their campaign has involved walking the classic centrist tightrope of promising action to the poorest on poverty, while keeping the middle-class happy with the sort of perks that only entrench the inequality. Scottish Labour needs to attract the kind of people who are not worrying about multi-morbidity, or two-week waits for GP appointments, or the stigma of food poverty, or the two-child benefit cap. Being on the right side of Scotland’s educational attainment gap, and a world away from the drug death crisis, voters of this ilk, while certainly feeling the cost-of-living pinch, are not exactly hard-up. And if they vote Labour, they’ll expect something in return. They’ll expect the various mechanisms by which opportunity is distributed blindly upward to be maintained and expanded.
Conversely, the SNP is paying the price for a decade spent playing the same game. Their problems run deeper than Yousaf being less popular than predecessor Nicola Sturgeon. The tragedy is that at precisely the moment where Yousaf could legitimately claim to have moved even further to the Left than ever before — going toe-to-toe with landlords over short-term lets, pioneering child poverty payment, nationalising Scotrail and abolishing peak fares — their own base is beginning to lose interest. People are so numb after years of political capital being blown on the pretence that another referendum was imminent that, even though the SNP seems finally to be using devolved power to make a difference — safe consumption rooms, progressive taxation, and at some point in the near future, a Scottish Welfare System — many simply shrug when these achievements are pointed out.
The biggest problem both parties have, even if they end up in power at the same time, is that they are now political hostages to their own bullshit. Namely, the volatile constitutional issues of Brexit and Independence in which they are now, in their own ways, enmeshed, yet forbidden by electoral imperative from speaking honestly about.
The SNP has known for a long time that IndyRef2 will not happen soon — even the movement’s most gung-ho campaigners are placing the next referendum a firm 10 years away — yet it has engaged in the charade that it was just around the corner. Meanwhile, the party insists that because Scotland voted to Remain, we’ve been torn out of a lucrative political and economic union against our will, failing to see the contradiction at the heart of their campaign to take Scotland out of the UK without evidence that a majority of Scots actually want this to happen. The SNP wants us to believe two contradictory ideas at the same time: that Brexit is harmful to Scotland and that Independence won’t be (I’m all for indy, but I’m also realistic about the challenges it will bring).
These intellectual gymnastics are mocked and mirrored by Labour. Starmer, Sarwar and the rest of them must pretend Brexit is settled and that the shambles of leaving the EU in the hardest possible fashion has had little bearing on the UK’s dire economic fortunes — even though they understand only too well that such a tumultuous exit from the Single Market has made the very people who voted for it poorer. But Scottish Labour must also talk tough on independence to fend off the threat of the Scottish Tories, while knowing full well that the Scottish Government will always be severely constrained in the progress it can make when key issues such as immigration, labour laws and most taxes remain the preserve of London politicians.
Some might be relieved that constitutional issues were not as prominent in this by-election, but it is clear that, without the mobilising prospect of a rematch on either Brexit or a second independence referendum, Labour and the SNP will return to their comfort zones, taking their loyal bases for granted, pricing-in working class apathy, and targeting middle-class moderates whose political convictions could be written on the back of a fag packet — leaving space for all 228 lines of “Tam o’ Shanter”.
The only people actually buying what the politicians are selling are devout party activists, students yet to be disabused of their naivety, partisan hacks who study politics the way your Auntie Betty studies Emmerdale, and middle-class moderates who’ll swallow any old, reheated pish for stable house prices and a quiet two-driveway life. Nobody else gives a shit. If we can be bothered, we turn up on polling day, we hold our noses, and we vote for whichever party we believe is the least terrible option that year.
Coincidentally, the scepticism many Scots feel when London journos take a sudden interest in our affairs is precisely the scepticism many in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency probably feel about the preening top-flight Scottish politicians chewing scenery in the run-up to the by-election. Working-class people here are mere beads on an abacus, their votes appropriated for some national narrative that doesn’t serve them. Today, the travelling political circus will pack up and leave without a backward glance.
Darren McGarvey is a Scottish hip hop artist and social commentator. In 2018, his book Poverty Safari won the Orwell Prize and his new book The Social Distance Between Us (Ebury Press) is out on 16th June.
lokiscottishrap 
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI think it’s quite simple really. Brexit has clearly made us much poorer and has made it much harder for UK businesses to trade with our largest trading partner by far. We certainly need a proper trade deal, we don’t need the rest of it. The UK is a very middling power with a decent economy but we seem to lack confidence and conviction.
If UK wants to go this way, Blair and his acolytes must be transferred to St Helena
What clubs do they play for now?
I always pay close attention to Philip Cunliffe’s views on the EU ever since his excellent recent book on the same subject, which frankly ought to be compulsory reading for any democratically-elected representative, civil servant or senior media figure.
However I am not sure the headline here serves his general position particularly well: “splendid isolation” isn’t the future that awaits the UK, nor should it be, nor does the rational desire to be outside the EU imply such a thing.
The UK’s interests are still served best by having the political and strategic freedom that independence makes possible, so as to enter into whatever alliances and partnerships make sense at any given time. This is recognised in the final paragraph except right at the end, it uses the phrase again, which I would say is a non-sequitur.
However, where we agree is that there is no way to develop any closer relationship with the EU that does not involve the permanent surrender of aspects of the UK’s sovereignty and independence. That is the EU’s fault: it is institutionally incapable of treating the UK as anything but an unruly satrapy, and any British politician who doesn’t understand this really isn’t fit to do the job required of them.
Unfortunately, Keir Starmer is one such politician.
Masterful analysis, sir. Well done.
We could SURVIVE but what about my avocados?
Ah, yes. I am lucky to live in Australia. Avocados grow on trees here.
Since post WW1 much of the middle class labour party has hatred of Britain and the qualities that made Britain great. They go on about the class divide yet ignore those that came from modest and humble backgrounds and made Britain great. I give you the archers of the Middle Ages, Francis Drake and Elizabeth’s sea dogs, Shakespeare ,Newton , Hooke, Captain Cook, J Brindley, Abraham Darby, Thomas Telford, George Stephenson, Michael Faraday, Kipling, Sydney Camm, etc.
Starmer et al lusts after power, status or money and will do anything to obtain it and avenge themselves on the Britain which is indifferent to him.
Labour is the epitome of dull mediocrity and only has spite towards those with dash, imagination, initiative, ingenuity, panache, élan, grace , sophistication, elegance, etc
All those people mentioned had exceptional abilities which Labour Party lack and as consequence have a grudge against them. Labour Party have a grudge against Britain and all the people who made it Great.
Hard to shake 1000 yrs of the low spark of high heeled boys.
“. . . forcing business to cultivate a skilled national labour force. Rebuilding industry, reshoring critical supply chains, building new nuclear power stations and expanding fossil fuel production in the North Sea would all be good starts.”
Sounds like the Blue Peter guide to instant economic development. Who’s going to do all this ‘forcing’?
In order to engage in trade and security GB will have to develop something worth trading and/or build armed forces of international dimensions.. Just now, the only thing GB is offering is spotter planes to facilitate a genocide of women and children in tents which, admittedly, are very much welcomed by warmingering America.
I note he studiously avoided any mention of the huge elephant in both chambers: the murderous, bloodyhirsty, Zionist controllers in both countries!
I am virtually certain that almost nobody else here is a spiteful antiSemite, so you should really find somewhere else to spout your racist bile.
Labour is just looking for someone to save them. The something from the someone is the European single market. But since the same Labour people rejected a Norway or Swiss associate membership 10 years ago then that someone, the EU, will only grant them euro membership.
“including pursuing connections with more distant powers such as China if need be.” Chna? Really. Just, wow!
Yeah, like, where even is China, man?
Conceptually, it’s consistent with prioritizing “interests”. In practice, the criticism is; if UK can’t, or won’t, get out from US or EU shadow, how will it remain on equal footing with the anathema overbearing policies of China?
Agree. Pursuing connections with China will inevitably end badly…for GB.
Why is he crawling back to Brussels? Because he’s most comfortable when he’s on his knees.
So UK has US service personnel at Devonport, Faslane and Barrow for the US Navy, Fairford, Lakenheath and Mildenhall operated by USAF, and i have no idea about the Army. Already a vassal state and one that will likely be on the naughty step unleass Starmer learns how to manage his bosses. Forget voice-coaching – real world experince is needed and afaik cannot be “coached”.
Don’t they, the United States still keep their Atomic Bombs in RAF Welford, Berks?*
*Between junctions 13 & 14 of the northern carriageway of the M4. Now ‘subtlety’ signposted ‘Works Unit Only”.
