Should Starmer stand up to Trump?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Trump has blown the Overton window wide open. In a press conference yesterday alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president outlined his intention to ‘take over the Gaza Strip’, displacing 1.8 million Palestinians in the process. His plan – if you can call it that – is to build ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’. Many of the countries Trump has earmarked to resettle displaced Gazans have already condemned the takeover. How will the international community respond?

Elsewhere, Keir Starmer seems more motivated by a desire to observe the rule of international law than his buddy across the pond. The Chagos deal seems set to be completed in the ‘coming weeks’. However, the new Mauritian prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, claimed yesterday that Starmer cut a deal – in the presence, rather curiously, of his Attorney General, Lord Hermer – that would effectively double the £9 billion first offered to the country to take back the archipelago. Why are they pressing ahead with this deal? And, seven months into this government, are we any closer to discovering what ‘progressive realism’ actually is?

James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We are very pleased to announce the full line-up for our Coffee House Shots live event on the 26th
0:04.9	February at the Emanuel Centre in Westminster. Join Coffee House Shots regulars, Michael Gove,
0:10.1	Casey Balls, Kate Andrews, as well as very special guests, Robert Jenrick and Jonathan Ashworth
0:15.0	for a look to the year ahead. They will be tackling such questions as, can the Chancellor
0:19.9	reframe the budget in her first spring statement?
0:22.1	What will Trump's first 100 days look like?
0:24.6	And will reform cause an upset at the local elections?
0:27.3	So that's Emmanuel Centre, 7.30, 26th of February.
0:30.8	And for tickets, go to spectator.com.uk forward slash coffeehouse live.
0:35.2	We look forward to seeing you there.
0:40.3	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Katie Balls,
0:45.4	political editor-in-law of The Spectator and Michael Stevens Associate Fellow at the Rousey Think Tank.
0:50.0	Now overnight we saw news of what Donald Trump's peace plan looks like for Gaza.
0:55.0	Michael, tell us more about what the American president is proposing in the Middle East
0:59.2	and how this fits in with his broader philosophy in office thus far.
1:03.0	Thanks a lot, James.
1:04.1	Well, plan is an interesting way of putting it.
1:07.1	Certainly the comments made by President Trump are once again highly unusual, unexpected.
1:15.1	They have, as we would assume, fired up people on both the pro-Israeli and the pro-Palestinian
1:21.9	side of the debate, and they are very different from what we have heard for any US presidents throughout the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
1:31.1	And that surrounds, of course, essentially the transfer of 1.8 million Palestinians out of Gaza,
1:38.8	rebuilding Gaza into what sounds a bit like sort of Macau on the Mediterranean,
	...

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