My monologue on @TimesRadio at 1pm today. Tune in for more same time, same place tomorrow. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.  Keir Starmer, leader of a Brexit Britain for which he did not vote, now finds himself leading Europe’s efforts to bolster Ukraine after Donald Trump’s shameful treatment of President Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday.  For a Prime Minister with no previous experience of defence, foreign policy or geopolitics, he’s proved to be a quick learner.  Amid the turmoil in Trump World he has remained steadfast in supporting Ukraine. And with much more than words.  UK defence spending will rise. A Labour PM who raids the international aid budget to pay for rearmament clearly gets the gravity of the hour.  The national wealth fund will also be deployed in the defence of the realm. Over 5,000 air defence missiles will be manufactured in Belfast for Ukraine. Even the ill-gotten gains of Russian oligarchs will be mobilised in Kyiv’s cause.  All very satisfying and of substance. But symbolism matters too in times of national peril and it was heart-warming to see our PM hug Zelensky when he arrived on our shores straight from his verbal punishment beating in the White House.  There was something deeply upsetting about his treatment by people who should know better.  A draft-dodging President berating a war leader for standing up for his country.  A vice-president who knows nothing about Ukraine — could he even find it on a map? —  JD Muttley to Trump’s Dick Dastardly — getting the hump because Zelensky dared to explain how Dictator Putin has reneged on every deal he’s made. Contrast that with the civilised, compassionate, low-key manner in which our own head of state, King Charles, welcomed him yesterday afternoon.  So far, so good. Almost makes you proud to be British again. Now comes the hard part.  The leaders of Europe, Canada and Turkey came to London yesterday at Starmer’s behest. A peace plan of sorts is taking shape, sculpted largely by our PM and President Macron.  A ceasefire in the air and on the sea is proposed. If that holds for a month the ceasefire would spread to the ground. Britain and France would lead a peacekeeping force — a coalition of the willing — with boots on Ukrainian soil.  Zelensky would have to sign that mineral rights deal with America he was meant to sign on Friday.  But most crucially of all it depends on America guaranteeing US air cover, intelligence and satellite reconnaissance for the peacekeepers. And this President Trump has been reluctant to give.  In which case the European ceasefire-cum-peace-plan could crash on take off.  It is clearly fraught with danger, not least for our own military. We’d need to think long and hard before deploying our troops on a frontline with Russian forces.  Nor should we underestimate the challenge for Europe given its recent history, in which it’s been appallingly misgoverned by leaders like Angela Merkel and is in general economic decline with a disastrous demography and a hollowed out military.  But the stark reality is this: either Europe gets its act together or it withers and dies.  America is in the grip of an isolationist realpolitik again. Much more than just Ukraine is at stake. In Trump’s worldview, China gets to dominate much of the Pacific, Russia dominates Europe, especially the east, and the US reigns supreme across the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.  Not so much brave new world as a return to a brutal old world of power politics and might is right. It is not a world in which Britain or the continent of which we’re a part could stay free and prosper. So either Europe steps up to meet the challenge — or condemns itself to growing irrelevance in the 21st century.