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      Trump sends thousands more troops to LA as mayor says city is being used as an ‘experiment’

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      The Trump administration was deploying roughly 4,000 national guard members in Los Angeles on Monday in response to protests over immigration raids, in an extraordinary mobilization of troops against US residents that California leaders have called “authoritarian”.Tensions between the federal government and the nation’s second-largest city dramatically escalated over the weekend as residents took to the streets to demonstrate against a series of brutal crackdowns on immigrant communities. Raids in the region have affected garment district workers, day laborers and restaurants, and the president of a major California union was arrested by federal agents while serving as a community observer during US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) arrests.Despite facing teargas and other munitions over the weekend, protesters continued to rally on Monday, and families of detained immigrants pleaded for their loved ones to be released.The Trump administration initially said 2,000 national guard members were being sent to LA, but California governor Gavin Newsom said late on Monday he was informed federal officials were sending an additional 2,000 troops, though he said only 300 had been deployed so far, with the remainder “sitting, unused, in federal buildings without orders”. Federal authorities also said the military would be sending roughly 700 marines, marking an exceptionally rare deployment targeting people domestically.Largely peaceful protests against Ice spread around the country on Monday, including in New York, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco, where hundreds of people gathered in the evening for a march through the city’s historically-Latino Mission district. In Austin, demonstrators marched outside an Ice processing center, chanting slogans such as “No more Ice” and holding up signs including “No human being is illegal”. In downtown Los Angeles, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a demonstration calling for an end to Ice raids. Intermittent protests continued into the evening, as police used rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of several hundred people gathered near the federal building.Advocates also rallied in support of David Huerta, the president of SEIU California and SEIU-USWW, who was arrested on Friday and initially hospitalized. Huerta was charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, which could result in a six-year prison sentence, and released Monday, telling reporters: “This fight is ours, it’s our community’s, but it belongs to everyone. We all have to fight for them.”Tensions simmered as California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the federal deployment of the state national guard over Newsom’s objections. Meanwhile, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, earlier threatened to arrest Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, a move the governor said was “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism”.Newsom dared the administration to follow through with the threats, prompting Trump to respond: “I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great.”View image in fullscreenTrump, who congratulated the national guard troops for a “great job” before they had arrived in the city, said LA would have been “completely obliterated” without them.Homan claimed on Fox News that Ice “took a lot of bad people off the street”. He said, without providing specifics, that he had arrested gang members and people with serious criminal convictions, but also admitted that Ice was detaining immigrants without criminal records.Homan also told NBC News that more raids were coming, and Ice arrests continued across southern California on Monday.California’s lawsuit, filed late on Monday against Trump and Pete Hegseth, his defense secretary, said the president had “used a protest that local authorities had under control to make another unprecedented power-grab … at the cost of the sovereignty of the state of California and in disregard of the authority and role of the governor as commander-in-chief of the state’s national guard”.The suit, which seeks to block the defense department from deploying the state national guard, said there has been no “rebellion” or “insurrection” in LA. California also said that during raids, Ice agents “took actions that inflamed tensions and provoked protest” and “sparked panic”. California noted that Ice sealed off entire streets around targeted buildings, used unmarked armored vehicles with paramilitary gear, and did not coordinate with LA law enforcement officials.Rob Bonta, the California attorney general who filed the suit, said the president was “trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends”.Also on Monday, families targeted by the recent raids spoke out. Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, an immigrant rights group, held a press conference outside Ambiance Apparel, a garment district warehouse raided on Friday.One woman said she witnessed the raid where her father was “kidnapped by Ice”, adding: “What happened was not right. It was not legal. In this country, we all have the right to due process … I saw with my own eyes the pain of the families, crying, screaming, not knowing what to do.”Yurien Contreras said her family has had no communication with her father, Mario Romero, since he was taken: “I witnessed how they put my father in handcuffs, chained him from the waist and from his ankles.” Lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), found that immigrants apprehended in LA were initially detained in a basement of a federal building, alleging they were denied food, water or beds for more than 12 hours.View image in fullscreenMayor Bass has said that LA is a “proud city of immigrants” and has strongly condemned the raids, telling reporters on Monday evening that most people detained have been denied access to lawyers, with many “disappeared” to unknown locations. “I can’t emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos,” she said, adding that she would not stand for the White House using LA as a “test case” for this kind of federal crackdown.Bass also condemned vandalism and said protesters would be arrested for “violent” acts. LAPD said on Monday that 29 people had been arrested on Saturday for “failure to disperse”, and that there were 21 additional arrests on Sunday on a range of charges, including looting, attempted murder with a molotov cocktail and assault on an officer.Civil rights activists criticized the militarized response of local law enforcement, including LAPD, which has a history of injuring protesters, sometimes leading to costly settlements. Several journalists were injured at the protests, with an Australian reporter on Sunday shot by a rubber bullet at close range while filming a segment.“When residents come together to make use of their first amendment rights, often LAPD responds with a show of force,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a legal support group, who was present at the protests. “When you show up in riot gear and paramilitary equipment, you inject into an already dynamic situation a volatile element that escalates things.”The LAPD said officers had fired more than 600 rubber bullets over the weekend. Thousands had protested on Sunday, rallying around city hall and a federal detention center, and at one point, taking over a freeway.Jim McDonnell, the chief of the LAPD, said when officers fire on protesters, they are using “target-specific munitions,” but added: “That’s not to say that it always hits the intended target.” He said he was “very concerned” about the footage of a journalist hit by a munition.Regarding the deployment of marines to the city, he said his department had not been formally notified, and said their arrival would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge”. Bass said the national guard troops were simply guarding two buildings: “They need Marines on top of it? I don’t understand.”Hegseth, meanwhile, said the marines were needed to “restore order” and “defend federal law enforcement officers”.Trump’s federalization of the guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots, when widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating the Black motorist Rodney King. It also was the first deployment without the express request of the governor since 1965.Los Angeles county is home to 3.5 million immigrants, making up a third of the population. The demonstrations come as the White House has aggressively ramped up immigration enforcement with mass detentions in overcrowded facilities, a new travel ban, a major crackdown on international students and rushed deportations without due process.Perez, of the legal support group, noted how immigrants were deeply woven into the fabric of life in LA, making uprisings against raids inevitable: “When a city like this is the target of an immigration raid by an administration like this, you’re going to deal with a popular and massive outpouring of resistance.”Helen Livingston contributed reporting More

