That is the opinion of Ed Morello, the Liberal Democrat MP for West Dorset. He also sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the National Security Strategy (Joint Committee).

In an interview with The Beacon, we discussed the UK-US relationship and how, despite Brexit promising a land of free trade deals across the Atlantic, that has not materialised.

He argues that, yes, this US Administration, which he described as “belligerent” is not a reliable ally.

The UK should be building closer ties to the EU and Japan, for example, when it comes to defence procurement and national security, he suggested.

Morello also said, “as a Liberal”, he believes in international trade and international collaboration, with both leading to less conflict.

The Foreign Affairs Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the UK’s use of soft power. This is in stark contrast to the US’ hard power only approach under Trump, with Morello pointing out that we would “condemn” the US’ behaviour if it was China or the US.

It comes after the US has, so far this year, started a war in Iran, causing the Strait of Hormuz to shut and financial reprecussions to be felt across the world.

Morello said the US administration does not care about the cost crisis its hard power approach has taken and that the behaviour of the Trump administration is shocking.

But, he added, we are not as “cognisant as we should be” of the impact of US actions around the globe.

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Makerfield by-election has been dominating the national news since Labour MP Josh Simons announced he would resign his seat on Thursday May 14^th, to allow the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham to contest the subsequent by-election and if he wins, perhaps challenge Keir Starmer to be Prime Minister.

Though the vote itself isn’t until June 18^th, most pollsters are predicting a two-horse race between Burnham and the Reform UK candidate Robert Kenyon. Kenyon has been keen to present himself as a local plumber, and an “ordinary man from an ordinary place” (according to Reform MP Danny Kruger who is more mediocre than ordinary), but his campaign has been dominated by a series of bizarre and appalling scandals.

1. Kenyon’s Blatant Misogyny

In the video Kenyon made on Tuesday May 19^th to announce his candidacy the candidate declared that Makerfield was “the only place I’ve ever wanted to represent.”

It may come as a surprise to Kenyon that roughly half of Makerfield’s electorate are women. He appears to believe that women are unable to “ref, drive or give directions” according to posts on a now deleted social media account, exposed by the newspaper, The Independent. Posts discovered by The i Paper also showcased Mr Kenyon claiming that women who have abortions do so for “vanity purposes” so that they can “shag anyone they want.”

He has yet to apologise for any of these comments.

Can Reform shift this clog?

2. Reform’s Defence of Kenyon’s Blatant Misogyny

You might think a candidate who thinks women have abortions for the sheer joy of it and that the Saudi DVLA might be on to something, wants sacking. Not so Reform UK!

A Reform spokesperson has defended Kenyon’s previous social media activity saying that “these comments were made before councillor Kenyon entered politics. Rob is perfectly entitled to his own personal opinions on abortion.” Before going on to say, “Rob isn’t a polished professional politician and doesn’t speak like one.”

This was specifically in response to The Independent uncovering comments Kenyon had posted on a rugby fans forum, saying that women presenting rugby on TV “aren’t up to the job and only there to tick a box.” Kenyon then declared “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.”

So apologies are possible?

3. Kenyon’s Defence of Other People’s Blatant Misogyny

I’m noticing a bit of a theme here…

While Kenyon’s election rival Rebecca Shepherd of Restore Britain has been endorsed by American billionaire Elon Musk (possibly hyperlink the other listicle here) , Kenyon himself has been attracting more celebrity critics than supporters.

One of these is media personality Carol Vorderman, who called Kenyon a “cowardly man” over his decision to delete the social media accounts which included a range of misogynist comments. One of these was aimed at Vorderman herself, where Kenyon commented “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking” under another user’s post which sexualised Vorderman, in 2021.

Danny Kruger’s explanation of Kenyon’s comments said that the candidate was that “He was not a politician at the time, he was an ordinary man from an ordinary place”. This did not satisfy Vorderman, who told The Guardian that Kenyon’s remarks were “public comments on a public platform and if Danny Kruger thinks online abuse is ok, then Reform are therefore stating online abuse against women is ok, then all women in Makerfield need to know that.”

Countdownfall?

4. Lockdown lover?

When he first announced that they had applied to the Electoral Commission to change the name of what was then the Brexit Party to Reform UK, Nigel Farage said that the party would campaign against Covid-19 restrictions.