Fret not Russia has over 50 warheads targeted to eliminate that little pile
Oh forgot to add you can always retaliate using Trident
Which has not had a successful
Launch since the 1990 ,s
Plop Plop Plop
Imagine if those test launches
Actually had Warheads
Poor Submariners
However excellent for boosting morale and recruitment
Attracting the Finest Brains to crew the Subs then the Honour
Of pushing the Launch Button
Most excellent if you suicidal
Yeah, next to the sign that says “Berkshire – Proudly Nuclear Free”.
I flew over it once many years in a hot air balloon. The US guards became very excited as I recall.
Did they have anything sophisticated enough to bring down your balloon?
No, only a loudhailer fortunately!
For better or worse, US military presence was bought and paid for by USA time, treasure, toil, blood, sweat over the 2 WWs. US saved UK- at UK request.
Since 1945 UK, and all Europe, serve as buffer between USA and it’s enemy. US, UK, EU interest is highly aligned in having common enemy. (It is. Isn’t it?)
“….Viscount Palmerston, the Victorian-era statesman most widely remembered for his famous dictum that Britain has no eternal allies or enemies, only eternal interests“. One thing we can be sure of is that Britain’s interests will always be diametrically opposed to those of Russia.
“[Splendid isolation] will require brave and vigorous national leadership, willing to pursue the kind of disruption that Trump is enacting in US foreign policy.”
We haven’t had that since the Bless-ed Margaret ran the country. And it will be at least four years before we do. In the meantime Vote Reform whenever you can.
Agitate for a snap election. Pressure the Labour tyranny at every opportunity.
Yes, Labour will be falling over themselves to call a snap election.
Make the Labour regime untenable.
How? They have a huge majority.
Phiip, you are needed on a bigger stage. Your grasp of history and the lessons you could teach the Reform tyros could be a valuable philosophy for them.
One can defend national interests while operating in a global environment. It’s not radical to put one’s interests ahead of those of other nations; it’s quite normal and something most of us do all the time whether on a personal level or in business.
There is a battle of sorts between nationalism vs. globalism, sovereignty vs. outside rule and it is a battle worth fighting. Look at how the character of Britain has changed in the past few decades. Brits have become second-class in their own country. The Biden cabal’s attempt to do that to Americans is a key reason why Trump was elected.
There is no isolation. North Korea is perhaps the most isolated country on the planet and how’s that working out? One can be part of the global community, making deals that benefit the national interest, without sacrificing self-rule. It’s just that someone like Starmer is the least capable individual of doing anything like that, or much else that resembles governing.
Not a surprise Author opts not to give any example of a compromised British interest or how one might navigate the current US-EU squeeze in a specific policy area. Like alot of UnHerd critiques it’s kept highfalutin and vague. To actually get into a ‘specific’ challenge would merely show the Author up for an oversimplistic appreciation of realpolitik.
The Palmerstone examples almost embarrassingly overlook the intervening 170 years. Britain may once have had the options suggested when the World’s number one power, but even a cursory understanding of history should demonstrate that nostalgia is intoxicating until reality enters the equation.
As it is Starmer to date seems to have the intelligence to navigate a precarious tightrope – precarious at least for now. Performative statements have been kept to a minimum to give room for manoeuvre.
Sure, go back to the same foreign policy you had when Britain was a dominant world power. How could that possibly fail to work?
Yes, if another country annoys you, just send in a gunboat.
It failed miserably as I recall with Bolivia because we forget to note that they didn’t have a coastline, and thus no city/port to shell.
Conversely it worked rather well with Zanzibar* which was shelled into submission in 45 minutes and subsequently forced to pay for the ammunition expended!
*Said to be the world’s ’shortest war’.
Ah but soon you will only have pea shooters to force
a quick surrender
Happy Shooting to the Coolies
It failed miserably as I recall with Bolivia because we forget to note that they didn’t have a coastline, and thus no city/port to shell. Unsporting blighters!
Apparently they had had a coastline but had ‘lost’ it in recent war and WE hadn’t noticed!
These things happen.
“splendid isolation” as an “empire/super-power” then may be a lot easier then for a middle-sized island nation stranded before the coast of continental Europe.
