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Trump and Starmer sat side by side – and the gulf between two nations seemed wider than ever | Gaby Hinsliff

Washington’s day of historic diplomacy involved two alleged rapists and then the prime minister of Britain. It said everything about our new era

Shortly after Keir Starmer arrived in Washington to fight for the future of Europe, two men who make a mockery of everything he stands for touched down on American soil. The toxic YouTube influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate have spent years under investigation in Romania on charges of rape and human trafficking, which they deny, Andrew is now wanted by British police over allegations of rape, and both brothers for tax evasion in this country. But to MAGAworld they are martyrs, unjustly persecuted abroad for the crime of saying what they think on the internet. Their triumphant homecoming to Florida, following reported US diplomatic pressure on the Romanian government to lift its travel ban, sends a signal to aggrieved young men who voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris that the president has not forgotten them.

There could hardly have been a starker illustration of this government’s values, or of just how achingly far apart our two continents have become. It is freedom of speech that reliably seems to galvanise Trumpworld, not the freedom of millions of Europeans to live in peace along Russia’s borders; as the president breezily told his cabinet this week, the erstwhile land of the free will now “have Europe take care of that”. But it was also a small reminder of how carelessly this regime treats its oldest allies. Too bad if the Tate brothers’ release coincided, awkwardly for him, with the arrival of a British prime minister who prides himself on having once prosecuted rapists.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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