This followed a series of lockdowns starting in March of that year, which featured extended bans on all non-essential outdoor activities. Far from opposing these restrictions, Robert Kenyon seemed at the time to want them enforced far more severely.

On April 5^th 2020, at the height of the first Covid-19 lockdown, Kenyon commented on a picture of a police officer walking towards two people sitting on a beach eating chips. He declared that the officer should “Boot the chips out of their hands then water board the lad.”

Glub glub!

5. Flu Turn?

It didn’t take Kenyon long to pivot away from his belief that those breaking Covid-19 restrictions should be illegally tortured, to the point where he seemed to believe the whole plandemic pandemic was part of a government conspiracy theory.

Kenyon described an explanation of how vaccines stop the spread of a disease through a population as “a load of crap” and said that the media were complicit in “global tyranny” in December 2021.

He’d previously responded to news that Australia’s highly successful Covid-19 vaccine rollout had reached 95% of citizens aged 12 or over by October 2021 by saying “The Aussies have gone full Nazi on this, its disgraceful.” (Yes, “its” should have had an apostrophe in it). As well as later suggesting that people should “take vitamins” and “stop having booster vaccines” in February 2023.

A plumber and a doctor!

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6. His Former Facebook Friends

On the first full day of Robert Kenyon’s by-election campaign the campaigning organisation Searchlight revealed that Reform’s new candidate was Facebook friends with fascist campaigner Gary Raikes.

Gary Raikes is the leader of the New British Union (NBU), a fascist group that claims to be a revival of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and is a former member of the British National Party and Britain First. The NBU has voiced its support for Greece’s neo-Nazi criminal organisation Golden Dawn, while Raikes himself has encouraged NBU members to dress in Blackshirt style uniforms.

Reform have said that the Facebook friendship does not mean that Kenyon shared Raikes’ views, and that the pair never spoke, or communicated on the platform. Kenyon was one of 41 Reform UK candidates that were Facebook friends with Gary Raikes ahead of the 2024 General Election.

It’s complicated!

7. His Current Political Friends

Kenyon decided only 12 days after being elected as a Councillor, that he would rather be an MP. Kenyon’s nomination ahead of the May 7^th local elections was seconded by councillor Steve Jones, who resigned from what is now Kenyon’s seat in January 2018, after being convicted for drunk-driving, and cautioned for assault, in December 2017.

Jones has twice attempted to resign from the council before later reversing his decision, and has fought two legal battles attempting to overturn his own resignation, even winning one of them in 2018.

Jones remains as a councillor despite pleading guilty to a case of actual bodily harm, perpetrated against his wife, in September 2022.

On theme…

The Funny One: His Thoughts on Brexit

Coronavirus lockdowns aren’t the only major Reform policy that Robert Kenyon has changed his mind on. A report from The Times suggests that Kenyon did not vote to leave the European Union at the 2016 EU referendum.

The article claims that, in 2019, Kenyon said that “Anyone who thinks I love Trump, voted Brexit… is wrong… I woke up the day after Brexit s***ing myself to what was voted for”.

Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage has been a public supporter of Donald Trump since he first announced he was standing for the US Presidency in 2015.

According to renowned pollster Sir John Curtice, Makerfield voted 66% for Brexit.

But other than that, Reform UK’s candidate vetting seems to be great!

The most common words in the English language for the last few years has been "Keir Starmer is decent, but..."

Starmer's premiership is now at breaking point. Why is Starmer regarded as such a decent man, and why is it doing him no good?

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Suddenly, Angela Rayner steps in from the cold, Wes Streeting sharpens his blade and Andy Burnham is looking for a seat which he can win and stand for Labour leader.

We discussed what all this means in practice, how the leadership race could play out and what policies each candidate represents.

Ten years ago, Israel’s Prime Minister, speaking on whether there could ever be peace with Palestinians, said Israel would “forever live by the sword”.

His quotes, at the time, were controversial.

Fast forward to 2026 and Israel has shown exactly what living by the sword can mean.

The horrific attacks by Hamas in Israel on October 7 resulted in the death of at least 1,200 people, with the majority of them civilians - the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, as reported by the Guardian.

A former British Consul General said Israel’s “retribution” to the war crime committed by Hamas has been “totally disproportionate”.

