British Prime Minister Keir Starmer needs to take heed of Donald Trump's favorite poem, he was warned Thursday.
"The Snake," which tells of a half-frozen reptile that is helped by a "tender-hearted woman" before it betrays her with a vicious bite — has been frequently recited by the U.S. president, who appears to consider it a truth about human interactions, wrote Guardian opinion writer Aditya Chakrabortty.
And, as Trump rambled over his grievances for 55 minutes at the United Nations Tuesday, the danger was clearly messaged to Starmer, she wrote.
"Watching his extraordinary speech this week at the UN, I thought again of The Snake," she wrote.
"It is the perfect depiction of the dynamic between Trump and the British establishment – a relationship where Trump is the vicious serpent.
"Last week, he was Keir Starmer’s most honored guest, enjoying a banquet at Windsor Castle and wooed by King Charles as 'the closest of kin.' One return flight later, Trump tore into his host – 'I hope the prime minister’s listening' – and lumped the UK among those Old World s---holes 'going to hell.'"
Starmer, backed up by Trump, has frequently bragged about their close relationship — and friendship, even inviting Trump for an unprecedented second state visit to the UK last week.
A recently announced US-UK tech deal, touted as "record-breaking" by Downing Street, represents another manifestation of this serpentine dynamic, she wrote. Cecilia Rikap, an AI expert at University College London, described the emerging data centers as "American military bases on British soil."
Britain's previous Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg gave a similar warning, saying that the UK risks becoming a "vassal state" and underscoring the poem's underlying message, Chakrabortty wrote. The massive technology investments are not merely financial transactions, but strategic infiltrations.
"If Labour [Party] members and other voters knew what had actually been signed in their names they would be angered, rather than heartened," she wrote.
"Far closer to the truth is to imagine a snake in skin of stars and stripes, wrapping itself ever tighter around your land, your data, your water supply and your electricity pylons – all the while claiming it’s for your own good."
Chakrabortty concluded with another reference to The Snake.
"These rhymes are the very essence of Trumpism: never let outsiders get too close, or you’ll be repaid in venom," she wrote.
"No hugs, just extraction. It’s how he sees business, politics and, naturally, immigration."