Wales & The Sun King

Ben Wildsmith

Baroness Morgan’s explicit criticism of Sir Keir Starmer earlier this week is a clear signal that you can stick a fork in him. He’s done.

When the docile labrador of UK politics, Labour’s Welsh branch, reveals a fang you can be assured that things have changed.

Dissatisfaction with Starmer is reportedly widespread among the PLP and, just 10 months after leading the party to electoral triumph, the PM is considered a liability.

Labour doesn’t do ruthless efficiency nowadays, though, so Starmer’s departure is set to be a drawn-out process. Angela Rayner today dismissed  rumours that a recent briefing war between her and Rachel Reeves’ Treasury indicated that she was about to mount a challenge for the leadership.

With Rayner seemingly out of the running, but watch that space, Labour is short of potential candidates.

Wes Streeting, who has been visualising himself entering Number 10 since before leaving the womb, is as ideologically adrift and unpopular as Starmer himself.

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Dramatic

So, it’s reported that Starmer is to be given until next May to turn the government’s fortunes around. If this is the case, then our Senedd elections are set to be even more dramatic than was previously assumed.

With the PM’s neck on the block, we will be attracting global attention and, worryingly, interference.

As Donald Trump legislates to nullify all judicial remedies to his decisions, peculiar news continues to emerge concerning interest from the Sun King’s court in UK politics.

Whilst Nigel Farage’s relationship with the Donald is well established, Elon Musk has expressed a preference for the leadership qualities of Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, who split from Reform UK in acrimonious fashion earlier this year. Lowe is an open supporter of mass deportations and enjoys the support of people who feel that Reform UK is too moderate.

Meanwhile, Vice President Vance has been taking a personal interest in UK legislation as it relates to freedom of speech. In particular, he has taken a supportive line with activists who have been arrested for praying outside abortion clinics.

Yesterday, it emerged that the Trump administration had sent five State Department officials to London for a meeting with some of these activists.

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Lucy Connolly

More startling yet, however, are reports in former newspaper, The Telegraph, that the case of Lucy Connolly has been raised with Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

Connolly, the wife of a Tory ex-councillor, was jailed for 31 months after tweeting incitement to racial hatred during riots in the wake of the Southport killings.

Whilst the content of her tweet allows for no doubt regarding guilt, the GB News/Talk TV/ Reform UK end of political commentary has been volubly outraged by the racist’s sentence.

The rush to pen emotionally charged pleas for a reduction, usually emphasising the bigot’s motherhood and contrasting her crime with one committed by an immigrant, has become a competitive sport amongst contending grifters who float in the sewer of British commentary.

It is revealing that such a minor issue should cross the consciousness of the US Secretary of State who is, of course, charged with representing American interests in currently ongoing wars, amongst other duties.

The story has traction in the culture war, though, and that is enough to put it on the radar of Trump’s administration. There is a suspicion that Trump, whose political instincts are not to be underestimated, views the UK as a potential MAGA outpost and the crowbar with which he can crack open the liberal consensus of postwar Europe.

This would explain the bizarre willingness of his officials to pay attention to tiny but politically divisive matters in our politics.

Surreal

For Wales, this may well mean a surreal year to come. The predicted fall of Labour here is a historic story in itself, but if the fate of Keir Starmer is attached to the outcome, then global interest will be unprecedented.

Nigel Farage has already stated that Wales is his priority for the year ahead so clickbait soundbites about politics here will begin to flood our information channels soon enough.

The new flow of political influence back and forth across the Atlantic could see local matters here blown into global stories by a Trump administration that backs Reform UK in Wales as a staging post to wider success.

Decisions by the Welsh Government, or even local councils, that are perceived as ‘woke’ or can be misrepresented as such may find themselves heading to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed rather than languishing in that of Andrew RT Davies.

We’ve never been the luckiest nation on earth. Now it seems that our day in the sun might occur just before it implodes. Pob lwc.