Ever since Margaret Thatcher was thrown out by the Tory Wets, the UK has been ruled by internationalists obsessed with saving the planet, curing world hunger and trying to be one of the World’s policemen. It is a massive hubristic exercise in national deception. The ridiculous Net Zero obsession( of Tories and Labour alike) is a perfect example of this lunacy. An environmental policy which accelerates the deindustrialisation and impoverishment of the U.K. with absolutely zero impact on the rising global emissions of CO2. It is typical of the laughable political nonsense which has brought this country staggering levels of national debt, uncontrolled mass immigration, a Ponzi Scheme “welfare system” for national health, public pensions and care homes, a puny defence force, unsafe streets and the highest level of taxation in our entire history. You bet this country needs new political leadership. A leadership which stops playing international games and concentrates exclusively on urgently restoring the health of this nation. They must also not pretend that more Government is the key to success. Quite the reverse. Government must restrict its monopoly powers to doing those things only it can do, such as defending our borders and policing our streets, whilst keeping the economic playing field level, open and well protected. It is its citizens who will deliver the miracles of advancement and growth through their hard work and endeavour. Government at best is a an enabler of the economic success and wellbeing of its citizens but at worst it a monopolistic destroyer of individual freedoms and prosperity. Sadly we have had far too much of the latter in the U.K. over the last thirty five years. We desperately need a significant course correction. If not, we are going to be broken in the rocks.
Why do you think policing the streets (as against busting organised crime etc) is a government issue.. surely, local government is capable of policing the streets??
Not where I live. Absolutely no bobbies walking the streets. Shoplifting rife and no arrests / prosecutions . As for burglary it has become a risk free enterprise for the burglar. Police don’t show up until the day after and offer no prospect of detection of culprits. It has become an insurance issue. We also have no police stations – just mobile units parked around the place. Traffic offences ( LEZ etc)!are pursued with much more vigour than offences against the individual or property. And I live in an area of good housing and relatively low crime.
As others have stated the simple answer is Starmer has no vision over anything.
someone just seems to have suggested and recruited him to be PM. One suspects one of the Blair creature backers.
No one from the other candidate for possible worse PM, Sunak, had the vision to try and prevent the disaster that Starmer is going to leave behind.
I’m still waiting for the full Sunak story.
Nadine Dorries gave a lot of information in her two books. Apart from that, media silence.
A political nonentity became Prime Minister. Not a word about this….. A complete blank.
He was an ineffective PM, but he seemed like a decent chap.
Wasn’t he a Wykehamist?
.
Yes, I believe so. He and I are from the same home town. He is thus my “homie”. You know, “from my ‘hood”.
Rather oddly he went up to Lincoln rather than New College, the normal route for Wykehamists.
He probably took the wrong exit off the M3.
This author uses too many big words; they obscure his point.
Kinky Keith Krawl?. He savours krawling on kommand.
The problem with fixating on Palmerston’s maxim of “eternal interests”, Palmerstonian foreign policy and British “splendid isolation” was that it forgets that the term and the act was more a Gladstonian invention than a Palmerstonian one. The difference is that Lord Palmerston is seen as the rock star of British Victorian politics whilst the likes of Gladstone and Peel languish in the background.
Gladstone was actually very isolationist indeed and eschewed overseas alliances. The author also forgets to mention that whole concept of “splendid isolation” came to a crashing halt when Gladstone tried to plan for a war with Russia over the question of Afghanistan but was decisively and roundly rebuffed by Continental Europe and Ottomans who rejected Britain’s demand that the Royal Navy be allowed into the Black Sea to fight the Russians there.
“Splendid isolation” can actually be argued to have been one of the biggest setbacks to British influence and power in the Victorian era.
Its also worth reminding that theres a big difference to what the big hitters of the British establishment at the time said in speeches, in Parliament, in pamphlets, etc and what they actually did in practice. Gladstone was actually quite isolationist and non-interventionist (which in turn kind of contradicts his Liberal background) but then again it was him who was pamphleteering hard on the question of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria and demanding intervention on a moral basis – sound familiar?
Disraeli was much more of a realist and probably helped invent Realpolitik before Kissinger made it an art form. He was keen to hold major summits, talk to foreign powers and step into the fray if need be. Yet his reaction to the Bulgarian crisis? Fake news, innit?
Even Palmerston, the man apparently behind the “eternal interest” ended up inadvertently putting in the building blocks for what would eventually become the Entente Cordiale when he intervened over the Crimea. This may well have been in the “eternal interest” but it involved creating some long term alliances in the process.
