Why Donald Trump's midterm election disaster is bad news for Reform and the Tories – Christine Jardine
Donald Trump is no longer quite the political asset that some UK politicians judged him to be
I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall of Reform UK HQ when the US midterm election results started coming in.
So many Democrat victories and firsts for women, black and Native American politicians. All of them a warning shot across the bows of the right wing. The only more fascinating reaction might have been at the dinner party attended by former Conservative PM Liz Truss at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on the night.
But at Reform HQ, the ideological home of the Donald’s biggest UK fan, there would have been a good deal of pearl-clutching and handwringing as they considered what the impact of the election might be. It certainly didn’t take long for Trump’s cheerleader-in-chief, Nigel Farage, to begin to try to distance himself from his erstwhile role model.
READ MORE: A decade on, why it could be game over for Donald Trump, Brexit and the populist revolution
Farage’s lack of loyalty
Loyalty is a rare commodity in politics and within 24 hours Farage was proving he has little or none of it. Trump had, he said, broken his promises to the American people, specifically by going to war with Iran despite his earlier insistence that there would be no foreign conflicts.
The man who continues to call Trump a friend and had denied the Republicans would get smashed in the midterms before a vote was cast, did a rapid 180-degree turn almost before counting them had begun.
He was also highly critical of dependence on Elon Musk’s money, although perhaps the one consolation for such billionaire buddies is that Trump’s election promise of $5,000 if the Republicans had won now won’t make a dent in their bank balances.
But while Farage might be the most newsworthy refugee from Trumpian political patronage, it is most likely less a case of seeing the light than protecting his own house of cards from collapse. And he certainly won’t be the only one.
Tories’ Iran war enthusiasm
For the Conservatives, who are so closely allied to the Republicans, the complete rejection of that party’s recent direction is a much bigger problem than Trump is. Of course, they were not alone in accepting that out-and-out hostility to the democratically elected president of our closest ally was not wise diplomacy, but they did not do enough to distance themselves from Republican ideology.
On a whole array of issues – from North Sea drilling, climate change denial and immigration to diversity and inclusion – both the Conservatives and Reform UK can be seen as expressing a British version of a Trump-lite philosophy.
Both the current Labour PM and his predecessor have been keen to highlight early Tory enthusiasm for the Iran war.
Trump may continue to ignore the electorate’s rebuke, in favour of showing off his ballroom and reflecting pool vanity projects, but some Republicans are already plotting their revenge.
They could side with the Democrats in the Capitol against their leader in a bid to mitigate the damage he has done to their cause. Or they might decide to let him ride out his term as a lame duck and look for a new leader whose reputation is unsoiled by association.
On this side of the pond, both Kemi Badenoch’s Tories and Farage’s Reform will be hoping to avoid being caught in the fallout against the right.
Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
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