Since 2008, struggling communities have been told they are in competition with migrants. Only a model that gives them hope will halt the populists

How much does Europe’s future resemble its gruesome past? That question was already pressing before Donald Trump retook the White House, and turned support for the European far-right “patriotic” parties into US policy. That is, of course, what his newly published National Security Strategy means, committing the US to “cultivating resistance” in European nations against the supposed “civilisational erasure” represented by immigration.

With or without US interference, far-right authoritarianism is now an entirely plausible European future, unless there is drastic change. After all, it is already the US’s present reality. American exceptionalism once held that such an outcome was impossible in the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic, with its system of separation of powers and no history of despotism. Yet the country is now ruled by a self-styled king, centralising executive power, weaponising the justice system, attacking civil society and neutralising the media.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

The PM is the face of failure, but he is not solely responsible. As the Blairite ideologues mass behind Wes Streeting, we should hold them to account too

There have been far too few defences of Keir Starmer in the British press of late. Time for a modest redress. As the last rites are muttered over his premiership, his colleagues want you to know that this is all his fault. The humiliation is complete: even Labour Together – the outfit that quietly plotted Starmer’s leadership bid – is now sharpening its knives. It is polling members on who should replace him, indulging the comforting fantasy that swapping captains will somehow stop the ship from sinking.

The Tory experience of regicide should offer a caution: do not depose a king unless you have already settled on a prince who understands why the kingdom is in crisis. The Tories toppled Boris Johnson and installed Liz Truss, whose zeal to slash taxes for the wealthy detonated the markets and sealed her party’s fate. Why? Because they convinced themselves that Johnson had failed for being insufficiently rightwing.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist