Won’t the British right stand up for sovereignty?

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Last weekend, Elon Musk spoke via video to a huge march of the far right in London, telling them to “fight back” or “die”. The Labour government condemned this provocative intrusion from a foreigner — who also called for parliament to be dissolved — as did a broad sweep of politicians from the centre to the left. Nigel Farage? That stickler for sovereign nationhood and a Britain that answers to no one? “It would be nice to get some clarification of what ‘fight’ meant in that context,” he said. Always talks straight, does our Nige.

Sovereignty, it seems, doesn’t matter when American conservatives threaten it. Donald Trump is punishing Brazil with tariffs and sanctions, ostensibly for holding its own former president to account in its own courts over a coup attempt against its own republic. Rightwing commentators — especially British ones, who used to say “sovereignty” as often as most of us say “the” — have writer’s block on the subject. Perhaps they regard the UK as an irrelevant third party to a bilateral dispute far away. I doubt it. No such scruple stopped them cheering on Australia when China slapped tariffs on it during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Their other excuse will be to say that formal sovereignty is what matters. Effective sovereignty is another issue. In other words, Britain/Brazil are still legally free to act, whatever the external coercion from the US. Conservatives don’t mean a word of this. When Barack Obama seemed to endorse Remain before the EU referendum, they never forgave the globalist trespass, though Brits could still vote as they chose. (When JD Vance meddled in the German federal election this year, there was no such outrage from the sovereignty merchants.)

Look, I am feigning confusion here. I know perfectly well why the right is selective in its concern for sovereignty. It goes back to my underlying theory of all politics. People believe in almost nothing in and of itself. What matters is alignment with their tribe. Interference in national affairs from liberal-minded bodies: sinister. Interference in national affairs from fellow conservatives: well, come now, what does sovereignty mean in the interconnected modern world?

But if the hypocrisy is natural, it is still epic. For decades, the right said the nation state was the sacrosanct unit of world affairs, as the family is of the nation state. If that line has changed, conservatives shouldn’t mind if liberals go ahead and question their patriotism. In 2025, rightwing leaders in Canada and Australia have lost elections at least in part because voters suspected them of being too close to the foreign creed known as Maga.

It could happen elsewhere. American conservatives are sticking a huge oar into other western countries: their tech regulations, freedom of speech protocols, climate laws, immigration preferences and trade relations. (Trump wants the EU to put tariffs on third parties, namely China and India.) The first of these issues does at least impinge directly on US interests, as so many of the biggest tech companies are American. Most of the rest is just voyeurism. It is also wilfully denigrating in tone, hence the Maga portrayal of modern Britain as somehow both a criminal free-for-all and a sharia-run caliphate.

Brits who turn to their politicians to stand up for the nation’s honour will see the left-liberal Ed Miliband doing so, while the right walks on eggshells around foreigners who don’t just hold the country in disdain but presume to change it. Farage at least said something about Musk, however weak. If the Conservatives have made a statement, I can’t find it. Where is the national amour propre? Where is the one thing we expect from the right?

This might be the nostalgia of middle-age kicking in, but nationalism used to be about one’s own nation: its particular culture and interests. To be a Tory jingo was to be at least a mild anti-American, for it was the US that had superseded the British empire and crowded out peculiar national tastes and habits with perhaps the first truly global culture. This Evelyn Waugh-ism was snobbish and misguided, but it was internally consistent. More than that, it was self-respecting.

At some point in this century, the internet wove nationalists everywhere into a single “team”, centred on a cringing obsession with America. Some of the rightwing protesters in London commemorated Charlie Kirk, whom most Brits had not heard of until his murder last week. Of course, the left has the same US mania. It launched George Floyd protests across the globe. But the left doesn’t pretend to believe in sovereignty or the inviolate uniqueness of each nation. The right does. Except, apparently, when it doesn’t.

This week, under the polite term of “state visit”, Britain is having to abase itself to a foreigner in the hope that he will withhold further tariffs or undo existing ones, knowing all the while that he might later increase them anyway on a whim. (A period of bonhomie with Trump guarantees nothing. The Indian government can elaborate on this point.) Because there is something a bit King Ralph about Trump’s love of royal flummery, the seriousness of Britain’s exposure to him, the depth of our servitude, will get lost in all the giggling.

Were Britain doing all this to appease a liberal head of state, never mind the EU or the World Bank, conservatives might stop seething about the insult to our sovereign honour circa 2068. As it is, they cannot work up a sweat about it for one day.

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