Trump’s favour for Farage is a blow for Boris, but a coup for Corbyn
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One of the rules of British politics is: never underestimate Nigel Farage. Just as his latest wheeze, the Brexit Party, was beginning to look like a flash in the pan, he mobilised two of his other roles — as LBC’s shock jock and as Donald Trump’s British consigliere — to spring a surprise on the very first day of the general election campaign. Trump’s favour for Farage is a blow for Boris, but a coup for Corbyn.
To have the President of the United States return your call would be quite a scoop for any journalist. Indeed, Piers Morgan is just about the only other presenter who has pulled it off. But it is quite something for the leader of a political party — even a one-man show such as the Brexit Party — to persuade the most powerful man in the world to break with all diplomatic convention by directly intervening in the politics of an important ally.
Farage, however, is the joker in the political pack. He fears becoming irrelevant more than anything else. And that is what the 17 point lead that Boris Johnson had opened up over Jeremy Corbyn was threatening to do. A Tory landslide would mean only one thing for Farage: retirement to the Lords or, more likely, the Dog and Duck.
So Farage has played his Trump card. In doing so, he has knowingly handed a huge opportunity to the Labour leadership. At a stroke, the central claim of their campaign — that the Tories plan to “sell off” the NHS and other public assets to Trump’s America — has been transformed from a grotesque conspiracy theory into a plausible suspicion. The link between Boris, the NHS and a “Trump sellout” has been made. Corbyn launched his campaign yesterday to chants of “Not for sale”.
Did Trump realise that he was playing into the hands of Corbyn, the man he says would be “so bad for your country”? He probably just doesn’t care. The President did deny that the NHS would be “on the table” in post-Brexit trade talks with the UK. But that claim — like similar denials from Conservative ministers such as Matt Hancock — is bound to be ignored. The response, not only from Labour but from the anti-Tory media will be: “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”
Equally embarrassing for Boris Johnson was the fact that Trump poured cold water on his greatest achievement, the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. In his inarticulate but unforgettable way, the President implied that anything other than the “clean break” Brexit championed by Farage would more or less rule out an Anglo-American free trade deal: “To be honest with you, this deal, under certain aspects of this deal, you can’t do it, you can’t do it, you can’t trade.”
Even more damaging for the Tories than anything actually said by Trump was the mood music that accompanied the story: prime time footage of Johnson and Trump gladhanding one another, contrasted with Corbyn telling his launch rally: “Labour won’t let Donald Trump get his hands on our National Health Service.”
If this issue is allowed to dominate the campaign, the Tory lead will melt away faster than you can say “Theresa May”. Never has the Prime Minister been more dependent on Dominic Cummings. His chief strategist — who has now postponed a planned operation for the second time since the summer — is in the unpleasant predicament of having his own referendum strategy turned against him. Far from Brexit delivering an extra £350 million a week for the NHS, Corbyn will claim that a Boris-Trump deal will cost “an extra £500 million a week of NHS money to big drugs corporations”. We can expect to see that figure repeated endlessly in Labour propaganda — perhaps even on the side of a bus.
What makes this lie — for it is a lie — so dangerous for Boris Johnson is that it is big enough to be believable. For conspiracy theorists like Corbyn, there is plenty of ammunition. Trump is indeed a champion of the American model of private healthcare (and vice versa), while US companies do indeed make most of the new drugs that the NHS buys. The recent debate about the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi shone a light on the tortuous negotiations that routinely take place between US drugs firms, the NHS and the Department of Health. Tory politicians will have their work cut out to persuade the public that the NHS is indeed “safe in our hands” — especially if Trump keeps intervening.
How will Team Boris respond to the pincer movement from Farage and Corbyn? In a classic text now widely studied by Tory spin doctors, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the Chinese general argues that a military leader must be “serene and inscrutable” and comprehend “unfathomable plans”. While the Prime Minister is certainly blessed with a serene, even sunny, disposition, he is anything but inscrutable. Indeed, one of his strengths is that his journalistic mind is an open book. It is the Sun Tzu of Downing Street, Dominic Cummings, who is supposed to come up with “unfathomable plans”.
So here is a piece of free advice to Downing Street. Don’t panic by responding in detail to the Big Lie that Corbyn will reiterate at every opportunity. Focus instead on explaining why Boris Johnson is not, never had been and never will be, a British Trump. If necessary, let the Prime Minister distance himself from the President. And don’t let Farage make fools of you. In short: Keep Calm and Carry On.
