This week sees the UK in turmoil. While Donald Trump is granted the unprecedented honour of a second state visit with the Royal Family, the UK government is engulfed in a deep crisis, which many predict might mark the beginning of the end of the Starmer administration.
Keir Starmer’s lack of basic leadership skills was once again exposed last week, as he first defended and then dismissed his US ambassador Peter Mandelson. Starmer had appointed Mandelson a few months ago despite evidence of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein being known since 2023. This reckless allegiance and last minute U-turn has left the UK embarrassingly without an ambassador in Washington just days before Donald Trump’s scandalous second state visit.
Tomorrow, Trump will return to UK soil at the height of the intensifying crisis in the United States following the assassination of the leader of a far right Trumpian youth organisation. The rise of political violence in the US is extremely scary and should have prompted all parts of society to come together, condemn political violence and call to de-escalate tensions. Instead, this is the very opposite of what Trump has been doing, which makes it vital that this is done when he is here in the UK. It is a serious democratic problem that the UK government is busy defending itself from its indefensible choices instead.
As if this was not enough, last Saturday London saw the largest far-right march since the days of Oswald Mosley. Organised by English fascist leader Yaxley-Lennon, the rally drew over 100,000 people, according to the London police. The racist rally, addressed by Elon Musk, was called “Unite the Kingdom” despite the notable lack of organisers from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
While several violent protesters attacked police at yesterday’s march, hundreds of mostly elderly peaceful protesters have been arrested over the past month. Sitting outside Parliament, they were forcibly removed and arrested for expressing their solidarity with Palestinians and their opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government in Israel, whose crimes against humanity are also enabled by the UK government, which continues to provide military aid to Israel while criminalising expressions of solidarity with Palestine. The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is, in our view, an indefensible abuse of power, and indeed the UK government was widely condemned by a vast front of civil society organizations for attacking the right to protest and suppressing dissent in the very land that produced the Magna Charta.
The anonymous street artist Banksy’s mural on London High Court depicts a judge striking a protester, a reference to the arrests of demonstrators for Palestine. The artwork was immediately covered by the British police.
Many people across the political spectrum in England are extremely concerned about both the shrinking of democratic space and the rise of fascist movements in London. These worries will bring people to reclaim those streets on September 17, to protest against Trump’s visit, following the example set by the Scottish people in July. We invite everyone across the UK in the position to do so, to join the demonstrations.
Europeans will hardly be surprised that, amid all this chaos, Scotland’s demand for clarity on self-determination is only growing louder. The Scottish Government’s newly-released paper, “Your Right to Decide,” demands the UK government to clarify how Scotland can exercise its right to determine its own future—a basic democratic principle whose denial looks increasingly indefensible.
From our point of view, the deteriorating political situation in the UK should be a serious concern across Europe. The battle to safeguard Scotland’s right to decide its future is not only a vital democratic issue for Scotland but one that resonates with many Europeans as well.
In European solidarity,
EfS team