Will Trump be the one who destroys Brexit? With Nick Cohen

Below is a podcast in which I interview Nick Cohen, former Observer columnist and author of several books, including What’s Left? We chat about the headline topic as well as getting into Trump and what’s happening with the disintegration of the old world order in more detail. Brexit keeps coming up though - it remains central to so much of what has gone wrong, you can’t avoid it.

We talk about Starmer at length - what he’s doing in terms of playing nice with Trump (for now, at least) and whether there will be a crunch point for that at some point in the near future, perhaps a lot sooner than Starmer hopes given the increasing chaos that is enveloping the Trump administration already. We both think Starmer is doing the right thing here - any lines of sane communication to Trump from within Europe should be kept open as long as possible, and for whatever reason, Starmer seems to be in a decent position to do that. As we’re seeing, I think it’s clear that Trump and those around him have no real plan, so a lot of this could still go any which way - although, being as pessimistic as possible is a good idea. Meanwhile, my guest thinks there might be more coordination and thought going on than meets the eye within the Trump administration. It’s the “Is Trump merely insane or is he truly evil?” argument.

We also talk about how the Russia-Ukraine war is going to be increasingly difficult territory for Farage and Reform, particularly if British public opinion hardens further against Trump and for Zelensky. With the recent Farage-Lowe spat still fresh, the challenges for Reform are going to come from all sides. Luckily for Reform, the Conservative party seems determined to help them as much as they possibly can.

I noted in editing the podcast how flustered I became just talking about the state of the world right now. It’s a dark time and sometimes, it’s all so baffling, it’s tricky to even know what to say. But we have to keep talking. It’s the only way.

Have a listen, like and subscribe if you can, and thanks as ever for being a subscriber to this Substack: