Donald Trump's bullying of Hillary Clinton was a warning sign. Europe must stand up to him

A memory of the 2016 US presidential election took on new significance for me this week. During a televised, town-hall-style hustings, each time Hillary Clinton had the microphone Donald Trump crept into shot behind her, looking either contemptuous or threatening.

The first time he did it my friend and I laughed, before we gradually realised what he was up to. Trump was demonstrating his overbearing presence. Imposing himself on every shot, every comment, every aspect of the event. Exactly what he is attempting to do now with the rest of the world.

Another friend told me that the thought of what he might do next is making it difficult for her to sleep. She’s not alone.

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Donald Trump's behaviour during televised debates with Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 US presidential election gave an insight into his character (Picture: Chip Somodevilla) | Getty Images

I don’t believe that his impact on the Western public and politicians is either accidental, or well-meaning. I listened with horrified incredulity to the radio this week as the names of his new Board of Peace members were rhymed off.

I was staggered that former Prime Minister Tony Blair – indeed any former UK Prime Minister – would want to be associated with it. Less than a week before, Trump had told the Norwegian government that peace was no longer his priority because he hadn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now he suggests a solution which he imagines should include such well-known respecters of the international rules-based order and rights of others as Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. But not the governments of any country in Africa, most of South and Central America or many in Southeast Asia or Oceania.

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His defenders will no doubt point out that the organisation is mandated, under United Nation Security Council Resolution 2803, with overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza alongside the National Committee for Administration of Gaza, although it must be said that it bears little resemblance to what the UN envisaged.

For many of us, however, it offers a frightening combination of a Trump vanity project and an alternative to the United Nations on whose work he will have a veto.

It is a very select club whose membership I am proud our government, and most of Europe, has rejected. Why would they join an organisation run at the whim of someone who attempted to hold the world to ransom and threatened the future of Nato in an outrageous attempt to undermine the sovereignty of Greenland? Or who has quit the World Health Organisation which has done so much to protect the global population.

After defeat in 2020, Trump returned more determined and, if anything, more unreasonable and chaotic. In his first year back, he has created international strategic and economic instability, indeed near chaos. We should have been better prepared.

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If we didn’t recognise the danger from his bullying of Clinton during those TV debates, or from his first term in office, we should at least have been aware, in Scotland, after he rode roughshod over every objection to his golf development on a site of Special Scientific Interest in Aberdeenshire.

Thankfully, our leaders stood up to him this week over Greenland. I hope they have laid down a clear marker that they will not be bullied. Order must be restored. Otherwise, it may be some time before we any of us sleep easy.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West