There is no sugar-coating. This is a huge victory for the right which challenges British political security and prosperity. Suddenly, we seem a social-democratic outlier, surrounded by angrier, more confident and more pugnacious neighbours. What will be, will be. The world is as it is. There is no point hand-wringing now about the policy failures and delusion of the Kamala Harris campaign. What matters is to think clearly about the choices Britain makes next.
Nor should we feel sorry for ourselves. Any grief, any empathy should be reserved for our liberal brothers and sisters in the United States, who face a much bleaker future; and of course, for the people of Ukraine, who may be forced into a humiliating and destructive “peace”. I spoke this week to Sergei Markov, the former adviser to the Russian president, and well-connected Moscow politics professor. He said he expected Donald Trump almost immediately to call Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to demand an immediate ceasefire, followed by talks which would recognise the Ukrainian conflict as, essentially, a civil one between Russians rather than independent states.
There will be demands in London for European countries, particularly Britain, to take the lead in fresh military moves to protect Ukraine, urgently sending more long-range missiles and allowing the targeting of Russian sites. But without US support, this becomes incredibly dangerous for western Europe. Of all the urgent debates coming now, this is the most urgent one of all. There are no good answers. Unless he dramatically changes his mind, a Trump-imposed settlement, giving Putin the eastern third of Ukraine, would surely result in the fall of Zelensky, further Russian advances, and then Russian – and now North Korean – troops pushing against Nato’s borders.
With this possibility imminent, there will be emergency conversations going on in Whitehall and Downing Street this week. There have been preparations as well for the effect of the 20 per cent tariffs on British imports Trump has said he wants to impose. In public, it will all be “keep calm and carry on”: Keir Starmer’s instant congratulatory message to Trump optimistically emphasised “shared values”. Behind the scenes, the mood maybe just a little different.
This is also a major cultural victory for the right and we should not look away from that. The triumphant return of Trump is a reassertion of patriarchal, nationalist instincts against a world it caricatures as infected by “cultural Marxism”. This is bad news for migrants, wherever they are. It is bad news for women who want control of their bodies. It is bad news for the liberal, scientific, post-Enlightenment mindset. Ideas matter: the right now has control of the Washington machine and, through Trump’s close ally and cheerleader Elon Musk, a big new media amplifier. How this affects debate around the rest of the West on issues such as gender, Islam, borders and the Middle East remains to be see, but it has implications for them all. Musk, meanwhile, that stalwart enemy of Britain, becomes an even bigger global player.
In our part of the world, the conclusion of the US presidential race is a huge shot in the arm for nationalists such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who plans a major new conservative gathering there shortly. There is a good counter-factual argument that Trump will be good for the EU by pushing fractious France and Germany closer together, forcing Brussels to look up from petty detail and making the continent think harder about its role in the world. But I suspect the adrenalin shot for anti-Brussels nationalists will be stronger than all that. In Britain too, the Trump triumph will revitalise and enthuse a right scattered and demoralised by the general election. It makes Keir Starmer’s project of bolstering Britain on the world stage infinitely more complicated. It gives Reform UK in general, and Nigel Farage in particular, an obvious new relevance in British affairs; how, I wonder, will the Tories under Kemi Badenoch respond?
What happened overnight, though not unpredicted, has been a cataclysm. For left-of-centre social democrats in Britain, it presents an array of immediate and medium-term dilemmas; the world feels a little colder. I was pleased to see JD Vance, who will become vice-president, reach out generously to Democrats and his opponents. And it is not impossible, even now, that Trump will make good on his promise overnight to “heal America”, and that the angrier, more vengeful man we have become used to, relaxes on the soft furnishings of his remarkable victory.
People on the centre left too must try to keep clear heads and generosity of spirit. It’s going to be tough ahead. However pessimistic people may feel intellectually, optimism of the will is never a bad idea.
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