While Starmer vies to keep the Special Relationship afloat by keeping a calm face and doing little publicly and Kemi Badenoch’s Tories appear conflicted, Westminster’s third-largest party feels no such pressure to keep the US President happy.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has waged a vigorous anti-Donald Trump campaign, with eyes on the upcoming May local elections and the potential for a healthy showing for the party.

Positioning themselves as staunchly anti-Trump, the Lib Dem pre-election campaign has involved a strong pushback against the US President. Davey has called on the public to “buy British” in response to the tariffs, a campaign that has been rejected by government. This follows the party’s spring conference, where the leader branded the US president a “bully”, and called for the UK government to “hit back with tariffs of our own”.

In the background, some eyes will be on Canada. Newly installed Prime Minister Mark Carney (yes, the same Mark Carney who used to run the Bank of England) looks on track to secure an unlikely victory for his Liberal Party in an upcoming snap general election. Just weeks ago, the party was far behind in the polls and looked so doomed Justin Trudeau threw in the towel and quit as PM. Carney has happily waged a media war against the Trump assaults on Canada and looks set to earn an electoral dividend.

In the meantime, while the British PM is sticking to his plan to tread more carefully, perhaps the aggressive stance is working for Davey too: the Lib Dems are up by 4 points following the newest tariff announcements from the US. It seems Sir Ed and his 71 fellow Lib Dems are carving out a space unable to be occupied by their Westminster peers, and garnering support on the way.

(Photo by libdems.org.uk)