A small price to pay

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It’s entirely understandable that so many people are clamouring for the invitation to Trump for a state visit to the UK to be withdrawn, given what happened in the 24 hours after issuing it. It’s less clear what would be achieved by withdrawing it. There is a mismatch between the expectations of the inviter (that it would happen next year) and those of the invitee (that it would happen this year). Whether it’s best to get it over with quickly or keep it hanging for a while – there is always a potential for ‘diary’ issues to create a delay if necessary – depends on one’s assessment of how Trump will be likely to react to either. That is, essentially, unknowable. The thought that the red carpet and a great deal of obsequiousness will be rolled out for the man who sought to demean and humiliate the leader of a country resisting an invasion by a larger neighbour is unpleasant to say the least. That doesn’t mean that there is no chance of it helping.

The bottom line is that, whether we like it or not (and an awful lot of us don’t), Trump is right about two things, even if his way of expressing them is repugnant. Firstly, it is not a war between equals, and in the absence of any willingness by other countries to commit forces to support of Ukraine, Ukraine will ultimately lose. The cost in money and lives to both sides will be enormous, but the trajectory is clear. The second thing about which he is right, which flows from the first, is that the immediate priority has to be to stop the death and destruction through some sort of ceasefire, and that inevitably means accepting that boundaries, for the time being at least, reflect the territorial gains made. That’s neither fair nor just for the country which has been invaded, but it does mirror most of the other borders in Europe and beyond, which are where they are because that’s where they were when the fighting stopped. It’s uncomfortable for any Welsh independentista to see a country which so recently gained its independence being dismembered by an invading force, but it takes more than hope, sympathy and an endless supply of armaments to get out of the current situation.

Trump’s approach to achieving that ceasefire, by allying himself with one party and attempting to do a deal over the head of the other, looks ham-fisted and has angered many, but how much worse it is than simply supplying ever-increasing amounts of armaments which do little more than slow Russian progress is debateable. For the long term, European security needs to be established on the basis of de-escalation and demilitarisation rather than on competing to see who can build the biggest stick. That must include an assumption that the US will no longer play a role in Europe. In the short term, the alternative facing Ukraine is some sort of accommodation with Russia or a long grinding war in which the eventual outcome will probably be worse than freezing things where they are.

The question is whether a state visit, with all its flattery and fawning over His Orangeness, will help or hinder in either the short term or the long term. It’s a question to which I don’t have an answer, and neither, I suspect, does anyone else, given the quintessential unpredictability with which the world is dealing. What is likely to be a sick-inducing spectacle for many is a small price to pay compared to that being paid daily in Ukrainian lives, and might still be better than the impact of withdrawing a rather hastily issued invitation. It could hardly make things any worse, whereas withdrawing the invitation might do just that.