‘There is a better way to live… coexistence’

“Netanyahu says Israel will always live by the sword,” Sir Vincent Fean told me in an interview conducted online on 8 May.

“Just think about that for a minute.

“It means Israel will always be either on the defense or as now on the attack. There is a better way to live than that and it’s called coexistence.”

In September last year, it was reported that the International Association of Genocide Scholars saw that Israel’s conduct in Gaza “meets the legal definition as laid out in the UN convention on genocide”, reported by the BBC.

Sir Vincent agrees in calling it a genocide.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu and many others have voiced genocide, have incited genocide in Gaza and that’s broken through to the consciousness of people around the world,” he said.

“It’s why young people, I generalize slightly…know what’s right and what’s wrong and know that what Israel is doing is wrong.

“It’s why the international repute of Israel is at its lowest.

“There is a realisation that the occupation means oppression.

“It is not benign. It is malign.”

Not long after Israel’s actions were seen to be recognised as genocidal, the UK Prime Minister formally recognised Palestine as an official state.

Netanyahu’s response was to say a Palestinian state would “not happen”.

But the recognition from the UK was a start, Sir Vincent said, especially considering the UK’s “imperial past”.

“There is a particular responsibility for the UK…. [and] a moral responsibility to give a lead in Europe and the Commonwealth to a just outcome,” he said.

“Right now, that’s not on the cards.

“That’s not obvious because the current Israeli government is run by Jewish supremacists in the shape of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and they are not interested in negotiation.

“They’re interested in suppression.”

Stop e1, uphold international law, ban settlement trade

There is more UK politicians could be doing now, Sir Vincent pointed out, including efforts to stop the E1 settlement, which he deemed “disastrous”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the E1 settlement would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

In April, a group of former UK Ambassadors and high commissioners published a letter in the Guardian calling for the British Government to threaten action against any companies looking to help build the settlement.

As well as halting the planned development, Sir Vincent also called for the UK to ban settlement trade and uphold international law.

At the World Economic Forum summit earlier this year, Canada’s prime minister made an admission that the “rules-based international order was partially false” and the “strongest would exempt themselves when convenient”.

He also said international law was “applied with varied rigour, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim”.

“In the West Bank, we are seeing settler violence on an unprecedented scale… and without accountability,” Sir Vincent said.

“Without a means of holding those who commit crimes to account, they will continue, they will grow.

“The international community, I believe, has a responsibility to uphold international law.

“If we believe in international humanitarian law it needs teeth.”

Coalition of the willing for Palestine?

As Ukraine’s war with Russia continues, there has been the assembly of a “coalition of the willing” - countries that support Ukraine and punish Russia for its actions following its invasion.

Sir Vincent said, with 157 nations now recognising Palestine as a state, could there also be a coalition of the willing for Palestine.

“The problem is that while governments are thinking, Israel is acting by expanding settlements, by expelling Palestinians from the countryside in the West Bank, by maintaining… genocide in Gaza,” he said.

The former diplomat also said now is the time to make “reasonable proposals” as to what can be done to stop Israel’s actions in Palestine.

This included “transposing the sanctions that are imposed on Russia onto Israel with a warning that if they don’t change tack, that will happen”, while also “giving them time to change”.

“But at the moment, Prime Minister Netanyahu is proceeding with impunity.”

Sir Vincent said there needs to be a transposition of law from Ukraine to Gaza and the West Bank.

He pointed to the fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of people from the occupying power to the occupied land.

“Well, settlements do precisely that,” he said. “Consistency is what we need. Moral courage is what we need.”

A moral issue, not a partisan one

Looking for a solution is not partisan or a case of choosing sides, Sir Vincent was keen to point out.

“It’s a moral issue. It’s a bipartisan issue. It’s not an issue of being pro or anti-Palestinian, pro or anti-Israel,” he said.

“This is not about antisemitism. I condemn, and I know you do, the violence, the burning of ambulances in North London, the violence against members of our Jewish community here in the UK who have nothing to do with this.”

Sir Vincent also emphasised the need for a distinction between the Jewish community and wider Israeli community and the Israeli government and its actions.

“We must condemn, we must oppose, we must work with the police and the authorities to stop such crimes in the UK, but there is no difference between advocating that and advocating for equal rights for Palestinians where they live.”

What role does the international community play?

So what does the future look like for both Israel and Palestine?