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      ‘Kidnapped’: families and lawyers desperate to contact LA workers arrested in Ice raids

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      Gabriel says he has not been able to speak to his brother Jacob, since Jacob was arrested in a raid by armed immigration officials and federal agents at the Ambiance Apparel warehouse in the Los Angeles fashion district on Friday.Yurien Contreras doesn’t know how her father, Mario Romero, is doing either.“I witnessed how they put my father in handcuffs, chained him from the waist and from his ankles,” Contreras said at a press conference in LA on Monday morning. “My family and I haven’t had communication with my dad. We don’t know anything.”Jacob and Romero were among dozens of people arrested in immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles this weekend, raids that sparked a roaring backlash and eventually led to the deployment of the national guard in the city. They were “kidnapped” by agents, Contreras said. “I demand due process for my father and the dozens of other workers.”The raids in the fashion district were followed by enforcement actions in the nearby city of Paramount, where federal agents cuffed and detained laborers at a Home Depot. Agents were also spotted outside a donut shop in nearby Compton, and around schools.Some of the families of those detained gathered outside Ambiance on Monday, demanding the release of their loved ones. Some, like Jacob, were the sole breadwinners in their families. Others, like José Ortiz, had worked in LA’s garment district for years – Ortiz had been with Ambiance for 18 years. “He was always here. He was a loyal worker,” his daughter Saraí Ortiz said. “He is someone who gave his life to this community and to his work.”Carlos Gonzalez said his older brother José Paulino was taken away not only from his siblings and mother, but also from “one of the friendliest and most loving dogs I have ever met”.At least 14 of those detained were members of the Episcopalian Diocese of Los Angeles. “Fourteen members of one of our Episcopal churches couldn’t be in church this morning on the Day of Pentecost. Their government ripped them from the arms of their families at home and the body of Christ at church,” said Los Angeles bishop John Harvey Taylor.Loved ones and lawyers are still scrambling to find where all of them were taken.“As police shot flash bangs overhead, I begged officers to let me meet with those who were detained,” said Elaina Jung Hee Vermeulen, a legal fellow at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. “Instead of upholding the constitutional rights of those detained, they prepared to repress those rising up against these atrocities.”The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that 118 immigrants were arrested this week, and released the names of some of those in its custody, alleging criminal violations. But the administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, also admitted that the agency was arresting people without criminal records.The raids at workplaces – pushed by Homan and by White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller – come amid a broader push to speed up arrests and deportations. Homan said the LA area is likely to see more enforcement this week, even as thousands of national guard deployed to the city prepared to quell protests against the raids.Lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), found that immigrants apprehended in LA were initially detained in the basement of a federal immigration building. “As attorneys, we are disgusted by DHS’s blatant betrayal of basic human dignity as we witness hundreds of people held in deplorable conditions without food, water, or beds for 12-plus hours,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president of ImmDef. “This is an urgent moment for our country to wake up to the terror Ice is inflicting on communities and take action.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a rally in downtown Los Angeles demanding the “humane treatment and access to lawyers for all detainees”.At least one of the people arrested over the weekend was almost immediately put on a bus and deported to Mexico, said Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, a deportation defense attorney supporting the impacted families. “And when they were removed, they weren’t given any paperwork, which is highly unusual and irregular,” he said.Others were taken to the immigration detention centers Adelanto, California – more than a two-hour drive from downtown LA – or El Paso, Texas. “All of this smacks of lawlessness – there have been violations of many, many rights.”The workplace raids were especially brazen, lawyers said, after a federal judge in April issued a preliminary injunction forbidding warrantless immigration stops. The injunction applied to a wide swath of California, and came after CBP conducted similar raids in California’s agricultural Kern county in January.