I was going to reply to you both with my thoughts on this the other day but got distracted and forgot.
I know It’s not ideal but with Trump, I don’t think they have much choice but to adopt the diplomatic strategy they have. Brexit has left us so utterly exposed on the economy and our standing in the world; the Tories decimated our defence and practically everything in the country is broken. We just don’t have the luxury of antagonising Trump given the global economic damage he’s already done nor the insanity of what he’s truly capable of.
The safest option is old fashioned diplomacy, which has been very effective from us and Europe so far - 2 weeks ago Trump was talking about Ukraine having to sign a peace deal that was pretty much written by Russia. But then after Russia had bombed Kyiv, at the Pope’s funeral when Trump wasn’t surrounded by Vance and the other MAGA goblins usually influencing what’s left between his ears, Starmer, Macron and Zelenskyy managed to talk to him together and privately without any of his handlers. Since then he’s signed off on weapons for Ukraine for the first time and they’ve finally signed the mineral deal.
With that in mind I don’t think bringing Trump into the resistance against Farage would be effective at all.
Reform’s success this week is depressing, yes, and I do wish Labour could do more to call them out. However, I think they’ll be happy to let their control of Durham council run into the ground as it will inevitably do. UKIP only ever ran one council (Thanet) and they managed to practically bankrupt it after just a year before lost control completely. And they’ll fail again, cos it’s the same idiots with the same stupid ideology.