Kier Starmer is rapidly becoming the LibDems greatest unwitting supporter. I thought in July Starmer would be PM for at least two terms and possibly longer. The election of Kemi Badenoch last month was proof if it were needed that the Tories had given up and didn't expect to be in power again before 2035. Now I'm convinced he will be a one-term PM, although I think he's a decent, honourable man. On Brexit, he is completely wrong. Far from being a secret remainer and despite him campaigning to stay in the EU in 2016 and arguing through the political chaos of 2018-19 under Mrs May for a second referendum, he is now adopting a position on Europe well to the right of every Conservative leader from Harold Macmillan up to Boris Johnson.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London's Guildhall, Starmer says: "The idea that we must choose between our allies, that somehow we’re with either America or Europe, is plain wrong."
Sir Keir said his government would "never turn away" from its partnership with the US, while also building stronger bonds with Europe and he stressed the world faced "dangerous times", saying stability was essential for growth, so the UK must continue to back Ukraine against Russia "as an erratic, increasingly desperate aggressor".
He added: "There is no growth without security – and no security without alliances."
Reading these comments against the backdrop of Labour's current position on Brexit it's easy to forget that every US president since Eisenhower in the mid 1950s has encouraged Britain's membership of the EU. Barack Obama even warned about the dangers of leaving the European bloc alongside David Cameron. They all saw Britain sitting at the table in the European Council as a strength of the US alliance not a handicap to it.
To have like-minded people arguing the case for free trade and security at the heart of Europe has always been a central plank of American foreign policy - until Trump.
But Trump, Farage, Johnson, Brexit and Putin are mere short-term aberrations and don't indicate any long-term trend toward petty nationalism. This isn't to suggest in any way that we aren't in a very dangerous world but my guess is that sanity will prevail eventually and by 2040 we'll be back on track.
And, in any case, if Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian is right and the US is no longer the predictable long-term guarantor of global stability, who else will step up to the plate? China isn't going to do it. Russia won't whether or not Putin survives the war in Ukraine. Europe, in spite of a lot of difficulties (many of them Putin's doing) is the last hope that cooperation and compromise coupled with economic strength will show the way to peace and prosperity coexisting with human rights.
I don't see any other solution to the huge problems facing the world, particularly climate change and inequality. America risks sinking into an Oligarchy under men like Musk although I'm hopeful they will soon come to their senses.
Freedland says: "Britain cannot thrive alone and in the cold. It’s not ideology or idealism, but hard-headed, practical common sense to say our place is in Europe – and to say so now."
If Starmer can't see the logic in this in the next couple of years I couldn't vote for him and I suspect a lot of others will feel the same.
At the moment Starmer's position suggests that Brexit, and by extension, Farage and Reform UK are right. To defeat the forces of nationalism it is necessary to make the case against it forcefully, loudly, and repeatedly. Labour are doing precisely the reverse.
It is as Talleyrand once said, worse than a crime, it's a mistake. One that Sir Kier Starmer will regret.
The Liberal Democrats should be rejoicing.
