David Cameron boldly declared in Washington DC today: “I come here with no intention to lecture anybody… or get in the way of the process of politics and other things in the United States”.
Yet in his next sentence he did exactly that, warning Republicans in Congress who are holding up funding to support the Ukrainian military that “it’s profoundly in your interests… to release this money and let it through”.
The Foreign Secretary is seemingly desperate to persuade sceptical Republicans to hand over tens of billions of dollars in American taxpayer money to fund a distant conflict in Eastern Europe.
Last night he met with former President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and the topic of Ukraine was front and centre. Lord Cameron refused to say whether he persuaded Trump to support the new aid package, but we can assume the smooth diplomacy of the very much liberal former Tory PM made little impact with the leader of the MAGA movement.
Donald Trump has the polls in his favour for nowReutersIndeed Cameron has previously compared Republicans holding up military funds to those who appeased Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, and his descriptions of President Trump haven’t been much kinder; “Protectionist”, “xenophobic” and “misogynistic” are all adjectives he has used to describe him in the past.
The Foreign Secretary averted questions today around these previous insults and instead again invoked the Second World War, discussing his grandfather’s role in the D-Day landings working with American soldiers.
Cameron’s attempts to tap into Republican patriotic nostalgia are just as likely to succeed as his other strategy: to link Ukraine’s fight against Putin to America’s border crisis.
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of Congress, has said he won’t consider giving more aid to Ukraine until Biden “finally address[es] the invasion at our southern border”
Border Patrol agent stands next to migrants seeking asylum before being returned to Mexico from the USReutersAhead of Cameron’s trip to Washington he released a statement saying success for Ukraine "will show that borders matter”.
Such rhetoric seems to ignore the fact that Britain’s own borders do not matter.
As Britain and America face simultaneous invasions of African and Asian illegal immigrants the public in both nations may wonder why so much focus and attention from their political leaders are on protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and not their own.
Cameron is a liberal politician from a bygone age; The infamous “heir to Blair” is a defunct object in an increasingly nationalist era.
His appointment by Rishi Sunak was hailed by the usual suspects in the British media as a wise political move, however, their predictions that he would secure the so-called “Blue Wall” of soft Tory voters have proved disastrously wrong.
In fact, Sunak’s polling woes are partly to blame on Cameron, the prime minister who famously pledged (and subsequently failed) to bring down legal migration to the tens of thousands.
Voters angry over the Tory immigration betrayal and who genuinely believe “borders matter” do not trust the likes of Cameron to fix the crisis.
The liberal, pro-EU, pro-migration Foreign Secretary going to America to cajole Trump and his increasingly anti-migration, nationalist Republican Party into supporting Biden’s Ukraine policy was never going to succeed.
Perhaps he should follow his own advice and stop with the lectures, for if there is one thing that could rile up America-First Republicans it is Lord Cameron telling them what to do.
