Trump: can't live without him...
Scotland should embrace the president-elect, diplomatically if not morally.
The First Minister, John Swinney, had a 20-minute phone conversation this week with the devil incarnate—Donald Trump. There was nothing specific on tariffs, but they did talk, we’re told, about the social, cultural, and economic ties between Scotland and the United States, including the importance of the US market for Scottish exports. Nothing surprising in that, you say—it’s what national leaders do. Yet there was—there really was.
It is remarkable how little this tête-à-tête with the SNP’s favorite racist-misogynist hate figure ruffled feathers in the nationalist movement. When the SNP External Affairs Secretary, Angus Robertson, had a similar chat with the deputy Israeli ambassador, Daniela Grudsky, only in September, all hell broke loose. “How dare you talk with genocide?” cried nationalists at the SNP conference, where there were calls for Robertson’s resignation. He made a groveling apology. Swinney had to promise never to speak to an Israeli diplomat ever again. He then staged a highly publicized meeting with a representative of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territories.
This time, nada.
Have they all forgotten that Trump is the world’s leading defender of Israel’s alleged “genocide” in Gaza? That he supplies the Israeli Defense Forces and has called on Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish what he started in Gaza”? That he has surrounded himself with leading Zionists, like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, as US Ambassador to Israel? Have they forgotten how Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and used to call for a “one-state solution,” sans Palestine, to the Arab-Israeli dispute?
I don’t believe the SNP membership have forgotten why they are supposed to loathe Trump. But, like the rest of the world, they are having to learn to live with him. And that is a good thing, on the whole. It is student politics to blackball democratically elected political leaders just because you don’t like their policies. It is hard to believe that, only a decade ago, Nicola Sturgeon was seriously calling for Donald Trump to be denied entry to the UK. Now, he is being welcomed by her successor.
The tears and rage of the nationalist left have been saturating social media since November 5th have mostly dried. Scotland will now have to decide how to deal with Trump 2.0. And also how to welcome him when he next visits Scotland, as he surely will, since he owns two of the world’s leading golf courses at Menie in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry in Ayrshire. Between them, they employ 600 people, which is a not inconsiderable contribution to the Scottish economy, not to mention the many tourist dollars he attracts here.
The shock and disbelief of the left at the Dark Lord’s second coming will revive all over again when Trump is inaugurated as President in January. That should rapidly give way to thoughts on how Trump could be useful to Scotland, which he very well could be. As I argued in a recent Times column, you don’t have to like Trump’s politics or his personality - I certainly don’t - to see that he is potentially a valuable economic and diplomatic asset for Scotland.
To be fair to John Swinney, he made a point of congratulating Trump on his victory last month and says he wants to maintain the “deep cultural, social and economic ties with Scotland and the USA.” The Scotch Whisky industry will be the first to cheer that, since it could be in the firing line for Trump’s threatened tariff war with Europe. Swinney should be using every avenue to try to get an exemption and also put his efforts into trying to secure a trade deal between the UK and US.
It goes without saying that Trump does not agree with the precipitate rundown of the North Sea oil and gas industry. His campaign slogan was not subtle: “drill, baby, drill” Last week, the last big Texas oil company, Apache, announced it was pulling out of the Forties field, blaming Labour’s punitive taxation regime. Donald Trump isn’t going to take on Ed Miliband, but he might be willing to help mitigate catastrophic job losses in the old country.
Keir Starmer made sure he got on the right side of Trump. Swinney could get one over the PM by actively inviting the President-elect to come to Scotland - perhaps laying on a dinner at Edinburgh Castle. The POTUS would love that very bigly indeed and would instantly confirm Scotland‘s most favoured nation status. Many readers of this column will be appalled at the thought of honouring this alleged sex criminal. Well, they need to get over themselves.
Why wouldn’t the Scottish government try to embrace the world’s most powerful Scot? Nationalist politicians on social media may fizz with righteous rage at Trump. But like him or loathe him, Trump is the expression of the democratic will of the American people. Scotland can’t afford to ignore him.
Trump is, of course, a matrilineal Scot himself, as he never loses any opportunity to remind TV interviewers. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, was born on a croft in Tong near Stornoway. Trump professes to “love” Scotland even when Scots conspicuously fail to love him back.
During his first visit as President in 2016, the late comedian, Janey Godley, made her name by abusing the President of the United States. Her handwritten sign saying “Trump is a Cunt” went viral, much to the glee of the nationalist left. Oh, how we laughed at the wee wumman thumbing her nose at the orange man…
A year later, an environmental campaigner was filmed urinating on the Menie golf estate. During Trump’s last visit as President in 2018, there were demonstrations involving thousands across Scotland, many featuring that giant balloon depicting Trump as a baby in nappies. I think he got the message.
This time around, the Scottish Green Party leader Patrick Harvie has tried to set a similar tone. On the day after Trump’s landslide, he called the President-elect “a misogynist, a climate denier, a fraudster, a conspiracy monger, a racist, and a far-right politician.” He is certainly no Greta Thunberg.
Many Scots may agree with Harvie - though not all. A poll last week suggested Scots are Trump’s biggest supporters in Western Europe, with a quarter of adults backing him. Perhaps the reception for Trump 2.0 will be more muted, I might even say more mature than when he last appeared here.
Nicola Sturgeon, who led the assault on Trump’s alleged misogyny and racism, has of course departed the political scene under her own cloud. In 2020, she all but accused Trump of fraud and money laundering at his golf resorts and thundered that he would be held “accountable” for any such misdeeds. This after she had petulantly withdrawn Trump’s status as a Global Scot for tourism.
It is an irony not lost on the President-elect that Ms Sturgeon’s husband has now been charged with embezzlement of funds and that she is still under police investigation herself. The Murrells deny any wrongdoing, as does, er, Donald Trump.
How the tables have turned since the glory days of Saint Nicola. These are changed days culturally too. The woke left, which was in the ascendant in Scotland during Trump’s last period in office, is now in retreat. Many Scottish feminists were, like JK Rowling, nodding in agreement with that Trump video address where he promises to end the “chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.”
He’ll also ban transwomen from women’s sports. Nicola Sturgeon would not like it. She famously went to lead an LGBT Pride march in 2018 rather than meet the leader of the world’s most powerful country. That Swinney will not make the same mistake this time is a measure of how this nationalist administration has moved on from her brand of politics.
Of course we need to embrace him. Can’t stand the man but if he can do even a bit to promote Scotland and mend our failing economy under the nationalists, it’ll be a price worth paying. Oh, and his understanding that men can’t become women puts him head and shoulders above Swinney & Co in my book.