Labour\u2019s next poster should be obvious. Just stick the hair of that other strawberry blond, Donald Trump, on the face of Nigel Farage. Only a quarter<\/a> of Brits have a positive or very positive view of the US president; 40 per cent are very negative. Even among those who voted Reform UK in the 2024 general election, no more than half are well disposed to him. Thatcher was divisive; Trump is radioactive. Hague was reluctantly in her shadow; Farage embraces life as an outpost of Maga. A politician who has courted Trump for a decade should be fighting for credibility in British public life. But Sir Keir Starmer never makes that case against Farage, lest the implied insult to Trump wreck transatlantic relations.<\/p>\n This wouldn\u2019t be such a problem if the second-best line of attack on Farage were not also out of bounds. Just one voter in three believes that Brexit was a good idea. No individual politician did more to bring it about than Farage. Were he to become prime minister, he would presumably maintain or harden Britain\u2019s current relationship with the EU, which voters already regard as the pits. (Rejoining the customs union or the single market or the Union itself are all more popular<\/a> than the status quo.)<\/p>\n \u201cWe listened to him last time, and look,\u201d is a campaign message that screams to be used on Farage. But Starmer doesn\u2019t, in case he opens up decade-old national wounds that are only now scabbing over. <\/p>\n At this point, a commentator should bemoan the prime minister\u2019s extreme tentativeness: his decision to sheath the two sharpest blades he has against Reform UK.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t. On both counts, Starmer is right. Britain has to avoid offending Trump until such time as it can cut the military and technological apron strings with the US. (Or more likely, Trump leaves office.) Remember, the president suspended trade talks with Canada over the matter of a television advert against his tariffs in Ontario province. Imagine his wrath if he were to see his name taken in vain at the top of government in Britain, which the Maga crowd already disdains as a failed state with Babylon as its capital<\/a>.<\/p>\n A man of the left, a creature of the public sector, a stickler for the law, Starmer must hate appeasing Trump to the last atom of his being. That he does it anyway for reasons of state is to his credit: the closest thing to strategic discipline that we have seen from a mostly unserious prime minister.<\/p>\n Starmer is also right, for now, to not use Brexit against Farage. It would sound too much like criticism of the 52 per cent who voted for it. The time will come when he can say out loud what most voters know: that Brexit must at least be softened, that having less smooth goods trade with the EU than Turkey does is an untenable farce.\u00a0But speak too soon, and he exposes himself to the cry of arrogance. Regretful Leave voters have to be handled with almost surgical care. There is a world of difference between knowing you were wrong and being told you were wrong.<\/p>\n Recommended<\/p>\n So, the almost unopposed procession of Farage towards Downing Street must go on. Most things in politics have a precedent, but I have never known a situation quite like this. The possible next prime minister of a G7 state has not one but two liabilities to his name that should be career-ending, yet neither can be used against him. The equivalent would be to campaign against Jeremy Corbyn without mentioning the whole being a socialist and nuclear disarmer thing.<\/p>\n And look, perhaps the \u201cobvious\u201d argument against Farage wouldn\u2019t work. Populism is only tenuously about issues. People who hated the lockdown and the subsequent wave of immigration often adore Boris Johnson<\/a> \u2014 who oversaw both \u2014 on the basis that he is somehow a different kind of politician. Likewise, even if Farage had Trump and Brexit thrown at him at every turn, voters who loathe both of those things might stick with him because he represents some inchoate \u201cchange\u201d. Fine. But it would be nice to test the proposition. If the country elects Farage, the political mainstream should at least be able to tell itself afterwards that it made the strongest possible case against him. <\/p>\n The Liberal Democrats, among others, probably can. By contrast, Starmer tiptoes around third parties: the US government and those Leave voters who rue their decision but remain sensitive about the matter. Things might be different in 2029, when America should be on its 48th president and Brexit should become a more visitable subject. But that is leaving it awfully late. <\/p>\n In a sane world, Farage would not be able to show his face in parliament or in a TV studio without being reminded of two things. His adult life was devoted to a cause that his compatriots now regard as a mistake. His friend in the White House is if anything even less popular with them. The campaign against Reform UK writes itself. And still \u2014 maddeningly, necessarily \u2014 it languishes in the top drawer.<\/p>\n![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F859cea.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n