“You can’t just racially and ethnically profile people and arrest them and ask questions later,” said Reyes Savalza, noting that many of those arrested had no criminal history and could apply for various forms of immigration relief if they were allowed to contact attorneys.“If the federal government can come and kidnap people without disclosing any information as to the reason for those arrests, every person in this country should be appalled and terrified,” he added. More

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      LA cleans up and protests some more after weekend of defiance against Trump

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      Outside the federal courthouse complex in downtown Los Angeles on Monday morning, two cleaners carrying bins on wheels looked uncertainly at the daunting task in front of them – long walls in several directions covered in spray-painted graffiti after a weekend of vigorous street protest.They donned black plastic gloves and reached for spray bottles and rolls of paper towels, but these seemed hardly adequate even for the black marble plinth bearing the name “Edward R Roybal Center and Federal Building” where they began. Indeed, the rest of the official writing on the plinth was illegible, defaced by three separate graffiti reading “Fuck Ice” and another saying “Dead Cops”.The City of Angels was in recovery and clean-up mode after a fraught, boisterous day of protest on Sunday against Donald Trump’s immigration roundups and his decision to activate the California national guard against the will of the state’s leaders.A mostly peaceful series of demonstrations were marred, as night fell, by more serious acts of vandalism and violence. Some people, who the LAPD chief later said were not affiliated with the protesters, tossed rocks and paving stones off freeway overpasses on to police cruisers and officers below and a line of Waymo driverless vehicles that had already been spray-painted were set on fire.On Monday morning, street cleaning vehicles were out in force on Alameda Street, on the east side of the federal courthouse complex, where the national guard was stationed on Sunday and where thousands of protesters converged, starting in the early afternoon. The sidewalk and the long block of Alameda flanked by the federal buildings were cordoned off to the public.The 101 freeway, which had been occupied by protesters the night before, was open to traffic again, but most of the downtown exits were sealed off by California highway patrol vehicles. A cleaning crew with a pressure washer was hard at work on the outside of the federal building on Los Angeles Street, which houses a passport office, a social security office and other key federal bureaucratic services.View image in fullscreenThe national guard, which played almost no role in policing the protests on Sunday, was once again nowhere to be seen. Federal authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were likewise noticeably absent.With much of the Los Angeles police department recovering from a long day and night, the streets were largely given over to representatives from neighboring police forces drafted in to help – from Pasadena, South Pasadena, Burbank, Vernon and other cities. South Pasadena had the job of guarding concrete blocks set up overnight on either side of LA city hall on Spring Street. Its officers also stood guard on the building’s western steps.Much of the city establishment – council members, local elected officials and union leaders – flocked, meanwhile, to a protest of their own in Grand Park, on a hill overlooking city hall, to demand the release of David Huerta, a leader of the Service Employees International Union who was arrested on Friday while monitoring an immigration raid and was expected in court for his first appearance on Monday afternoon.“David Herta is my brother,” the president of his union, April Verrett, told the crowd to rapturous applause and chanting. “What he would say is, use this moment!”The thousands in attendance blew horns and yelled in approval.Union volunteers acted as marshals for the event and kept a close eye on the perimeter to watch for troublemakers – there appeared to be none. A sole Los Angeles police helicopter hovered overhead, but otherwise law enforcement was entirely absent. More