Well the international community should play a role, but Palestinians deserve the right to self determination.

“Can we generate from the outside a coalition of the willing? Yes, but from the outside,” Sir Vincent said.

“I don’t think it’s our responsibility or duty to tell the Palestinians what to do.”

Sir Vincent rounded our interview off by saying for the conflict to end peacefully, there needs to be accountability for crimes committed by all sides.

He said he did not hold a candle for Hamas and acknowledged the group’s hideous attack was a war crime.

“What we need is a level playing field for that justice and it isn’t there today,” he said.

“I do believe that the best way forward for the interests of the Jewish people in Israel, as well as the Palestinian people in Palestine, is peaceful coexistence, negotiation.

“We’re a long way from that today and without intervention by the international community Israel will not change.”

Rarely do elections in European nations get as much international attention as last Sunday’s elections in Hungary. After all there have been general elections in Denmark and Slovenia and outside of the small if vocal cadre of political analysts and psephologists, the general public will hardly care that in Slovenia Robert Golob now has to govern in coalition with the parties of the left, or that Denmark’s Mette Fredriksen has lost her own majority but is likely to stay in office as leader of a larger coalition.

But Hungary matters

It matters because its incumbent government and leader, Viktor Orbán, governed as an “illiberal” Christian nationalist, invoking a series of campaign points such as attachment to national identity, strong social conservativism, reference to the values of the majority Catholic religion and hostility to immigration. Many of these positions resonate with right-wingers and conservatives across the West.

It matters because Orbán used his time in office and – allegedly

– government funds, to build a network of political think tanks, organisations and ties with likeminded politicians and groupings across the West, not least with the Heritage Foundation in the US and with Nigel Farage in his many political guises in the UK.

It matters because Orbán’s party embraced the culture wars and in so, ended up creating the ideological premises for an ever-closer relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Orbán’s government towards the end had become a de-facto fifth columnist for Russia in both NATO and the EU, undermining both the West’s efforts to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion and the EU’s overall attempts to start forging an autonomous defence strategy, one no longer dependant on an increasingly unreliable USA. Orbán was also a main, though by no means exclusive, conduit between MAGA and Russia.

Small l, Big L

In doing all of this, Orban’s rejection of social liberalism morphed into a rejection of classical economic and constitutional liberalism: the liberalism of individual rights, personal freedoms, not least freedom of speech, the liberalism of free markets and the separation of powers. Orbán’s rejection of liberalism, and his belief – whether sincere or otherwise – that he was acting in the superior interests of the Hungarian people, interests that superseded any constitutional formalism, led him to dismantle the safeguards that a successful modern democratic state needs to function. Safeguards such as an independent judiciary, a free and independent press, institutions that must stand separate from transitory political contexts, to protect the weak from the powerful, the citizen from the state and the honest from the dishonest.

It was in doing all this that Orban ultimately planted the seeds of his own defeat. With unchecked institutional power, his Fidesz party stopped becoming a servant of its citizens but instead a predatory organisation, trying to loot and drain the resources of the Hungarian state to the benefit of Orbán’s cronies and in a state of impunity. This led to Orbán’s fall.

Kataline Novak, President of the Hungarian Republic, its head of state and an Orbán crony, pardoned another Orbán courtier, Endre Konya, who had been convicted for trying to cover-up a paedophilia scandal. Even in tightly controlled Hungary, this scandal reached the general public and provoked an outcry which led to Peter Magyar leaving Fidez, joining Tisza, a minor conservative party, and leading it to triumph on the 12^th of April, on the back of public fury, anti-Russian nationalism, a strong desire to re-engage fully with the EU and end to the Orbán corruption and impunity.

Right Reaction

What some commentators however might miss in the collapse of the Orban autocracy is that Tisza is a part of the centre right. It draws on many of the same political and ideological markers that formed Orbán’s platform, not least in its anti-immigration and socially moderate positions.

So, although Tisza’s victory can be described as a liberal victory, it is so in a classical liberal sense, of a restoration of that rule of law that has always been at the heart of any Conservative approach to government.

Inevitably in politics, once you take in the facts, one of the first questions is “how does this relate to me?” – and in the UK context, how does this relate to the battle between the Conservative Party and Reform. After all, the Hungarian election was a battle between two right-wing parties, a battle made possible because the parties of the left chose to step to one side and clear out the playing field to enable the defeat of the greater threat.

