In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the fictional island of Lilliput is discovered where the inhabitants stand six inches in height. In this bizarre land, the upper echelons of society are portrayed as a terribly quarrelsome bunch; caring a little too much for their own personal prestige.
This was Swift’s satirical sketch of Great Britain in the early eighteenth century. And there are striking similarities to the way in which Britain’s Lilliputian leader, Keir Starmer, is viewed today through the eyes of Mr. Donald J. Trump.
‘Special relationship’
Trump has already made his contempt clear for Britain’s knight in shining armour. Trump’s unofficial spokesperson, the sieg-heiling billionaire Elon Musk, has publicly scolded Starmer, calling upon the King to liquidate his government!
It is my earnest hope that His Majesty considers this matter in the interests of his subjects https://t.co/xUD8lOym8g
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2025
Sir Keir, however, stands undeterred. He is doing all in his power to ingratiate himself with his new master overseas. Such is the substance of their ‘special relationship’.
Starmer has sensed that Trump wants to disentangle US imperialism from the Ukraine war. And hearing the Pavlovian prompt of his master in Washington, he has jumped to attention.
JUST IN: 🇬🇧 UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants the war in Ukraine to continue:
‘The route to lasting peace comes through strength’
Starmer announces unwavering support for Kiev & new defense treaty with Poland pic.twitter.com/Z4FCll8MuT
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) January 17, 2025
This is why Starmer flew to Kyiv recently to promise Zelensky more arms and more money. In this way, the UK PM hoped to demonstrate to his latest US counterpart that Britain is willing to step up to the plate when it comes to military spending and upholding the NATO western alliance.
As ever, however, Starmer got a little bit over enthusiastic, and didn’t seem to fully grasp the message from Washington: that the war is effectively over.
Trump is looking to withdraw from the conflict and wind down America’s involvement in Ukraine. The Labour leader, by contrast, promised Zelensky a ‘100-year partnership’ between Britain and his beleaguered country.
But then trouble began to stir back on the tiny island. Lisa Nandy, a leading Labour cabinet member, began to raise doubts that Britain’s army was big enough for Starmer’s grand designs, which included mention of a possible NATO ‘peacekeeping force’ in Ukraine.
Nandy hastened to add that the UK’s military weakness was, naturally, the fault of the previous Tory administrations.
Colonel Tim Collins butted in, labelling Starmer’s plan as a “national embarrassment”, since the army has been “hollowed out to the point of destruction”. So far, no good.
Trouble at sea
In the Indo-Pacific, more diplomatic trouble began to brew. Starmer had previously promised to ‘hand over’ the Chagos Islands – currently ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’ – to Mauritius, as per the International Court of Justice’s ruling in 2019.
This modern-day colony, looted from the French in 1810 (when Britainnia still ruled the waves), hosts a US military base in Diego Garcia.
After Starmer expressed the US’s willingness for this to go ahead – alongside, of course, his deep desire to respect the letter of the law – his plans have come to a screeching halt.
The deal is now “on hold.” It is set to be reviewed by the Trump team, who do not have a history of giving a damn about advisory notes from UN institutions (or any international organisations, for that matter).
Though the Chagos Islands are no doubt small fry for the new president – especially compared to the grand expanses of Greenland – his incoming secretary of state Marco Rubio has indicated that handing the islands over to China-aligned Mauritius represents a “serious threat”. Trump’s move is therefore nothing short of a political snub.
It would seem that Sir Keir is lost at sea, caught in a diplomatic maelstrom. Cut adrift in the Atlantic, one might wonder if Britain should accept its sorry fate – that its best days are well behind it.
No doubt it is an unenviable task for the PM to anticipate in advance what the boss in Washington would like at any given moment. But no matter what Starmer does to impress the big man in Trump Tower, nothing seems to do the trick.
From up above, Trump can see what Gulliver found long ago on his travels: a small and trivial Kingdom, led by rulers as irredeemable as they are irrelevant.