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      Talkshow host Dr Phil joined Ice agents for Los Angeles immigration raids

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      The television personality Dr Phil was embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers as they carried out controversial raids in Los Angeles that led to days of protests in California, his TV network said.Phil, whose full name is Phil McGraw, was with Ice before and after its agents conducted a series of raids on multiple locations across LA on Friday. Immigration advocates said at least 45 people were arrested, and the action was condemned by California’s governor and LA’s mayor.It was the second time McGraw, a former practising psychologist who hosted a TV talkshow for two decades, has been embedded with Ice this year. In January, he joined the US border czar, Tom Homan, in a choreographed immigration raid in Chicago, in a stunt that was criticized at the time.CNN was the first to report on McGraw’s presence at the Los Angeles raids. McGraw was there “to get a first-hand look at the targeted operations”, his conservative TV channel, MeritTV, told CNN. McGraw had “exclusive” access to Homan before and after the raids, CNN reported.During the Chicago raids, McGraw was on the ground with Ice officers and even spoke to some of the people the agency had detained. His experience in LA was less immersive, MeritTV said.“In order to not escalate any situation, Dr Phil McGraw did not join and was not embedded” during Friday’s raids, a MeritTV spokesperson told CNN.On Sunday, he appeared with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, at a synagogue, as Adams signed an executive order which ordered city agencies to adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism.McGraw, who is not Jewish but has said it was his “duty” to support Israel, has increasingly immersed himself in political issues in recent months, particularly regarding immigration.In April, he McGraw backed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and in May he described Trump as “a man of deep faith, a man of deep conviction”. More

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      Los Angeles protests: a visual guide to what happened on the streets

