Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[mongers]

What statement do you mean?

I think I disagree with your take. This was her statement yesterday (from the Tory YouTube channel so this is how they're positioning it). I have no issue with any of it - I think it an opposition responsibly and constructively supporting the government:

At the weekend she wrote a column on an "axis of authoritarian states": "if we fail to respond robustly to their aggression, we will face a bitter reckoning sooner or later." In that piece she also supported the government increasing defence spending but pushed for a timeline to get to 3%. Yesterday she gave that statement mentioning "the fundamental principle that aggressors shouldn't win." Earlier today said Britain and Europe needs to rapidly re-arm "we must work to keep America in, and Russia out" (a re-working of Bevin's summary of Britain's goals immediately after the war: to keep the Americans in, the Germans down and the Russians out). And today she met the Finnish Foreign Minister "to discuss how we as NATO allies protect ourselves from Russian aggression".

It would be easy to take political advantage over Vance's comments. We've seen the Lib Dems do that and we've seen Nigel Farage do it too:

JD Vance is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. For 20 years in Afghanistan, pro-rata, our size against America's, we spent the same amount of money, we put the same number of men and women in, and we suffered the same losses.

We stood by America all through those 20 years, putting in exactly the same contribution. And alright, they may be six times bigger, but we did our bit. On this one, JD is wrong.

Some Tory MPs joined in and she's apparently told them to shut up - which is good. Because that sort of grandstanding is what irresponsible opposition parties do.

I think that's the right thing to do because that stuff and trying to get into a bidding war on outrage over Vance's comments (which are outrageous) would only make the government's job more difficult. I think Starmer's doing very well but it's a very, very difficult needle to thread - and I think Badenoch is right to be supporting the government in a fairly responsible, constructive fashion rather than trying to take advantage for a cheap political benefit from the privileged freedom of opposition.

I don't see any gap between her position and the government's - and I think that's right.

That's this week, maybe it'll be entirely different next week? As that's one key takeaway from the Trump populist playbook.

And I think the populist trump cards are too much electoral fun for some right-wing tories not to keep in their hand and play before the May elections,

[Sheilbh]

But I don't think there's a basis for that. We can criticise the last Tory government for many, many things - I don't think lack of support for Ukraine is one of them.

This isn't America - not supporting Ukraine is a fringe view. At this point the populist thing to do is attack Trump and criticise the government for not standing up for British troops or not more robustly criticising Trump:


But that makes the government's job more difficult because they have to work with Trump (working together particularly with Paris and Kyiv) to try and get the best outcome. From what I can see Badenoch's being a responsible opposition leader here, unlike Farage - in much the same way as Starmer's Labour party were a pretty responsible opposition on Ukraine.

Edit: But I suppose I think the right thing for opposition right now is to basically be providing cover and space for Starmer which is what I think is happening. It may be that he needs robust challenge - but we've had Tory backbenchers all day sounding off criticising Trump and Vance, not backing them.

Edit: So I think this is the stuff that's more populist/irresponsible right now from Tory MPs:

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said: "Britain and France came to their [the US's] aid, deploying thousands of personnel to Afghanistan, including my own brother and numerous parliamentary colleagues, past and present. It's deeply disrespectful to ignore such service and sacrifice."
[...]
The former foreign secretary James Cleverly condemned what he called Vance's "foolish and insulting, throwaway remark" given the support allies including the UK and France had provided after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The Conservative MP told Times Radio: "I understand that he has explained his position, but I think it was a hurtful and thoughtless remark."
[...]
Johnny Mercer, the Conservative former armed forces minister, who is no longer an MP, called Vance a "clown".

Mercer, who served in Afghanistan as an army officer, said: "Perhaps if he had got his hands dirty serving his country like so many of his fellow American and British veterans, chasing his own country's crazy foreign policy ideas, he might not be so quick to dismiss their sacrifice."

Or the Lib Dems saying Mandelson should be demanding an apology from the White House. That's the stuff that's really deeply unhelpful for the government right now.