There are some threads to the Hungarian elections that can be studied and looked at in the UK.

For one thing, whereas the Hungarian electorate did not necessarily reject overall centre-right values, they did reject how these political positions were used to lead them to places – institutionally and administratively – that are incompatible with the basic expectations all citizens have with regards to government and state institutions.

The Hungarian people wanted genuine law and order, meaning a law that will be applied properly to everyone – with no exceptions. One can also extrapolate that they demanded a state that was run with no regards to one’s personal politics or proximity to the powerful. Once again, we come back to the rule of law.

Conserving Liberalism

It has been for decades the position of a certain Left that the modern institutions, the separation of powers and the existence of constitutional guardrails and independent watchdogs – not least a free and diverse press – exist only to thwart the will of the people, that they are constraints that needs to be removed to finally achieve genuine justice for all.

Worryingly this attitude over the last few years has migrated to the Right. The idea that our institutional framework has been captured by hostile elites, inimical to our nation, to the “real people” and that the entire system needs to be not so much reformed as destroyed is not a Conservative position but rather one of the radical reactionary right, that finds its natural home in the ranks of Reform, although unfortunately with echoes in the rhetoric of some Conservatives.

Frustration with say a court ruling or a BBC news report should not be used as an excuse to do away with the entire judicial system or the public news service. An unsatisfactory court ruling requires all relevant parties to not attack the judiciary or a particular individual judge but review the underlying legislation to see where the problem points are and then examine and address within a clear and transparent framework. The idea that mistakes made – by any human institution – should be used to invalidate that very institution is at the heart of the populist challenge, be it from the right and from the left.

Populists, such as Reform, like to portray modern public governance as a battle between elites and “real” people. As the elites have permeated the institutions, those very institutions are corrupt and beyond saving and must be destroyed, to allow “real people” to flourish, real people in this case usually meaning people who agree with everything the populists say and think.

These positions find far too many sympathies in the Conservative party as well. But as the Orbán experiment has shown, this path leads to corruption, impunity and ultimately, to an emphatic rejection by the voters.

Remember Stability?

The rule of law is much like fresh air or clean water: you don’t think of it until it goes missing.

Orbán was the figurehead of a populist movement that moved against a “liberal” order which at its core is really much more Conservative that people realise. The modern state, warts and all, has been a result of Conservative governments that have stretched over decades, and this legacy and tradition are not something to be spurned but something to be embraced. The rage-baiting of the alt-right Reform cannot be justification for a wanton destruction of institutions and legal frameworks that exist – at their best – to protect us from each other, from large corporations that easily lose sight of the individual and from a state that can be as destructive.

Reform offers only chaos and its reference points in international politics and government are the corrupt and deposed Orbán and the increasingly irrational Trump. In the face of this chaos, the Conservatives must reclaim their role as guarantors of order and stability – yes, reformist, as much of our modern government requires it – but by no means “revolutionary” or destructive.

Photo Credits:

• Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

• Hungarian Presidential Press and Information Office

• Révész Gábor

Denmark’s move to send blood packs and explosives to Greenland is a clear message to the US: “stay away or we will all be sorry”.

Peter Viggo Jakobsen, an expert on Danish defence, NATO and diplomacy, told The Beacon Denmark has lost faith in US security guarantees following Washington’s constant threats to take the island.

An associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, Professor Jakobsen said as long as US President Donald Trump is in the White House, the faith in Washington’s defence of NATO allies will not be restored.

“We’ve lost faith in the US security guarantees, at least under Trump,” he said.

“That faith will not be restored until you get a different president who has another take on NATO.”

It comes after the US president repeatedly threatened to take Greenland earlier this year.

This saw him double down on threats, telling a press conference they would “find out” how far he was willing to go to take the island - a semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Fears were ramped up after Katie Miller, former Advisor to the Department of Government Efficiency and wife of Stephen Miller, a White House advisor, posted an image of Greenland on X covered in the stars and stripes of the US flag and the caption “soon”.¹

The feud, which died down slightly after Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, convinced Trump to accept a deal with Denmark, has reignited following the US and Israel’s war in Iran.²

The President called Greenland “THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE ​OF ICE” in a post on social media after telling journalists his feud with NATO started over the island.³

But after Denmark, with help from “France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and also some personnel from the United Kingdom”, sent the explosives and blood packs to Greenland, a clear message was sent, Prof Jakobsen said.

