With WW3 fears overshadowing the G7, Starmer and others are more scared of Trump

Seven years ago, Donald Trump sparked the most chaotic scenes seen at a G7 summit for decades. The leader of the free world flipped over the metaphorical table, tore up the join communique and stormed off early, leaving the smouldering wreck of western diplomacy in his wake.

This week the President will be back in Canada for a second G7 summit hosted by the country, and it’s almost funny to imaging going back in time to tell my journalist predecessors on that 2018 visit that not only would Trump still be in the White House, but the world would be even less stable and relations between Trump and Ottawa have somehow worsened further. They wouldn’t believe me, but alas all of it is true - and threatens to jeopardise a crucial meeting at yet another make-or-break moment for global stability. The Trump circus will role into town today, his first visit north of the border since he began making his ludicrous and insulting demands for Canada to give up nationhood and join America as its 51st state.

Canada is furious. In April, Trump’s mad ranting sparked a General Election like which I have never seen before.

The incumbent Liberals, now led by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, surged from 20 points behind their rival Conservatives to the most unlikely of election victories, carried back to power on a surge of anti-Trump anger.

Then came the King’s visit in May, a proud moment for the Commonwealth country that is increasingly looking back to Britain and Europe for its identity for the first time in decades.

Pro-Britain sentiment is on the up, and while I disagree with Keir Starmer on many things, he may be just the sort of grey, technocratic leader that goes down well in a country which just went gaga for a former world banker-turned-PM.

Then there’s the gulf in opinion between Donald Trump and the rest of them on the Middle East.

Even putting Trump’s Canada show-down to once side, the G7 meeting has already been upended by the very worrying breakout of bombing between Iran and Israel.

I visited Israel on a press trip months before Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks, and distinctly remember returning to Britain fearing above all else that Iran was massively overlooked as the greatest potential cause of WW3.

Tehran are mad, highly armed, well funded and strategically located, and potentially just a few short years away from finalising their nuclear weapons technology.

While Keir Starmer and other centrist G7 leaders carp on about ‘de-escalation’ from the sidelines, Donald Trump is himself de-stabalising the situation with plain-speaking social media posts warning Iran to expect retaliation “at levels never seen before”.

Starmer, Carney, Meloni, Macron, Merz, Ishiba, Costa and Von der Leyen will now spend the next two days imploring Mr Trump to use all his influence as leader of the free world to take the boiling pan off the hob and work towards a resolution not just between Israel and Iran, but Israel and Palestine, and Russia and Ukraine.

Whether they can put their differences aside, and whether they can put across their unified message to President Trump without appearing to be bullying him, is the great diplomatic question of the gathering.