Of the many reasons to celebrate Donald Trump’s great victory, one is its humiliation of Britain’s grey, robotic, socialist Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Labour’s hatred for Trump is personal and most of its senior figures have foolishly broadcast that – presumably never imagining they’d be in office facing a second Trump presidency. Among the many grotesque insults, Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s stand out – ‘woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath’ and ‘racist KKK sympathiser’. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner added the Covid-era slander that Trump was responsible for ‘killing thousands of Americans’. Presumably given this history, in the lead-up to the US election Starmer clearly felt the need to establish a relationship with Trump. They met and Trump was publicly polite – although the Daily Mail reported that his team saw Starmer as ‘anti-American and a whingeing, liberal bore’.

Starmer’s prime focus during the US campaign was to do everything he could to help Harris win. He sent his senior team to share electoral strategies and Labour staffers were asked to help the Democrats campaign in the swing states. In fact, in the areas where Labour’s 100 right-on volunteers preached the evils of Trump – there’s rich comedy material here – they appear to have helped him: the Democrat vote went down by 400,000 compared to 2020. Still, Team Trump angrily accused the ‘far left’ Labour party of electoral interference and complained to the US federal electoral commission.

Starmer and his ministers, visibly sweating when these issues come up, try to laugh them off, stressing that ‘ripe’ Labour assessments of Trump – which they refuse to withdraw – are ‘old news’ and that Vice-President-elect Vance is also on record for making unflattering comments about him. They insist helping the Democrats was no big deal and that the special relationship means everyone will move on.

That’s based on hope. The Daily Mail quotes a source saying the damage Starmer has done to relations with the US through electoral interference shouldn’t be underestimated and that, ‘the Trump team are ready and waiting to unleash all-out war’ on Starmer. Trump isn’t famous for forgiving those who’ve crossed him: Kim Darroch, Theresa May’s ambassador in Washington, described Trump’s administration in a diplomatic cable as ‘inept and insecure’ – mild criticism compared to Team Starmer’s language. The cable leaked, Trump said ‘We will no longer deal with him’ and Darroch had to go home. Moreover during his first presidency, Trump’s Anglophilia didn’t stop him from criticising Britain for what he saw as its softness on domestic Islamist extremism, leading to public rows with May and London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan (a ‘stone cold loser’, he tweeted). Trump’s friends Nigel Farage and Elon Musk are unlikely to put in a good word for Starmer, especially given that his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, founded the Center for Countering Digital Hate, one of whose priorities is to ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’. Still, a factor which might sway Trump against putting UK relations into deep freeze is his probable need for British support for his plans to end the war in Ukraine, likely to be a land-for-peace deal, policed by a European Nato force.

On other issues, Trump and Starmer are on a collision course.  Trump’s view that climate change is a scam and his commitment to withdraw again from the 2015 Paris Agreement will play havoc with Labour’s net zero obsession. In foreign policy, sharp disagreements are likely over Israel, for which Trump will move to full-throated support – in contrast to Starmer’s ambivalence, driven by his desperation to appease Muslim voters. And Trump’s previous opposition to Britain giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius threatens Starmer’s dodgy plan to do so and please the UN anti-colonial crowd.

The grim news for Labour from Washington comes after the most inept first months of any British government in living memory.  Everything Starmer touches has turned to disaster. Multiple manifesto promises have been broken, private schools are going under with punitive taxes and farmers will be next.  Who cares, the green-left thinks, given that non-vegan farming is, like private education, evil and, they believe, rural land is needed for wind turbines, pylons, solar panels and housing for immigrants.

In only a few months, Starmer has trashed the once unsurpassed reputation of the British justice system. ‘Two-tier Keir’ lets dangerous criminals out of prison while piling pressure on judges for rapid imprisonment of the ‘far right’ – often for no more than social media posts – who he blames exclusively for disorders after the 29 July Southport murders. Meanwhile, the establishment hesitates endlessly about judicial action against non-whites or leftists also responsible for violence or incitement.  All this could blow up in Starmer’s face: the authorities sat for months on evidence pointing to the Southport suspect being an Islamist terrorist, suggesting the incendiary possibility of a cover-up.

Meanwhile the boats keep coming and Starmer demonstrates his discomfort with British history and culture by removing portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare from Number 10. And he reveals his astonishing political ineptitude by accepting vast amounts of money for clothing, Taylor Swift concerts and other freebies while making life tougher for ordinary people.

This mess should be a gift to the opposition. The big positive of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives’ new leader, is that she’s an awkward opponent for a Labour party obsessed with race and diversity – but which has only ever had white male leaders. But while she’s previously been seen as a conservative, doubts are accumulating. The Tory woke wets supported her over her rival Robert Jenrick, and, unlike him and Reform UK, she doesn’t have clear plans to slash immigration or to dump net zero. She’s also defended the integrity of the justice system under Starmer. Moreover, her shadow ministry excluded strong conservative performers, such as Suella Braverman and David Frost. There’s a good chance the Tories will eventually move decisively to the right under a new leader, at this stage probably Jenrick.

The current momentum on Britain’s right is with Farage’s Reform UK, now beating the Tories in elections. Though it’s early into a five-year term, Labour’s green-left extremism, out-of-control immigration and soaring cost of living provide fertile ground for Britain eventually having its own Trump moment.  A key question is whether Farage’s forces or a genuinely Conservative party lead Britain towards that.