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      After a series of immigration raids across the city of Los Angeles on Friday inspired mostly peaceful protests involving a few hundred people, the situation escalated on Saturday when the US president, Donald Trump, took the unprecedented step of mobilizing the national guard – the country’s military reserve units – claiming the demonstrations amounted to “rebellion” against the authority of the US government. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, called the decision “purposefully inflammatory”. Here’s a look at what actually happened on the streets.Most of the events took place in downtown Los Angeles, in a fairly localized area. The vast majority of the gigantic metropolis was not affected.Friday 6 June, morning. Federal immigration officers raid multiple locations across Los Angeles, including a Home Depot in Westlake; centers where day laborers gather looking for work; and the Ambiance clothing store in the fashion district. The Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights (Chirla) says there are raids at seven sites.Friday 6 June, afternoon. David Huerta, the president of California’s biggest union, is arrested while apparently doing little more than standing and observing one of the immigration raids. Footage shows the 58-year-old head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) being knocked down by a masked agent. He was taken to a hospital, then transferred to the Metropolitan detention center in downtown LA. “What happened to me is not about me; this is about something much bigger,” he says in a statement from the hospital. “This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening.” In a statement the US attorney Bill Essayli claims Huerta “deliberately obstructed their access by blocking their vehicle” and says he was arrested on suspicion of interfering with federal officers.Friday 6 June, afternoon. Demonstrators gather outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where Huerta and others are being held. There is a tense but largely non-violent standoff with police.7pm: The LAPD declares unlawful assembly in the area and deploys teargas to break up the crowd.8.20pm: The police force declares a city-wide tactical alert.Saturday 7 June, morning. As border patrol agents are seen gathering opposite another Home Depot location, this time in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood of Paramount, news spreads on social media of another raid. A couple of hundred protesters gather outside the Paramount Business Center. Sheriff’s deputies block off a perimeter near the 710 Freeway and Hunsaker Ave.12pm. Border patrol vehicles leave the center, with officers firing teargas and flash grenades at protesters. Some follow the convoy of federal vehicles up Alondra Blvd, throwing rocks and other objects; a few others set up a roadblock near the Home Depot.Saturday 7 June, 4pm. The area near the Home Depot confrontation is declared an unlawful assembly and protesters are warned to leave. Approximately 100 people gather further west in the neighborhood of Compton, at the intersection of Atlantic Ave and Alondra Blvd, where three fires are set, including a vehicle in the middle of intersection. Rocks are thrown at LA county sheriff’s deputies, and officers retreat to the bottom of bridge to the east.7pm. The Trump administration announces it will deploy the national guard, claiming the limited protests were a “rebellion” against the US government. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, immediately denounces the move, the first time a US president has mobilized US military forces in a domestic political situation without the request of the state’s governor since 1965.The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, also announces that 500 marines at Camp Pendleton in California have been placed on high alert.Saturday 7 June, evening. Federal agents emerge in a phalanx from inside the Metropolitan detention center to confront approximately 100 protesters, firing teargas and “less lethal” weapons at them.9.30pm. Officers and vehicles force the crowd on Alondra Blvd back west, and by midnight most protesters have dispersed.Sunday 8 June, morning. After curfews are declared across LA county overnight from 6pm-6am, by Sunday morning about 300 national guard troops are deployed to the city. Two dozen appear to news crews outside the federal complex, as though intent only on posing for photographs.10.30am. Protesters begin congregating near the Metropolitan detention center, where national guard troops have arrived to support immigration officials – though they do not appear to be engaging in active policing.1pm. Thousands of protesters gather in downtown LA.Sunday 8 June, afternoon. The LAPD again declares the protest an unlawful assembly, ordering everyone to leave, but still the protests continue. Police patrol on horseback and report several arrests. Journalists and protesters are reportedly struck by projectiles, while LA police say two officers are injured after being struck by motorcyclists attempting to “breach a skirmish line”. Ice officers and other federal agents use teargas and pepper balls in an attempt to disperse the crowds. Throughout the afternoon, there are isolated episodes of vandalism – graffiti sprayed on buildings and vehicles, and a protester who damages the side mirror of a parked car. A line of spray-painted Waymo driverless cars, one with a smashed windshield, are later set on fire.Downtown Los AngelesSunday 8 June, afternoon. Hundreds of protesters block the 101 Freeway. They take over two lanes.Evening. Tensions have risen, with demonstrators throwing garbage and rocks at police. Newsom and the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, double down on their plea to protesters to stay peaceful. “Protest is appropriate to do, but it is just not appropriate for there to be violence,” Bass says, while the LAPD chief, Jim McDonnell, calls the violence “disgusting” and says officers have been pelted with rocks, and shot at with commercial grade fireworks. Crucially, he notes that those engaging in violence were not among the people demonstrating against the immigration raids, but are “people who do this all the time”. More

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      Trump has unleashed something terrifying in the US – that even he may be powerless to control | Gaby Hinsliff

