How much difference can a hundred extra canvassers make, even in an election as close as this one? The influx of British Labour Party volunteers to campaign for the Democrats, which happens every four years, is better understood as a student exchange or a working vacation than as foreign interference.
But this time, the Republicans have adroitly turned the tradition to their own advantage, suggesting that these young door-knockers are equivalent to the Russian hackers and agents provocateurs who sought to destabilize the last two presidential contests and who are almost certainly doing the same now.
There is nothing unusual about helping a political ally in another country. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., has been campaigning for former President Donald Trump. I went door-to-door with a Tory candidate in Canada’s last election. Believe it or not, we politicos are weird enough to enjoy experiencing how other countries do these things.
Republican strategists cleverly jumped on one loose line in an appeal for Labour volunteers to make it sound as if official resources were being deployed — which, knowing how these things work, they almost certainly were not. Still, the idea of foreigners coming in to help the less patriotic of the two candidates is bound to boost the GOP.
I am reminded of a remark by the great Whig historian G.M. Trevelyan about Charles I’s frequent appeals for foreign aid during the English Civil War. That unfortunate monarch wrote to his fellow kings in France, Spain, Sweden, and Bohemia to ask for military assistance, and although none was forthcoming, his letters were used by his parliamentary opponents to suggest he wanted to subject England to foreign occupation. Thus, Trevelyan wrote, Charles was “defeated by phantom armies that he himself had conjured.”
I have no idea whether the Democrats will be similarly defeated, although the shrillness of Vice President Kamala Harris’s tone suggests she is rattled. I mean, “fascist”? Really? Trump, after one term in office and one out, is supposed to have suddenly become interested in the ideas of Otto Strasser and Carl Schmitt?
The idea that Trump reads enough to be a fascist, or anything else, is hard to square with what we know of the man. As Walter Sobchak, played by John Goodman, puts it in The Big Lebowski, “I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos.” Trump, as we know, does not do ethos.
The problem for Labour and, by extension, for Britain is precisely that Trump has no ideology. His policies are determined, in the end, by his personal likes and dislikes. The most thin-skinned politician in discovered space, he judges foreign leaders by the sole criterion of whether they say nice things about him.
Unfortunately, the British foreign secretary, a dangerous clown called David Lammy, has called Trump “a dangerous clown.” He even anticipated Harris by referring to the Donald as a “neo-Nazi sociopath.” Even if that could be forgiven, as similar remarks by Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) have been forgiven, Labour has simultaneously, and bewilderingly, picked a fight it cannot win with Elon Musk over online censorship.
This matters because Trump’s instincts are pro-Britain and pro-Brexit. He dislikes the European Union and might easily have decided to exempt the United Kingdom from his 10% global tariff just to make a point. But, rather as his early dislike of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau counted against Canada in all subsequent trade talks during his first term, so a similar dynamic might operate against Britain if he wins a second.
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A U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement is obviously in the interests of both countries, and one was being negotiated by Trump’s administration before President Joe Biden put a halt to it. But as this ludicrous row escalates, it is hard to see how either leader could now go ahead. The actual trade problems could easily be resolved. British Euro-nostalgics, who can’t bear to see any good come out of Brexit, pretend to be upset about “chlorinated chicken” because the United States rinses poultry carcasses (there is less chlorine than in a bag of washed salad). But the amount of chicken traded is so tiny that this should not be a deal-breaker.
The personal problems, in the event of a Trump victory, will be tougher. Trump, as ever, will want to get even with those who have slighted him. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be under pressure from his own party not to move closer to what they, Harris-like, really will see as a fascist regime — especially if it means moving further away from Brussels. Once again, Rhett and Scarlett-like, we will let the moment slip.