Trump triggers a small, but sinister, lurch towards stifling dissent in Britain
Nothing says special relationship like keeping your guest of honour locked behind the walls of a castle.
Then again, few guests of honour are like Donald Trump, a thin-skinned narcissist apparently determined to outlaw all forms of dissent internationally.
So, Keir Starmer’s government rolls out the red carpet, the full pomp and pageantry of the British state, and keeps it firmly behind closed doors.
Military bands march up and down inside Windsor Castle, because the best parade is always the one nobody is allowed to see.
Is it even a state visit if your guest doesn’t actually see the state, and the people living there never see him?
Such is the craving for Presidential favour, Windsor appears to have been turned into a miniature police state. Drive a car displaying anti-Trump sentiment? Impounded. Project images of Trump hanging out with old friend Jeffrey Epstein? Arrested.
The projected film was the latest from the campaign group Led By Donkeys, who have done similar things dozens of times. “There’s nothing illegal about this,” the group insists.
“No laws are broken, nobody’s hurt, no property was damaged… it’s just a ridiculous over-reaction.”
Britain’s police run around, detaining people for the crime of potentially offending a foreign leader, in this case by highlighting his long-standing friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Starmer won praise earlier this year for challenging JD Vance’s claim that freedom of speech was in peril in the UK, before going on to arrest more than a-thousand people for holding placards, and now detaining satirists.
Security was cited in the decision to confine Trump’s second state visit to Windsor and Chequers, when it’s clear that actually, it’s all about soothing his easily-bruised ego.
These free-speech warriors, who’ve turned social media sites into cesspits and hurled abuse at their opponents for years, turn out to be even more outraged by “hurty words” than the rest of us.
Trump’s determination to stifle all dissent has been clear for a long time — turbo-charged by the events of the past few days. But now we see how cheaply the UK’s leaders will take their own sinister turn into authoritarianism.
