What An Excellent Assessment.

Allister Heath..Starmer’s revolting betrayal 

will never be forgiven.

This Labour Government is acting against the British 

national interest. It cares more about so-called ‘human 

rights’ than about its own citizens.

Credit: Tolga Akmen/EPA

Allister Heath

15 January 2025 7:22pm GMT

Donald Trump will put America first. Sir Keir Starmer wants to put Britain last. The US and UK are separated not just by a common language but by an irreconcilable disagreement about the purpose of politics. The rush to betray Chagos, the flirtation with energy blackouts, our deranged immigration policy, the sheer, unmitigated awfulness of Starmer’s Government: it all makes sense when you grasp this fundamental dichotomy.

Right versus Left is passé: the great dividing line of 2025 pits civic nationalists against global technocrats. The former – including great democracies such as the US, Israel, India and Argentina – believe that elected officials’ principal moral and fiduciary duty is to their country, citizens and constituents. The latter – led by Starmerite Britain and Justin Trudeau’s Canada – are convinced their responsibility is to “the planet”, “human rights”, “international law” and the “liberal international order.”

Trump cares about “his” people; the technocrats care about people in general. Abstractions are dangerous in real-world politics, and often lead to the warping of great ideals. Starmer is actually well-meaning, a true-believer in the righteousness of his mission, but his moral compass is drastically out of whack with that of most British citizens.

Labour is deliberately pursuing policies that go against the UK’s national interest, not by mistake or because it has no choice but because it believes them to be the right thing to do. The modern Labour party, unlike Clement Attlee’s, is convinced that it should sacrifice Britain’s self-interest for a bizarre version of the global “common good”. It is not so much post national as anti-national. It believes that putting Britain first – even in a liberal, moderate sense – would be not merely unseemly but selfish and unethical.

The interests of the rest of the world must at all times be valued more highly than those of British citizens. Why? Because it is “their turn”, and because there is nothing worse than nationalism. We used and abused the world to enrich ourselves, the progressives believe, so now is the time to “give back”. We must “compensate” those we “oppressed”: this is why we should return the Elgin marbles, and anything else of value in our museums. It is why we should simply accept the hideous decision to hand Gerry Adams taxpayer-funded compensation.

The British state must maximise “global welfare”, even if this comes at the cost of reducing our “national welfare.” This applies to foreign aid, but also to immigration. We should welcome large numbers of lowish skilled migrants, even if they end up costing the Exchequer more over their lifetimes than they contribute in tax, or otherwise reducing the well being of current UK citizens.

Why? Because poor migrants gain greatly from moving here, and this is deemed to more than cancel out the losses inflicted upon the rest of the population: it’s a peculiar form of post-national utilitarian calculus.

The messianic zeal of this woke, post-Christian secular religion is familiar. Britain sinned – we were imperialists (like almost everybody else in history), the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution (in fact one of our greatest gifts to mankind) and we engaged in slavery (like almost every other civilisation, and even though we were the first to seek to end the abhorent practice). We must therefore repent, engage in self-flagellation, commit to change and achieve redemption through self-sacrifice.

The Government must sell us down the river to achieve this, the zealots insist. Britain must lead the world on net zero, even if it is a form of economic self-harm that devastates our industry, impoverishes our consumers and reduces our quality of life. With poorer economies prioritising growth, our efforts are too small to have any impact on global emissions, but this doesn’t matter. We need to put the planet first, at any cost and even if it doesn’t work. It’s a moral imperative. Post-nationalism is based on deontological, rather than consequentialist, precepts.

The “progressive realists” at the heart of our Government are horrified by Trump’s plan to buy Greenland to “make America even greater”; they cheer as Britain will pay £9 billion it cannot afford to an ally of China to sweeten our inane surrender of the Chagos, one of our last overseas territories.

The absurdity is that we aren’t truly “helping the world” or “repaying our debts”. We are merely aiding the Chinese, the most regressive, fascistic power on earth. We are jeopardising global security by threatening the viability of a key Western military base. We are falsifying history by pretending that Mauritius is entitled to Chagos. There is nothing actually forcing us to give up Chagos. We are imbuing the International Court of Justice’s nonsense advisory opinions with legitimacy they don’t deserve. Its president, who oversaw a ruling against Israel, has just become Lebanon’s Prime Minister; so much for the ICJ’s supposed neutrality. We are genuflecting to the United Nations, an equally pernicious body.

Labour and their technocratic allies despise national sovereignty, and believe that “global” institutions, however dysfunctional, amateurish or corrupt, are inherently superior to our national institutions. It’s a case of global good, national bad. “International law” may not really exist, but it is deemed to trump the real law produced in our ancient courts or Parliament.

All of this is embraced enthusiastically by some young British progressives. They believe in their own variant of “British exceptionalism”: we are the one nation willing to put ourselves last, to embrace radical altruism, to sacrifice our greatest assets, and that makes us better than anybody else. It has allowed many of them to develop a new form of patriotism: they love how much their vision of Britain loves others.

Yet Labour’s embrace of radical anti-nationalism will end in tears, just as it has for its other advocates. Speaking in 2015, Trudeau argued that Canada might become the “first post-national state”. He said: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” Angela Merkel’s decision to open her countries’ borders for ethical reasons backfired just as spectacularly.

Gad Saad, the Canadian psychologist, believes that those who prioritise the well-being of others above their own have fallen foul to “suicidal empathy”, the title of his forthcoming book. The revenge of the British electorate, when it eventually comes, will be pitiless. DT.