“Hey, this is not going to be 9th of April, 1940 all over again,” he said, referencing Denmark’s surrender to Nazi Germany’s forces in the Second World War.

“We’re going to fight this time, so please stay away or we will all be sorry.”

Prof Jakobsen, who is in the Danish Armed Forces, said he hand inkling ahead of time that the operation would take place, but said there was still a sense of disbelief this action was being taken against the US, a supposed ally.

“If you’d asked me a couple of days before the crisis broke whether Denmark would ever order forces to go to Greenland and tell them to fight the US in the event that the US would try to invade, then I would not have believed it,” he said.

“It’s… unreal that we, all of a sudden, are treating the US as potential enemies who might want to attack our country given that we’ve been in the same alliance since 1949.

The Financial Times reported allies sent personnel to Greenland under the guise of a planned military exercise, with Copenhagen stating this had been relayed to the Pentagon.⁴

But the story, which was originally broken by Danish broadcaster DR, said the real reason they had been sent to the island was to prepare for a possible US attack and invasion.

Prof Jakobsen said it was “unreal” to see colleges equipped for warfighting, but “not against the Russians or the Chinese or some of the usual suspects”, but the US.

Trump had previously said in January that anything less than US control of the island was “unacceptable”.

But Prof Jakobsen said this was confusing as the US has “essentially”, since the Second World War, had military control of Greenland.

The US was, he explains, given free reign to build all the military installations they needed on the island, but following the Cold War, a lot of them were closed as they were no longer needed.

But since Russia has “become a major threat again… the US has done absolutely nothing to increase its military presence in and around Greenland”, with Denmark also asserting there is no current threat from China or Russia to the island.

This lack of build up is despite Trump’s claims the US needed Greenland for the US’ national security.⁵

“It’s not completely untrue when Trump says we only have a couple of dog sleds up there, but that’s because the assessment is that nothing else is required” he said.

“The understanding is that if a serious military threat should develop, then the US will take care of it, as it did during the Cold War, because Denmark on its own cannot do anything against Russia.

“Only the US, in cooperation with the Danish authorities, will be able to deal with that”

Greenland does still play a role in US national security, with the Pituffik Space Base hosting a radar which tracks whether Russia is firing nuclear missiles at the US.⁶

Prof Jakobsen said this sees the US “never give up military control of Greenland,” and nobody expects them to, but what is hard to understand is just what Trump wants - pointing out the US President wants military control over something it has militarily controlled since the Second World War.

“I’ve given up trying to understand what Trump is doing or saying,” he said.

“The other thing we found hard to understand [is] if he wanted to cut a deal with the Greenlandic government over rare earth minerals or critical minerals… well he could have made a phone call and asked for a meeting instead of threatening to use military force,” he said.

But Trump’s stronghanded tactics have resulted in an increase in Danish defence spending, with Copenhagen now spending 3.5% of GDP on defence.⁷

“There’s no way in a very hot place that Denmark would ever have agreed to spend 3.5 % of GDP on defence,” Prof Jakobsen said.

But, he said there is a difference between getting European nations to share the cost of defence and then threatening to take Greenland from the Danes.

“That’s sort of in a different league altogether,” he said.

“Trump has actually been successful with respect to actually getting the Europeans to pay their fair share.

“He’s done that by being very nasty and very rude because when President Biden asked for 3% the year before Trump was elected, we were just laughing at him because he was old and polite and not doing anything.

“Then Trump comes along and he gets 5%. And if he had not been Trump, that would not have happened.”

On 9 April, ​Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s Prime Minister called on Nato allies to push back against Trump’s narrative regarding the island.⁸

“NATO wasn’t there when we needed them, and they won’t be there if we need them again,” Trump posted on TruthSocial, his social media platform.

But Prof Jakobsen said he does not think Trump will follow through with his plans because “nobody in the US understands his argument about Greenland”

“It would probably be even more unpopular than the war on Iran,” he said.

“So in that sense, I think that we have a lot of Americans who agree with us that it would be really, really weird and stupid and crazy to take over Greenland by force.”

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1X (Formerly Twitter), 2026, x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266.

