LONDON — Almost every major British political party has bent the knee to Donald Trump. The Liberal Democrats are happy to stay standing.
While Prime Minister Keir Starmer is busy trying to build a bridge between Washington and Europe amid a major transatlantic rift, the centrist Liberal Democrats are carving out a niche in the House of Commons by stridently criticizing the MAGA president.
It’s an easy hit for a party far from government.
The Lib Dems are the third-largest force in a House of Commons still dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, and won’t have to deal with Trump’s administration directly any time soon.
Yet it may also be smart politics as the Lib Dems bank on a British distaste for Trump that seems to transcend party lines.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, buoyed by their best-ever result, told POLITICO Trump is an “incredibly dangerous” president, even as he stressed that the “bonds of friendship between Europe and the USA go far deeper than one president or one administration.”
Davey hasn’t exactly held back since his preferred U.S. presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, lost to Trump on what the Lib Dem chief called a “dark” day for the West.
He has insisted Trump should only receive the pomp and ceremony of a British state visit if he supports Ukraine. He’s argued that Britain should use the threat of Trump’s tariffs to negotiate membership of the EU customs union — a long-standing rallying cry of the anti-Brexit Lib Dems.
And at prime minister’s questions, the most visible House of Commons moment of the British political week, Davey often uses his allocated slot to try to drive a wedge between Trump and the Labour government.
“Trump is a different type of American leader,” argued the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller in an interview. “What we are calling for is a higher level of realism about the kind of president we’re now working with.”
Trump’s decisions “are unpredictable and … he is an unreliable partner,” Miller added. “We were very clear that those represent a threat to the world and to the U.K.”
Mouthing off
Some Lib Dems believe their party is pushing at an open door in taking potshots at Trump.
Recent Ipsos polling found 63 percent of Britons had an unfavorable view of the U.S. president — with just 22 percent having a favorable view.
Voters “are open to people being more critical of some of the ways that he does politics and some of the things he does” without being “knee-jerk,” said former Lib Dem adviser Sean Kemp.
The U.K. parliament’s centrist force is able to occupy this space in part because their opponents’ hands are tied when it comes to dealing with the U.S. president.
Britain’s main opposition Conservatives are the Republicans’ sister party, with figures including former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss out in force at Trump’s inauguration. New leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken warmly about Trump appointee Elon Musk’s government efficiency drive, and rails against many of the same “woke” targets.
Despite a thumping election defeat last year, the Tories could also realistically reenter government before Trump’s second term ends — and so must keep America on side.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s small but significant band of Reform UK MPs backs the president more openly, with Farage pitching himself as a key Trump whisperer on this side of the Atlantic.
On the center left, Britain’s Labour government — not natural bedfellows with Trump — will find it excruciating to attack the U.S. president publicly. Even the ruling SNP in Scotland, a country Trump is personally and financially connected to, has accepted it may have to work with the president.
But the Lib Dems are unburdened by the need for such diplomatic niceties — and so can forcefully attack him while trying to appeal to that broad pool of Brits who find him distasteful.
“There are folk who will have supported Liberal Democrats over many years, but also people from other parties who are uncomfortable with the specter of a Trump presidency,” argued Miller — who insisted the party’s stance isn’t for electoral reasons.
Badenoch’s tilt in a more pro-Trump direction may also open up space — with Lib Dems seeking to appeal to Tory voters unhappy with an embrace of the controversial Republican.
The Conservatives are “doing absolutely nothing to appeal to what you might call One Nation Conservatives,” argued former leader Vince Cable, who was at the helm the last time Trump was in office. “They’re driving them away at the moment.”
The Lib Dems also hope to tie opposition to Trump to the need for closer EU links in an uncertain world. Davey marked five years since Brexit by pointedly saying the U.K. “needs to lead in Europe.” He told LBC a close relationship was “a good way of showing to President Trump that we’re a bit tougher than he thinks.”
“It’s allowed them to bring up the EU in a way that makes it not just sound like they just still can’t let the referendum go,” Kemp said.
Realpolitik realities
In taking on Trump, the Lib Dems are returning to a space they’ve occupied before.
They were staunchly opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, something Labour and the Tories supported.
This stance helped them win seats off Labour in 2005, especially in university cities — and old hands believe there’s a proper, principled case to be made for opposing Trump this time around.
“Having a broad philosophy which is liberal in opposition to the values which the MAGA movement has in America … would seem to be very much in our long-term strategic interest,” Cable said.
“This is the serious approach, and it is one that’s grounded in realpolitik,” Miller said of the Lib Dem strategy — calling it “muscular liberalism.”
Yet there’s a downside risk as well: Attacking Labour and Trump’s closeness this time around may keep members happy, but it could turn off potential switchers from Labour to the Lib Dems who see the attacks as too tribal.
Kemp argued the party needs to strike a balance. “The Lib Dems have got to find areas where they can criticize the Labour Party whilst not seeming over the top,” he warned.
Dislike of Trump’s agenda in the U.K. can be overstated too.
While voters tend to dislike him personally, there is some sympathy for his political agenda. Recent Opinium polling found that 58 percent of Brits agreed a “border emergency” should be declared in Britain, while 56 percent backed trade protectionism.
The Lib Dems would naturally oppose both, and insist there’s little appetite for a Trumpian movement in Britain. “Some of the domestic policy challenges in the U.S. are quite distinct from those facing the U.K.,” Miller said.
Cable concurred: “Political alignments are totally different here, and that’s why we mustn’t get sucked into the American political theme.”
But the momentum behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK suggests even Britain’s most anti-Trump grouping can’t ignore a populist party banging a similar drum.
“Maybe Donald Trump’s an enormous success and there’s a huge Donald Trump boom,” Kemp mused. “If that’s the case, we’re doomed anyway.”
Tim Ross contributed to this report.
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