Good piece, thank you. Yes, we do ‘require brave and vigorous national leadership’, which is what makes me so depressed. There’s nobody in the present parliament able to do this.
Cunliffe appears to know what we are thinking.
He doesn’t.
Being pulled along by the coattails suggests waiting for things to happen: from where I am, the Right don’t look that immobile. And Trump’s victory, its popularity and momentum will help to break the Managed Decline mindset so evident within the West’s political bubble.
Cunliffe also says. “the President is cascading the question of self-interest onto all other states”. How is that globalist rather than national thinking? Self Interest is National Thinking! And part of that is having good trade agreements, and security agreements, so people can enjoy life with their families, friends, and colleagues, and create wealth: wealth that is out of reach of current collectivist thinking.
MAGA supporters have said, many times, that yes, Americans need to Make America Great Again, just as people in every other country need to make their own country great again. It will make the World a better place.
Trump is not humiliating the Canadian or Danish governments.
They have humiliated themselves, with their dysfunctionality: and Trump is bring their attention to the problem, that he wants fixed.
Denmark and Canada are guilty of being weaker than the US. You can call that humiliating if you like, but it is hard to fix. Denmark did briefly consider redressing the power balance by conquering China, but the project had to be abandoned for some reason. The most realistic option would be to acquire a crazy head of state and a lot of ICBMs pointed at Washington. Only, Denmark being small, where would they put them?
I assume you are from Norfolk Virginia, right? Someone of your remarkable intellectual capabilities would be misplaced in the UK.
Only, Denmark being small, where would they put them? Greenland? They wouldn’t take too long to reach Washington from there?
Conquer China
In over 5000 years none have nor
Ever Shall conquer
The Mongols had a go
Result The Great Wall
Imperial Japan had a go
And just prior drop of A Bomb
China by clever change of tactics had not only halted Japanese advances but had them on the Run
And that was over a third of all Imperial Japanese military resources available during the Pacific War in W W 2
With today’s threats from Western Neo Liberal Capitalism
China has by the hard work and the Ingenuity of it’s people constructed a 2 Nd Great wall
As defined by it’s Red Line in the South China Sea
By way of it’s industrial might and advanced technology
All of which ensures that those who cross the Red Line and breach this 2:Nd Great Wall
Have just like the 1st Great Wall
That escape is utterly impossible thereby guaranteeing
Your total destruction
Britain build 2 Aircraft carriers basically seconded to
USA
But China’s considerable Hypersonic missile system
Guarantee Aircraft Carrier sunk
Immediately
Not believe me well a fully operational Carrier group costs well over $ 40 billion and years to replace
And just one Chinese Hypersonic costs $ 2 million
Do the maths China can launch
Hundreds of Hypersonic missiles against just one Carrier group
Not only so but replenish stocks to even larger numbers
In a matter of a week or two
And as the Author of this Article he rightly refers to the ability of Britain to build the most advanced Nuclear Subs
But he and the RN should be made aware that one of the many Keystones of China’s 2 Nd Great Wall is in the form of
Type 055 D destroyer bristling
With Anti Sub technology and
Weaponry
A completely new design of it’s
Type 054 anti submarine Frigate
A Stockpile of over 2 Million sea mines all of varying types and methods
And China alone knows these waters better than any and exactly where to sow these mines to maximum effect
Along with their latest achievements in finding new and novel ways to detect
Submerged advanced stealth nuclear subs
So go forget your Submarines
Also
Nice cut n paste of CCP crap.
Well today and from a US Navy source satellite imagery
Revealed a completely new type of Chinese submarine
No Sails Large X rudders
US now speculating as to what they’ve discovered
Go do your homework you lazy stupid delusional Coolies
Or go get a job building HS 2
Where no doubt your coolie skills are much in demand
Nonsense Brian, you know full well both the Mongols and Manchu successfully conquered the place..
Additionally ‘we’ did a fairly good job of running most of the it in the mid 19th century, besides ‘flattening’ Peking in 1860, and justly rewarding ourselves with such salubrious places as Hong Kong etc etc.
Even you greedy Jocks had a hand in the plunder! Happy days indeed!