2Jacobsen, Stine. ““We Are Not Some Piece of Ice”: Greenland Hits Back at Trump’s Arctic Insult.” Reuters, 9 Apr. 2026, www.reuters.com/world/europe/greenland-prime-minister-rebuffs-trump-remarks-nato-tensions-rise-2026-04-09/.

3Bao, Anniek. ““Poorly Run, Piece of Ice”: Trump Targets Greenland Again as Iran War Deepens NATO Rift.” CNBC, 9 Apr. 2026, www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/trump-greenland-nato-rift-iran-war-deepens.html.

4Foy, Henry, et al. “Europe Sends Troops to Greenland in Attempt to Ward off US Threat.” @FinancialTimes, Financial Times, 15 Jan. 2026, www.ft.com/content/047a267d-3644-46b4-9848-85dce4678363?syn-25a6b1a6=1. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

5Henley, Jon. ““Unacceptable” for Greenland Not to Be in US Hands, Says Trump.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 14 Jan. 2026, www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/14/greenland-us-trump-talks-denmark.

6Leicester, John. “What to Know about Greenland’s Role in Nuclear Defense and Trump’s “Golden Dome.”” Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2026, www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-01-23/what-to-know-about-greenlands-role-in-nuclear-defense-trumps-golden-dome. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

7TheCopenhagenPost. “Denmark Reaches Historic 3.5% of GDP in Military Spending and Lower VAT, but Its Financial Surplus Is Almost Gone - the Copenhagen Post.” The Copenhagen Post, 24 Feb. 2026, cphpost.dk/2026-02-24/news/politics/denmark-reaches-historic-3-5-of-gdp-in-military-spending-and-lower-vat-but-its-financial-surplus-is-almost-gone/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

8Jazeera, Al. ““Not Some Piece of Ice”: Greenland Hits Back at Trump Insult.” Al Jazeera, 9 Apr. 2026, www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/9/not-some-piece-of-ice-greenland-hits-back-at-trump-insult.

Photo Credit: Defense.gov

Disclaimer: This Interview was on the 2nd of April, before the announcement of a two-week ceasefire on the 8th.

On February 28, US President Donald Trump, alongside Israeli Prime Minister and ever-closer ally Benjamin Netanyahu, started to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”.¹

Oil prices rocketed, Iran’s leadership was targeted and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.

Since then, Iran pulled one of the only leavers it had and effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz - a critical waterway that sees nearly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas supply pass through it.²

“Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A won’t be there to help you anymore,” Trump’s Truth Social post, directed at the UK, read on 31 March.³

“They prepared for this.”

Commodore Simon Kelly spent over 27 years in the Royal Navy, with his service career seeing him deploy to the Gulf on numerous occasions and captain a number of ships.⁴

He also served as the Deputy Commander UK Strike Forces and led the inaugural NATO Combined Task Force (Atlantic).⁵

Commodore Kelly explained to The Beacon it was “indicative” that we haven’t seen one US ship sail through the Strait since the start of Trump’s war with Iran.

The Strait lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with Iran on the north and the UAE, Oman and Qatar lying below it on the south.

While Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, and Trump have celebrated the US success against Iran’s conventional navy, it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps that pose a threat in the waterway.

“We’re talking about a really narrow section of water,” Cdre Kelly said.

He explained you can see what ships are travelling through the Strait from the coastline and all it would take is some small fishing vessels or boats to attack.

This is an asymmetric threat, which means the powers are not equal - but this works against the US in this example.

“[The] Iranian Guard Corps… it’s probably been worn down hugely by American action, but it’s huge,” he explained.

“They’re distributed along the coastline and they prepared for this.”

The Feasibility of an Invasion

Cdre Kelly said it is this worst case scenario the Iranians have prepared for and a multi-layered attack is exactly what makes Trump’s claim the UK should just go and “TAKE” the oil so absurd.

“You take the cover off your boat, you push it off that dock… and in a very short space of time, you can get your small boat in close proximity to anything that’s coming through,” he said.

“You’re able to manoeuvre freely, you present an incredibly difficult target because you’re moving, you’re moving fast, you can move erratically.

“There’s no way of going through this low-risk concept that Trump and Hegseth like to throw out there.

“It’s a really, really complicated task.”

This has not stopped the US stacking materiel in the region.

