Just like the Republicans and their racist president, no Tories will save us from the kipper-waver in chief

Of course Donald Trump isn’t racist just because he told four women to “go back home” to their “crime-infested country”.

To start with, they are from a crime-infested country, because they’re all American so you can’t fault him there.

It’s true he incited a crowd to chant “send her back” about a Muslim member of the House of Representatives, by telling them she supports al-Qaeda. But he explained how this wasn’t racist, by telling us, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”

And this is how you measure racism, by getting an osteopath to check whether your bones are racist. As they press around your back they may say, “Hmm, you’ve got one or two ribs here that don’t like the Chinese.”

But Trump’s been checked out and he’s clear. Trump could arrive at a rally in a white hood and lead his supporters to burn a cross on Obama’s lawn and he’d say, exasperated, “How is that racist?” Then Mike Pence would tell reporters, “Of course he’s not racist, some of his favourite slaves are black. Do you know, every Christmas he goes to an African church and throws a crate of bananas at them, because that’s how generous he is.”

In any case there’s lots of evidence the women are “pro al-Qaeda”, because al-Qaeda insist women should be just like them, leading a nation’s political debate, declaring themselves feminist activists and being highly critical of men who assume they can dominate women. It’s as if they’ve copied the al-Qaeda Handbook for Militant Islamic Jihad and live their lives by it.

But it doesn’t matter if everything Trump says is made up. The most important thing is that “send them back” is a perfect slogan, three short words, a fine replacement for “lock her up”, which he used last time. Next year he can move on to “lynch from tree”, then “gas them all” because the most important thing in politics is being clear and simple.

To her credit, at least Theresa May criticised him, as his remarks offended her values, because she must think “don’t just put ‘send them back’ on Twitter, write it on a van and send it past their house”.

What may seem more of a puzzle is the response of the Republican establishment. Because almost all of them backed Trump, opposing the motion that his comments were racist.

They also condemned the motion for being “unparliamentary”, and this is the priority, because having the most important post in the world occupied by someone who behaves like a fascist is one thing, but it’s no excuse for being unparliamentary.

Next week he might set fire to one of them, but hopefully they’ll have learned their lesson and not shout anything unparliamentary such as “yaaaaaa I’m on fire”.

If the Republican Party had been in Germany in 1944 they’d have said, “I find some of Adolf’s policies a tad distasteful, but let’s call them ‘forthright’ rather than ‘racist’, as we don’t get anywhere by being rude.”

Many commentators suggested the women have “played into Trump’s hands” by responding at all, and it would be better for them to concentrate on the state of the economy. It’s the same when a gang attacks you with knives. Don’t play into their hands by trying to fight them away or running off in fear of your life. It’s always better to try to engage them in a debate about inflation rates.

Look what happened to the Nazis. They chanted at rallies, and instead of the opposition trying to oppose them, which would have played into Hitler’s hands, they were left in power for 12 years and eventually they went away having not done too much damage.

At one point the most popular strategy for curtailing Trump was hoping decent Republicans might constrain him. This was when various statesmen made speeches that began “I would never work for this contemptible vile slug”, but they’ve all amended that to “I am proud to be the 19th secretary of State for Defending Whatever Trump Puts on Twitter.”

This is why Britain can pride itself on being only a few years behind America. Because much of liberal opinion argued that the way to ensure Boris Johnson could be restrained was by aligning with Amber Rudd and Anna Soubry and the nice Conservatives, who made speeches that went “I would gladly be eaten alive slowly by a parasitic wasp rather than consider for a moment the damaging prospect of leaving the EU without a deal. If Boris Johnson even considers such a measure, we will bring down the government and have him burned in a basket like they do in The Wicker Man.”

Now he’s going to be prime minister, they all appear to have adjusted that to “I LOVED the stunt with the kipper, Boris, let’s go to war with Portugal, you can borrow my laptop if the other one accidentally broke in that incident that wasn’t your fault. Love you x”.

So we’ve got our own Trump, whose appeal is straight talking, because unlike normal politicians who don’t answer awkward questions, he doesn’t answer any questions but waves a kipper.

It doesn’t matter that the EU regulations he says are making it impossible to sell kippers are actually British regulations, because irrational nonsense is now acceptable if it’s done with unusual props. Next he’ll tell us the French are planning to send a brontosaurus to tread on our gardens, but he’ll do it while wearing a petticoat and riding a camel so his party will insist he’s like Churchill.

He’ll accidentally shut down the ambulance service and blame it on Spain while in a pedalo, and if he’s going to be stopped it will probably be by the part of the country that isn’t in his party, rather than the peculiar people that are.