How hard of thought are you
Britain in unison attempted to conquer China
Failed miserably and had to resort to opium wars
Why the Hell do you think Rachel Reeves only came back from China with £ 600 Million
Over 5 yrs
You are now beggars who sing when thrown a crust of stale bread
You bunch of Village Idiot’s
And Coolies who are completely unable to build a railway line or a Nuclear power
Plant
You swallowing hook line and sinker the Propaganda of your peers
You know nothing of China
Nothing a big huge fat Zero
Go to the bottom of the Coolie class you Blockhead
Flogged them a bit of opium too!
Yes the Jocks (Jardine Matheson and others) were particularly adept at that.
They initially thought they didn’t want any, but it turns out that they wanted quite a lot. Opium is like that.
Well researched.. the dyed in the wool backward looking dodos here hate it! That’s a good sign yer on the right track!
Don’t encourage him! He’s a nutter.
A nutter? On UnHerd?
Yes
I keep telling them that I have assiduous studied China’s 5000 yr old history
Along with the major influences upon China by way of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism and Confuciousism
Then onto the new modern era
Under President Deng and now Xi Jinping
Not one of my critics are capable of coming back with facts that refute clearly of what I speak
I’ve told them go and seek what the 5 yellow stars upon China’s
National flag mean but obviously the Dumb Lazy Coolies are thourghly ill equipped in the Cranium to go study of which I’ve referred them too
And I know exactly why
Because their stupid tiny little minds are firmly closed
But full of Christian nonsense , Fairy Tales and stuffed with Western Propaganda
Hope most of these idiots have a large portion of their Pension funds in Nvidia , Lockheed Martin and Boeing etc
Happy retirement to the Peasants and Coolies
Far Left countries do not thrive. They break.
Dream on.
And historically have murdered over 100 million more of less.
I agree that globalisation is in reverse, that global free trade is being replaced by a series of trading blocs and that we should take a more hard headed approach BUT this essay ignores the reality that the trading blocs need to be very large to be viable economically.
For the UK economy this means either that we associate with a trading bloc – EU or US – or attempt to pursue “self sufficiency” in “splendid isolation” as advocated here and end up as road kill.
One of the more egregious delusions of the Brexit campaign was its statement that there was a safety net called the WTO rules ie a continuation of global free trade. Even then the direction of travel was clear.
As a result, the strategy suggested is a pipe dream. Nineteenth century style diplomatic thinking encounters twenty first century economics.
I have always thought the Commonwealth would make a good trading bloc.
It did. The last time the global system broke up into trading blocs was the 1930s and Britain experienced a less traumatic ride than say the US because it was at the centre of the world’s largest trade bloc. Unfortunately, this is not true this time round.
‘We’ did however default on our debt repayments to the US in 1934, an act of national humiliation almost without parallel at the time.
It is admittedly hard not to enjoy the spectacle.
The little voice in my head (don’t worry – it’s mine, it’s got a Yorkshire accent) was just gearing up to say “But it’s so much fun to watch!” but my eyes were faster and Philip said it for me.
Trump’s first few frenetic weeks are great to watch for me for two reasons: firstly because I just love to watch (and be around) people getting stuff done without messing around.
Secondly, because I hadn’t realised just how much the changes in the US over the past 10 years had concerned me. It was like watching an old friend who is usually so jolly and rambunctious slide into depression and anxiety.
Now the US is back to being itself – muscular, loud, brash, a bit of a bully, super annoying at times…but basically the one you know and appreciate.
I think the Americans saw the freedoms which they cherish so much slipping away and knew they wouldn’t be themselves any more without it – and so here we are with the clawback. It’s amazing.
Britain on the other hand…I think it’s lost the knack and the culture of freedom – not to mention the economic clout that underwrites it. Not entirely, I’m sure there’s plenty of people in this forum that voted for Brexit because they felt like it’s their birthright too and that it was all dripping away under a pile of EU bureaucracy – and that drive was strong enough to get Brexit basically implemented…but now there’s no one who knows what to do with the freedom it gave you. Least of all Starmer.
I know that the American brand of freedom is not the same as the one which forms the culture in other countries in the Anglosphere, but it is certainly the strongest, the most brutal and the one which excites the most devotion. Which makes these clawbacks possible in a way which I fear isn’t in the UK anymore.
I don’t think the US is full back to its brash, self-confident best (and worst) just yet. I still find myself in role reversal like discussions with US engineers where they’re behaving like the Europeans (“more government help please”) and I’m reminding them that their industry was built on individual initiative. Of course, we shall complain – just as we used to – when they get their mojo back.
