America’s darkness is swallowing Britain
Authoritarianism, far-right funding, and Epstein-era corruption are seeping into UK politics. We must confront it, before it's too late.
A shadow of greed, grievance, and violence has crossed the Atlantic – and guess who’s invited to dinner?
Donald Trump’s arrival this week will be dressed up in all the usual diplomatic pomp: tarmac handshakes, photo-ops, and platitudes about “historic ties.” Behind the choreography, Keir Starmer’s aides will be holding their breath, hoping the president woke on the right side of the bed and that journalists, distracted by the usual cascade of appalling headlines, let the absent UK–US ambassador slip by.
Strip away the photo-ops and the truth is clear: Britain is rolling out the red carpet for a man who embodies a new age of fascist-tinged authoritarianism, holding us hostage with tariffs and threats over our digital services tax while we swallow our principles in the hope of scraps.
While Trump plays statesman at Chequers, his country is seeing a stark escalation in authoritarian rhetoric. The assassination of far-right figurehead Charlie Kirk has rapidly paved the way for JD Vance, the Vice President, to declare war on the Left, threatening to “dismantle” institutions and groups that “celebrate” Kirk’s death. Already, the US was descending into autocracy at an alarming pace, with the president deploying masked federal agents, threatening political opponents, and bypassing constitutional checks.
Could it really happen here? Not so far-fetched, if this past weekend is anything to go by. Far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson’s London rally drew 150,000 protestors — a scale that, while shocking to some — recalls the mass mobilisations of the far-right in the 1970s and 1980s. What's new is the role of American support: US donors like tech billionaire Robert Shillman have helped transform Robinson from a convicted criminal and fringe agitator into a “citizen journalist,” vastly amplifying his reach and influence. Shillman, a key figure in the transatlantic “counter-jihad” network, has funded fellowships promoting right-wing narratives, demonstrating how US money and ideology are facilitating a modern iteration of an old, dangerous movement.
American money, platforms, and ideologies are reshaping UK politics. Elon Musk’s video link to Robinson’s rally, inciting violence and far-right conspiracies, highlights the permeability of our political space, facilitated by technology and social media. All of this is cultivating a darker UK politics: shifting the Overton window, making the objectionable reasonable.
The seepage is not confined to the streets. Inside Westminster, currents are shifting too. Former Conservative MP Danny Kruger’s defection shows fundamentalist Christianity gaining a foothold, with restrictive views on abortion and a belief in the primacy of traditional Christian order echoing US evangelical playbooks. Nigel Farage’s recent remarks that “the most stable relationships tend to be between men and women” mirror the same refrain. Reform UK is actively courting American donors, including MAGA-aligned figures and religious conservatives, to shape its policy agenda and bolster its ambitions. Farage’s recent testimony before the US House Judiciary Committee, likening the UK to North Korea over the Online Safety Act and urging American lawmakers to pressure Britain, is a frightening example of these cosy relationships and the deliberate importation of US culture wars into Great Britain.
And then there is Jeffrey Epstein, the terminal virus of transatlantic corruption, infecting everyone who came near him. Former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson was not just an acquaintance of Epstein; he was, in his own words, his “best pal.” Appointing him ambassador alongside Trump was a staggering lapse of judgment: either the rot runs so deep that no one blinks at these circles, or Starmer calculated Mandelson would speak the same language as Trump (allegedly also a signature in Epstein’s birthday book, which he denies). Goodness me, we are dirtying our hands before we even start. When did we become so comfortable with a politics defined by shadowy circles, unsavoury friends, and kompromat?
Today’s Commons debate on Mandelson may look like a Westminster theatre, but the consequences are far wider. In the US, the alleged “Epstein files” have become rocket fuel for MAGA conspiracies: proof, so the narrative goes, of a corrupt elite immune to accountability. Trump weaponised these narratives against the Clintons, weaving Epstein into the fevered mythos around Hillary’s emails that helped energise his rise. In Britain, each new twist of the Mandelson saga risks the same effect: corroding public trust, feeding stories of cover-ups and moral rot. That erosion is the soil in which populism thrives.
These threads – Trump’s bullying diplomacy, Musk’s incitement, Robinson’s rallies, Kruger’s religious zeal, Epstein’s shadow – are part of the same fabric. Together they pull Britain into a transatlantic current where money and power trump values, secrecy is waved away, and democracy is entirely disposable. The danger is not just that we mirror America’s divisions, but that we become complicit in spreading them.
What, then, is the answer? Britain cannot keep ducking this widening moral void. We must call out these malevolent actors for what they are: billionaire far-right provocateurs, racist agitators, and architects of disinformation. Robinson’s rallies are a serious threat, and must be condemned in the strongest terms. We must also resist the creeping influence of evangelical dogma in Westminster and confront (and ban) the dark money reshaping our public square.
Britain needs moral backbone, and that starts with our prime minister. The need to publicly, vehemently, reclaim our values of openness, tolerance, and democracy has never been stronger, and that means recognising that our true allies lie not in Trump’s America but in Europe, where shared institutions and values offer the only bulwark against this rising tide of fascism.
The choice Britain faces is existential: surrender to America’s darkness, or stand up, and chart a different path before it is too late.■
About the author: Zoë Grünewald is Westminster Editor at The Lead and a freelance political journalist and broadcaster. Zoë then worked as a policy and politics reporter at the New Statesman, before joining the Independent as a political correspondent. When not writing about politics and policy, she is a regular commentator on TV and radio and a panellist on the Oh God What Now podcast.