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      She was live on air to viewers back home, her TV microphone clearly in hand, when the rubber bullet hit her. The Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was the second journalist after the British photographer Nick Stern to be shot with non-lethal rounds while covering protests in Los Angeles sparked by immigration raids. But she was the first to be caught on camera and beamed around the world. There’s no excuse for not knowing what the US is becoming, now that anyone can watch that clip online. Not when you can hear her scream and see the cameraman quickly swing away to film a panicking crowd.It was the scenario everyone feared when Donald Trump took office. Deportation hit squads descending on the kind of Democrat-voting communities who would feel morally bound to resist them, triggering the kind of violent confrontation that creates an excuse to send in national guard troops – and ultimately a showdown between federal and state power that could take US democracy to the brink. Now something like this may be unfolding in California, where the state governor, Gavin Newsom, has accused the president of trying to “manufacture a crisis” for his own ends and warned that any protester responding with violence is only playing into his hands. Suddenly, the idea that this presidency could ultimately end in civil conflict no longer seems quite so wildly overblown as it once did.Or to put it another way, Trump has got what he wanted, which is for everyone to switch channels: to stop gawping at his embarrassing fallout with Elon Musk over unfunded tax cuts, and flick over to the rival spectacle he has hastily created. After a brief interruption to scheduled programming, the great showman is back in control. But in the meantime, the world has learned something useful about who wins in a standoff between two giant egos, one of whom has all the money and the other of whom has all the executive power. In US oligarchies just as in Russian ones, it turns out, it’s presidents who still get to set the agenda.You can’t ride the tiger. That’s the lesson here: once populism has grasped the levers of power, even the richest man in the world cannot be sure of exploiting it for his own ends, or imposing his own agenda on the chaos. Not when a vengeful White House still has the power to destroy even the most powerful business empire, anyway. At the weekend, Musk meekly deleted explosive tweets about the president’s alleged relationship with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and by Monday he was loyally sharing Trumpian messages about the LA protests. His father, meanwhile, tactfully blamed the outburst on Musk Junior being “tired” after five months working round the clock for the White House.That ought to ring some bells on this side of the Atlantic. For oddly enough, it’s the same excuse offered up by Zia Yusuf, the millionaire businessman brought in to professionalise Reform UK’s perennially chaotic operation, who last week quit as chair in exasperation. Trying to get the party into power was no longer a “good use of his time”, he tweeted, after publicly clashing with its newest MP, Sarah Pochin, over her decision to ask a question in parliament about banning burqas (which isn’t officially Reform policy, or at least not yet). Yusuf, a British Muslim, has long been seen as Farage’s trusted bulwark against those inside Reform desperate to pick up where the jailed thug Stephen Yaxley-Lennon left off, and to become a full-blown, far-right anti-Islam movement.But this time, it seems, Yusuf may have bitten off more than the boss was ready to chew. A whole two days after storming out, Yusuf ended up storming awkwardly back in, telling the BBC that actually, having thought about it, he probably would ban burqas and other face coverings. He had just been exhausted, he suggested, after barely having a day off in 11 months. (If nothing else, it seems Reform really means what it says about fighting back against modern HR practices.)To be fair to him, even Farage seems to find the process of trying to control his parties exhausting at times, judging by the regularity with which he has taken breaks from them over the years. While Yusuf won’t return as chair, he will now join Reform’s so-called British Doge, supposedly taking a Musk-style chainsaw to council spending – which sounds like a breeze compared with managing Reform MPs. Until, that is, you reflect on how exactly Doge has turned out across the Atlantic.The reason parts of Silicon Valley were quietly enthusiastic about their fellow tech tycoon’s slash and burn approach to US bureaucracy was that they saw profitable method in the madness: a plan to hack the state back to the bare minimum, opening up new markets for digital services and unleashing (or so they hoped) a new wave of economic growth by slashing national debt.Five months on, however, it’s clear that any Doge savings will be utterly dwarfed by Trump’s forecast to send national debt soaring to uncharted and potentially unsustainable highs. Any tech titan hoping for the US equivalent of Margaret Thatcher on steroids, in other words, has ended up with Liz Truss after one too many espressos instead – plus troops on the streets of California and the slowly dawning realisation that, as the billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz put it, they have “no sway” over what they unleashed.There will be plenty of people back in Britain who couldn’t care less about obscure comings and goings in the Reform party, even as its poll lead means it’s starting to make the political weather. Others simply don’t expect it to affect their lives much either way if Reform permanently supplants a Conservative party from which it already seems hard to distinguish, and a few may already be calculating that they can turn its rise to their own advantage.Yet what the last few frightening days in the US have demonstrated is that once populism has its feet firmly enough under the table, chaos wins. There’s no ability to belatedly impose order, no house-training it either. All you can do is deny it a room in the house in the first place. In Britain, at least, it’s not too late for that.

      Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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