There is not much to celebrate looking around the world today, seeing the continuing bloodshed in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan through to deep struggles confronting democracy in the face of emboldened autocrats, unshackled technology and a wantonly destructive White House. Yet there is a silver lining amid the clouds of misery – and it has been exposed by the unlikely figure of Kemi Badenoch.
She is, for those who have forgotten, the latest leader of the Conservative Party, who has failed to make much of a mark since taking over its shattered remnants after last year’s electoral catastrophe.
Reports at the weekend said that she had ordered her team to lay off Donald Trump even as the man-child President of the United States pivots towards Moscow, sabotages Ukraine’s fight for survival, insults our friends, vandalises global trade, assails free speech and slithers away from democracy in his own land.
One Tory MP told The Mail on Sunday that Badenoch thinks she is friends with JD Vance so can influence Trump’s team, which shows incredible naivety – although it explains why she defended the Vice-President when he insulted Britain and our armed forces with his crass “random country” comments earlier this month.
Yet as Badenoch told ITV last week, it is a challenging time to be a Conservative. She is right on this point, at least. She must grapple with her party’s legacy of grotesque incompetence in government as leader of a shrivelled political force that finds itself trapped between a Labour Party dominating Westminster with its hefty majority and a hard-right Reform UK led by a charismatic chancer.
Badenoch seems unsure whether to mimic Trump as a disruptive anti-woke warrior – crusading against bureaucracy, cancel culture, diversity, greenery and migrants – or to defend decency, democracy and unfettered trade.
square IAN BIRRELL
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Read MoreAs Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with standing in the middle of the road is you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.
So she is floundering. But she is far from alone. Trump’s aggression, his grasping imperialism and chaotic brand of brutal disruption is causing problems for the right wing around the world as it struggles to respond. This issue was exemplified when I talked to people in Virginia about their new President – and heard the angriest reactions from older people who had previously voted Republican all their lives until his ascent.
But he does not just spark problems for traditional conservatives. Trump’s restoration to the White House, followed by his shameful cuddling up to the Kremlin and stop-start trade wars, is tormenting and wrong-footing many of his populist pals while sparking an unexpected resurgence for liberal and left-wing parties in many places.
We see this most clearly in Canada, amid understandable fury over Trump’s claim on the country as he calls it America’s 51st state, insults its prime minister by labelling him “governor”, and imposes foolish tariffs on trade.
This has boosted Canada’s incumbent Liberal Party by 23 points in polls – along with a change of leader – after it looked set to be thrashed in next month’s election by Pierre Poilievre, the populist Conservative leader who basked in Elon Musk’s admiration.
“ [Poilievre] looks too much like Trump. He sounds too much like Trump. He uses the lexicon of Trump,” complained one strategist last week, despite the Conservative Party’s desperate attempts to stop sounding like an echo of a US President now loathed by most Canadian voters.
There has been a similar, if less dramatic, impact in Australia, which votes five days later.
Six weeks ago, the opposition Liberal Party was ahead in polls after its leader, Peter Dutton, deployed the standard populist weapons with attacks on diversity, immigration and “the woke brigade”.
But as in Britain, most voters have little affinity with Trump; barely one-fifth of Australians would have backed him over Kamala Harris. Now the ruling Labor Party is back in front under its bland prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
Latest YouGov modelling suggests that Labor may even manage to win a majority government in the wake of Trump’s imposition of tariffs on its key aluminium and steel industries, despite the two nations signing a security pact and free-trade deal supposed to protect them.
Trump has made life difficult also for Georgia Meloni, the Italian leader who strove to shake off her Brothers of Italy party’s fascist roots but now finds herself torn between admiration for Trump’s hard-right populism and allegiance to Europe in a nation where only one in 12 people see the US President as their continent’s friend.
That Signal group chat – with senior US officials discussing plans to attack rebels in Yemen – exposed not just shocking disregard for security but utter contempt for Europe.
At least the incoming German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, seems to be a conservative who can see the changed world order with his call for new security architecture and acceptance that the US is “largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.
Trump treats his nation’s enemies as his friends while trampling over allies – and his selfish toxicity causes predictable problems for those who get too close to him.
If the issues were not deadly serious, it would be amusing to watch Boris Johnson’s squirming after declaring that Trump would never betray Ukraine, or Liz Truss posing as a fighter for free trade while sucking up to the “Make America Great Again” crowd.
Even the usually sure-footed Nigel Farage has struggled to balance his idolisation of the US President with the disdain felt by many British voters, forcing the Reform UK chief to offer mild admonishment of Trump’s capitulation to Vladimir Putin after seeing a plunge in his personal approval ratings.
History will not be kind to those who kowtow to Trump. Yet there is delicious irony in seeing these struggles from politicians who thought that Trump showed them a path to power.
Instead, he has bolstered liberal and left-wing foes, especially in nations that he has targeted – with incumbents in Denmark, Mexico and Ukraine also seeing their ratings surge – while making life complicated for his fellow-travellers on the hard right, especially in Europe as he trashes both Brussels and Nato.
So yes, there is a glimmer of good news amid the gloom.
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