After the experiences of Zelensky and Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, Prime Minister Albanese is no doubt terrified of a similarly bruising meeting in front of Team Trump and the cameras.  Albanese’s fears will have been deepened by Trump’s humiliation of his comrade Keir Starmer during his visit to Scotland.

Trump is refining the way he handles a leftist leader like Starmer. First there’s the meaningless flattery – Starmer is doing a ‘terrific’ job and even has a ‘beautiful accent’. Then there’s the signal that we shouldn’t take all this too seriously: ‘He’s slightly more liberal than I am’ was his epic understatement. After that, having got what Trump wanted – help promoting his golf courses and a smooth path to his September UK state visit – he started lobbing hand grenades, publicly attacking Labour’s pieties and policies as Starmer stared blankly into the cameras.

The sharpest barbs were on immigration. Trump talked of a ‘horrible invasion’ ‘killing Europe’. ‘You better get your act together, or you’re not going to have Europe anymore,’ he said. His comment to Starmer, ‘I hear you’ve taken a very strong stand on immigration’ can be taken as empty fluff, especially as he also made clear that he admires ‘some leaders’ in Europe who have stopped illegal immigration – clearly a reference to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, bête noire of Europe’s left-liberal establishment, including Starmer.

Trump’s stark warning came near the tenth anniversary of former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s invitation to the Third World to relocate to Europe, resulting in an influx of 1.5 million and a further 6 million since.

Europe has not yet corrected course. In Britain’s case, since Tony Blair’s period in office, the UK’s population has risen from 60 million to almost 70 million as a result of mass immigration, with an average of close to 500,000 net new arrivals per annum over the last eight years. The numbers include the 176,000 who have crossed the Channel since 2018, many of whom are among the estimated one million illegal immigrants in Britain.

The influx has produced dramatic changes: indigenous Britons are now a minority in London, Birmingham and other urban areas.  And up to three million of the arrivals since 2000 have been Muslim, with the consequence that they increasingly determine the fate of traditional Labour seats. Their wishes also increasingly influence Britain’s foreign, immigration and policing policies and have increased pressure for the erosion of free speech through ‘Islamophobia’ restrictions.

Labour attacked the Tories for losing control of borders and has pledged to reduce legal immigration and to stop the boats by ‘smashing the gangs’. But its heart isn’t in it. Although Britain has paid France £710 million to stop the boats, the people smugglers continue to operate and advertise openly. The pull factors are unprecedentedly strong – often luxurious hotel accommodation, free mobile phones, allowances, gold-plated access to the NHS, no detention and a good chance of working in the black economy. Plus helpful lawyers and judges who use Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights to ensure there is little chance of illegal immigrants ever having to leave, however weak their asylum claims. This year, which has already seen a record 25,000 cross-Channel arrivals, will probably see an all-time record. Starmer boasts he’s deported 35,000 people, but is more shy about admitting that only a pitifully small number are boat arrivals.

At the latest count there were 33,000 asylum seekers in 218 hotels – costing £5.7 million a day. The hotels are usually taken over without notice to local authorities, radically changing the character of small communities overnight. The arrivals have included terrorists and many criminals. Recently, eleven girls were sexually assaulted, raped or attacked by asylum seekers in 12 days. And in just three hotels in Bournemouth, 116 charges have been brought against 51 asylum seekers.

Middle England is steadily stirring to anger and protest. A Yougov poll has shown 45 per cent of Britons want zero net immigration combined with ‘large numbers’ of deportations, more than those opposed to such measures.

The issue continues to drive Reform UK’s popularity, consistently ten points ahead of Labour in opinion polling. Nigel Farage’s lead is expected to increase further after an expected 30 per cent of previous Labour supporters switch to supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s new hard-left party. Yet Labour will remain reluctant to shift from its ‘refugees welcome’ mindset.

Starmer’s new deal with Macron, which he claims will break the people smugglers’ business model, resembles Julia Gillard’s failed asylum seeker swap plan with Malaysia and is beyond farce. It involves sending about 50 arrivals a week back to France (about six per cent of recent arrivals), with Britain obliged to accept the same number back from France. But it is doubtful whether even this pathetic number can be achieved: those identified for removal can appeal and those under 18 won’t be returned. Those sent back may try again. When this plan flops, Labour will rely on its Orwellian Online Safety Law to try to intimidate critics into silence. The Mother of the Free and land of Magna Carta has become a place where someone can be prosecuted not for intending to incite hatred but simply if their words are deemed likely to do so.

The rest of Europe has shifted further to the right than Britain since Merkel opened the floodgates. And yet decisive change is still elusive. The anti-immigration opposition parties in France and Germany face aggressive legal constraints. Where the right is in government, they often share power with change-resistant centrists (the Netherlands) or are thwarted by leftist, activist EU judges (Italy). A defeatist resignation to borders being too hard to police in the passport-free EU Schengen zone means commitments to tougher immigration regimes often run into the sand (Germany). Meanwhile, the illegal immigrants continue to arrive. Over the past two years, there have been over 600,000.

Voters’ anger over continued leaky borders and still surging inflows of illegal arrivals will ensure that the anti-immigration right continues to strengthen. In a few years, Europe’s three biggest powers could be led by Nigel Farage, the Le Pen National Rally and the Alternative for Germany. But even if this happened, would there still be a recognisable Europe to save?