This includes the USS Tripoli, an amphibious readiness group who get troops to an area, and then the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, who would carry out the landing.

USS Boxer is also believed to be heading to the region, as well as 82nd Airborne Division - a rapid parachute infantry division from the US Army.

Alongside all of this, there are also two full US Carrier Strike Groups, with both USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford in the region - with USS George H.W. Bush also headed out to replace Ford.

Cdre Kelly said if all that military might is actually there “to do something with”, that comes with a “terrifying bit… of thinking behind that”.

If the capabilities are used to punch US troops ashore, putting US Marine Corps in as pickets in the Strait of Hormuz”, it could leave personnel trapped in the waterway.

The shape, as an inverted ‘V’, has a number of islands that could “conceivably” be used to put a US Marine Corps footprint ashore.

This includes Kharg Island, a fuel hub for Iran which Cddr Kelly said is about 550 kilometres inside the Gulf.

“I suppose the thinking.. is you land the Marines there and you have your hand around the throat of oil supplies back into Iran and that is used as your bargaining chip,” he explained.

“But it’s only about 30 kilometres off the coastline.

This then leaves the personnel fixed, with the Iranians able to “batter them with whatever they’ve got that the US hasn’t been able to destroy”.

Tehran could also mine the Strait behind the ships used to get personnel ashore, making it nearly impossible to get back out.

“There’s this really quite scary situation when there’s a potential for some kind of amphibious assault into one of these areas where they will be protected.

“They will be ready and the IRGC’s mindset is just one of sacrifice and resilience, it’s cultural, it’s religious, it’s historic and so these aren’t people who are going to throw down their weapons and run away.

“The casualty numbers are going to go up and so you then end up with a situation in which the American president and his administration have ordered them in there.

“It’s inevitable that there will be significant losses and so that’s why there’s sort of the military planner in me [who] thinks, well, you can’t conceive of using this lever.”

America’s Scapegoats

Trump has repeatedly chastised European allies for their lack of support in the US and Israel’s war in Iran.⁶

This included his criticism of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who he said was looking to “join wars after [the US has] already won”.⁷

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of the PM.

It came after Sir Keir appeared to not allow the US to launch attacks from UK bases, namely RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia, which is located in the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

But it is easier to blame someone else rather than take responsibility, Cddr Kelly pointed out, adding it could be a case of “strategic amnesia”.

“I think it’s much easier to blame NATO, they keep on saying NATO,” he said.

“They’re either showing a fundamentalist misunderstanding of what that alliance means or they’re using it conveniently.”

Trump has since also blamed South Korea and Japan for not helping as much as he thinks they should have.

“What they’re doing is if you blame someone else for the situation that you find yourself in, you can go down your off-ramp. and you can very conveniently shift the focus onto someone else.”

“You can say, ‘well, we’ve done what we need to, the Strait of Hormuz is up to someone else.”

“My view would be that it’s much easier to say… ‘the price is going up at the pump in the US is not because of us, it’s because our European partners… aren’t doing what they should do.”

The conflict has since escalated, with Trump claiming he would bomb Iran back to the Stone Age and later asserting “a whole civilisation will die tonight” unless Tehran agreed a deal to reopen the waterway.⁸

“There’s no winning this,” Cddr Kelly said.

“There’s no win at all for anyone, I think it potentially ends up as being a generational challenge.”

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1Trump, Donald. “Truth Social.” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116329512466946656.

2“Strait of Hormuz Is Chokepoint for 20% of World’s Oil - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).” Eia.gov, 2024, www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7830.

3Trump, Donald. “Truth Social.” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realdonaldtrump/posts/116323481956698353. Accessed 11 Apr. 2026.

4BIOGRAPHY of COMMANDER SIMON P KELLY ROYAL NAVY. Sept. 2016.

5Ibid

6Jr, Bernd Debusmann, and Claire Keenan. “Trump Criticises Nato as Alliance Chief Mark Rutte Describes Meeting as “Very Frank.”” BBC News, 9 Apr. 2026, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05d8j9r5ejo.

7Faguy, Ana, and Jack Fenwick. “Trump Accuses Starmer of Seeking to “Join Wars after We’ve Already Won.”” BBC News, 8 Mar. 2026, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dn3j04lydo.

8Trump, Donald. “Donald J. Trump (@RealDonaldTrump).” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116363336033995961.