The thing is, we used to have many of those instincts too. I’m not convinced we’ve lost them.
One difference is that in the US people don’t expect the government to solve their problems. And don’t ask them to (in fact, usually ask them to stay out of it). Over here – in spite of all evidence to the contrary from the big government era since WWII – for some reason they do.
The freedom to commit a genocide is pretty impressive I must admit, especially when truth tellers are subject to assassination attemps (Assange, not Trump) are threatened with long jail terms!
I’m more optimistic. We are still the great-grandchildren of the Victorians. There is always a way back.
Very sadly indeed the Ancient Romans never came back.
Your celebrations of American and British freedoms are a tad late I fear.. such freedoms are largely gone.. war criminals walk free while peaceful protesters are imprisoned.. snd freedom of speech is but a distant memory I’m afraid..
In answering the question l swing between “because his handlers tell him to”.and.”because he.lacks the cognitive flexibility to move beyond his first answer.on the Brexit referendum (we must have a second one). Either way someone needs to.run a correlation between Starmer opening his mouth and Reform voting intention.
I seem to remember that Palmerston was the chap keen on gunboat diplomacy though. I agree with the thrust of this essay and it does cover the foreign entanglement issue, but an entirely isolationist policy that leaves us without allies is much more dangerous in today’s world, where Britain cannot hope to own the dominant military platform.
In Palmerston’s day, the Royal Navy allowed us to live in splendid isolation and yet interfere where we chose to almost without consequence. A mere generation after him, other countries’ jealousy of it was the major factor that roped us into the First World War.
Western governments are in effect the Athenian tyrants who hated the Athenians. How did this catastroph come to be, and how to end it?
Badly!
Two reasons why they are crawling back.
1) they are committed internationalists, where everything abroad is better than at home.
2) they want jobs post the next election defeat. Nice, cushy ‘euro’ jobs are just the ticket.
Now you’re being silly! GB will never rejoin the EU so yhe job opportunities are zero! On point 1, sadly, yes, everything abroad IS better.. saying it isn’t does do diddly squat to borrow a US term..
Oddly I find on my frequent trips to the ‘Continent’ or even the old Empire that everything is refreshingly dreadful.
Thus I can smugly wallow is a sea of nostalgia, as I down yet another G&T.
Things are fine here in Australia!
Hasn’t Trump just demonstrated that most Western states ARE vassal states of the USA?
But, as ever “they can’t handle the truth”…
The sub-heading “Why is Starmer crawling back to Brussels?” is barely touched on in the essay. The writer may feel that the points he makes about national interest and the effect that might have on our international relationships covers the question, but in fact, it’s left begging.
Just why is Starmer creeping towards the EU? The answer may be quite straightforward: because he hasn’t got the slightest clue what to do with ‘power’ now he’s made it to PM. His only recourse is to seek refuge in the rapidly disappearing certainties the EU may once have offered, whilst conniving to keep Trump out of office then grovelling at his feet once that failed, with Mandelson as his proxy sycophant – a job he was seemingly born to do – in Washington.
And OMG – do we really have to put up with this iniquitous state of affairs for another four years or so?
As I keep telling myself, we are already 1/10th of the way through the 2TK era. Don’t despair man!
I expect Starmer will excel in one area – preventing electoral defeat using similar methods to Obama’s 3rd term – which i have heard Trump congratulated him on at the Peanut Vendor’s funeral. W/O the USA’s constitutional safeguards and healthy Christian culture i think Starmer may succeed where the O’Biden ticket failed. He will be harder to get rid of than MRSA or macrolide resistant Syphillis.
It’s certainly true that the prospect of four more years of this government is likely to make one tear one’s hair out.
But I have come to the conclusion, sadly, that it will take four years for Reform to get anywhere near a readiness for government. Though there is no guarantee that four years would be enough for Reform to become viable to govern, I choose to be optimistic, for the sake of my sanity.
Get involved Jimmy. Join the party and help get them ready.
Reform will probably be wound up before 29. More to be made elsewhere for its proprietors. And they’ll be right. Britain’s not a viable country without a trade deal with Russia for a start.
UK not only nation nuts to boycott Russia, eg, Germany.
There is no point trying to get Russian gas through a pipeline! Those things blow up!
