‘I will not yield’: a cheer for Keir – at last someone’s had the gumption to stand up to Donald Trump

Keir Starmer came to Prime Minister’s Questions better prepared than he has been for some time. It helped that he could see Kemi Badenoch’s line of questioning coming from across the road at No 10.

She was going to ask about the Chagos deal, which Donald Trump has denounced. She knows that the deal is a terrible one, and that the prime minister would struggle to justify paying Mauritius to take over a territory to which it has the feeblest claim.

But Starmer knows something more important, which is that most people in Britain don’t care about Chagos – and that they do care about Trump. They regard the president as a dangerous narcissist whose demand to acquire Greenland is an outrage.

Before Badenoch could ask about Chagos, therefore, the prime minister spoke slowly and deliberately to set out “our principles and values”. The first was that the future of Greenland was a matter for Greenlanders and the Danes. The second was that “threats of tariffs to pressurise allies are completely wrong”.

He announced that “the prime minister of Denmark is coming to the United Kingdom tomorrow for bilateral talks”. Most MPs would be hard pressed to name her – Mette Frederiksen – but her imminent presence in Downing Street inspired an instant reflex of Nato-tinged solidarity.

Which allowed Starmer to deploy some actual rhetoric, instead of his usual technocrat-speak. “I do want to be clear with the House,” he said. “I will not yield – Britain will not yield – on our principles and values about the future of Greenland under threats of tariffs. That is my clear position.”

Badenoch’s attack on the Chagos deal was safely disarmed. She was forced to say: “I am very glad to hear the prime minister say that.” She pointed out that Starmer was not willing to grant the Chagossians the same right of self-determination that he insisted on for Greenlanders, but he had already taken the high moral ground.

He told her that the president’s U-turn on Chagos was “for the purpose of putting pressure on me” over Greenland. He was, therefore, “surprised” that she had “jumped on the bandwagon”.

Starmer is right that Trump is using the Chagos deal to punish him for his insubordination over Greenland. He liked the “I will not yield” phrase so much that he used it several times. Badenoch could not point out that it didn’t mean much. What he was not yielding to was the contradiction of the principle that Greenland is a matter for Greenlanders and the Danes, and that tariffs are wrong.

He wasn’t saying that British troops would fight for every inch of Greenlandic territory and never surrender. He wasn’t even saying that he would retaliate against punitive tariffs. All he was saying was that he will continue to believe in the principles of self-determination and free trade. But it sounded defiant, and it sounded as if he was standing up to the bully-president.

So Badenoch had nowhere to go. The Chagos deal may be indefensible, but if Trump is against it, it is hard for her to be for it. Just as Farage looks as if he is being unpatriotic by going to Davos to try to sidle up to Trump for a photo opportunity, to try to claim credit for persuading the president to scupper the deal.

The Conservative leader had to move on, saying the government should spend more on defence. Starmer replied that it was already doing so, and that the previous government, of which she was a member, had “hollowed out” the armed forces.

And that was that. Badenoch had not expected the “Whose side are you on?” response, because it required Starmer to take up a more hostile stance towards Trump than he has adopted until now. But the prime minister has already been punished by Trump for standing up to him, and has little left to lose.

On the contrary, he has much to gain in strengthening his support among Labour MPs and in putting himself on the right side of public opinion. Badenoch and Farage are going to learn that putting themselves on the same side as Trump will be uncomfortable for them.

“I will not yield” is just a phrase – but today, it was the right one.