The author also needed to make it clearer how Lord Mandelson was humiliated. It’s a prime illustration of his argument.
He’s crawling back to Brussels for the reasons you give. He feels comfortable talking to his fellow autocrats in the Commission and their failure to get to grips with the steady rightwards drift of the electorate across the EU – the Belgian domino fell only yesterday – lets him continue to ignore it.
He is crawling back to Brussels because he is a sinner before the gates of heaven….(or whatever Meatloaf says in that song).
The reason why the article heading isn’t elaborated upon is because the heading was probably added by Editor to grab the confirmatory-bias attention of the Unherd base.
To date Starmer hasn’t gone crawling back, although ‘crawling’ would need some defining. He’s not been gifted a strong hand has he. In the 8 years post Brexit vote the Right failed to land any significant and popular material alternative Trade deals to show the benefits, and we thus still do most of our trade with the EU.
The TCA comes up for renewal shortly and will need careful navigation. Business wants friction reduced. It can be but every deal requires some trade-offs.
Trump may in fact help make Starmer’s mind up, but for now hasn’t shown his cards, and thus no need for Starmer to show his yet either.
Headlines are usually written by subs but maybe this one was penned by a dom.
I’m well aware of how the headers might originate, but that makes no difference to my point. The term i preferred to use wasn’t crawling, but creeping – and you can make of that whatever you wish, but it’s not complimentary.
Your own bias and prejudice shine through. The UK has so far signed 71 free trade deals and agreements since leaving the EU. No doubt more will follow.
Of which the vast majority mere straight copies of the Deals we already had as part of EU and the new ones with likes of Aus and NZ represent less than 1% of total trade whilst also naffed off our farmers. Well done for showing how easily you’ve been played.
I’m simply providing facts, which I appreciate you probably find a bit challenging to deal with. You are however free to “play” them any way you choose.
Could have been worse. Could have been Corbyn….
He has the four horsemen of Labour to feed – Europhiles, Public Sector Unions, Religious Conservatives and State dependents. Everything he does is to curry favour with one of those four groups. Retaining and growing Labour’s core vote is his only priority, crowding out more trivial issues such as national wealth and security which might worry the pretty little head of a PM distracted by the affairs of the nation. We are stuck with this, or some version of it, until at least 2032 by which time the party of Andrew Mitchell and Dominic Grieve takes it’s rightful place in the graveyard of political parties.
Was Trudeau humiliated or is it the same $1.3 billion spend on border control that the Canadian Government announced on December 17, 2024?
I trust we have reached the nadir of national humiliation with Mandelson’s abject grovelling and Starmer’s knee bending antics, but fear we have not.
Grovelling was never John Bull’s strong suit was it?
Nor Ireland’s as I recall!
Starmer never wanted to leave, supported overturning the democratic vote, and would love to see us back in the EU. No doubt, he would turn round in years to come, like Heath, and tell everyone they were naive for believing him when he said it was not about a political union.
Surely the reason is to reduce the paperwork and crossborder delays suffered by tourists etc. And also to co-operate on countering prople
trafficing? ..all worth foing surely?
Quite right, we need to put our own interests first – once we have remembered what they are.
We also need to understand what other countries and power blocs think is their national interests. Take America, for example. At root, it’s all about jobs. Trump wants to repatriate all those jobs that disappeared when companies moved production to low-wage countries like Mexico and China. Trump’s methods are unorthodox, but is his goal really so irrational?
The small “Blue Labour” group within the Labour Party are very comfortable with the US activities designed to protect their own jobs. This used be something all of the Labour Party cared about – before they became globalist culture warriors.
Keir Hardie, who was more Trumpian than Trump when it came to protecting the interests of the native working class, must be spinning in his grave at the antics of his useless namesake.
Most of the 1945 Attlee cabinet and Labour party would be dismissed by the current Labour party as racist and fascists
..because they were!
‘We’ all were then and a jolly good too!
In particular the Right Honourable Ernest BEVIN.
Oh his goals are fine.. but his methods are hopeless!
I like how your first sentence identifies the core problem. We don’t remember what our own interests are. How can we? In Canada, where I live, Justin Trudeau referred to the country he was about to begin governing as a “post-national state with no core identity”. In this context, what does “national interest”, or even “national security” mean? It goes without saying that finding answers to these questions is made considerably more difficult when a large percentage of the population was born and raised elsewhere.