Sunday provides a moment for reflection. I admit to having a more troubled state of mind this week than last. I thought Trump would win the election then, but could hope I was wrong. It turned out I was not. President Trump is on his way. Some, I am sure, view the prospect with equanimity. Many more, I suspect, will not.
Let me ignore the impact of this decision on the USA for the moment: they at least can blame themselves for it. Let me instead consider the consequences for the UK, because these are serious.
Some assumptions have to be made explicit. The first of these is that by itself the UK is a fairly insignificant power. Declining economically and militarily ill-equipped, as well as poorly judged, we cannot any longer pretend we are a world power. We might have been. We are not now.
Second, the US is moving to economic and military isolationism, which has in modern history been a move with few recorded successful consequences.
Third, this will leave a power vacuum on which we alone will have no influence. It is, however, a situation where Europe might provide the necessary counter-balance to both China economically and Russia militarily.
Fourth, without that counter-balance the world is a more dangerous place in almost every way we can think of. I wish it were otherwise, but I am not naive.
So, fifth, if peace is to be maintained (and I think that the highest duty) when the US is threatening to undermine NATO Europe has a new and essential role.
Those are the assumptions. What then are the conclusions? There is only one, and it is that, like it or not, the UK's only partner of consequence in the real world is Europe. Face reality: the US has now turned its back on us. May came ninth on Trump's call list. The special relationship is dead. We are now stuck with geography alone, and that means we only have Europe.
And we have turned our back on Europe. So we are now alone, which is a pretty uncomfortable place to be.
This then demands a serious reconsideration of policy in the light of changed circumstances. When the facts change (and Trump has undoubtedly changed the facts) then opinion has to change too. In this case that means that because there is no prospect of us changing Trump's mind we have to re-examine the decision we have made to leave Europe. Nothing else makes sense.
A wise prime minister would now present these facts to the country. Instead we have a foreign minister who has today declined to join EU foreign ministers in considering the issue of how to manage the challenges that Trump's election poses. And as acts of folly go, that's pretty big. Ignore the economics: this is about security. And we have a government that will even put that on the line for the sake of dogma now.
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A timely and very shrewd piece, Richard. I note that various of us via your blog have been wondering to what degree everything Trump said during the election was ‘just talk’. And others – from senior republicans to media commentators – hastily spreading the message that Trump will not be as bad as his behavior suggests. And then I read Andrew Rawnsley’s piece (‘Terrifying Trump will turn into tamed Trump? It’s an illusion’). I don’t agree with a lot of what he writes these days, but on Trump turning out to be as bad as many expect I suspect he’s correct. And to bare that out – albeit in what might seem a minor way – I note that he’s back on Twitter lying about the content of a letter the New York Times sent to subscribers and also denying (lying) that he ever said more countries should get nuclear weapons when the record clearly shows that he did. And now I see he’s promising to deport up to 3 million people (even though ‘the wall’ will be a fence in places. So it seems “nice” Donald lasted all of three days. And this man is now commander in chief of the US military!!!!
I’m with you
And also Rawnsley
We need to be very worried
And Boris Johnson put his feet up for the day
Looking on the bright side and having worked in government, when a party makes all kinds of rash promises before election, once in place the senior civil servants have quite word in their ear about what is actually practical and you see most of it melt away.
Well that is in the UK obviously.
When commentators mention that he has never held public office, that is somehow seen as a bad thing. Perhaps not being part of ‘group-think’ as we have in Westminster would have some benefits. I’m not for a moment saying Trump is not bad, but the reason he was elected was because he was not part of the cosy political class. Again, that does not mean he is better than the alternatives but it will be different to what HRC would have given us (probably just more wars for a start!).
Sorry, I must add as an addendum, this government will put everything on the line for the sake of dogma (and I am sure your followers know that anyway).
I wonder about Trump. Whilst I would agree he gives even more reason for Europe including the UK to get its act together, it seems the French too have declined to attend the EU Trump meeting – and they are now obsessed with ‘security’ (yet don’t seem to be very good at it) and want to prolong the state of emergency yet again – that’ll be 18 months of arrests with no warrant required…
For what it’s worth Trump seems to speak a lot about his Scottish ancestry, so much so that (allegedly) the Aberdeen Press & Journal reported that an American businessman with considerable local interests had become President of the USA. I reckon he is going to be much more critical of Europe in general than Britain in particular and that explains his seeming friendship with Farage, who never speaks about his French ancestry, but otherwise displays similar preferences.
I also rather agree with Hitchens here:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/10/the-cold-war-is-over
that Russia is neither as aggressively threatening or as strong as we tend to think.
The security/GCHQ angle would also be mighty difficult for Trump to unwind and it would not be to the USA’s advantage so to do.
Yet an advantage would appear if Britain had to concentrate more closely on European safety it would tend to stop the UK government getting ideas above its station about a world presence.
But certainly none of this makes Britain safer with Trump than Obama or safer with Brexit than remain.
By the way didn’t the UK come 10th on Trump’s call list? That was because, as one American had it, there was number 10 on the door.
Hitchens must be Putin’s second biggest fan
I don’t think so! He says among other things:
“Here I risk being classified as an apologist for Vladimir Putin. I am not. I view him as a sinister tyrant. The rule of law is more or less absent under his rule. He operates a cunning and cynical policy toward the press. Criticism of the government is perfectly possible in small-circulation magazines and obscure radio stations, but quashed whenever it threatens the state and its controlled media. Several of the most serious allegations against Putin–alleged murders of journalists and politicians–have not been proven. Yet crimes like the death in prison (from horrible neglect) of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who charged Russian officials with corruption, can be traced directly to Putin’s government, and are appalling enough by themselves.”
Read Private Eye
I beg to differ on the UK turning its back on Europe.
We have to realise what the EU stands for, which in fiscal terms is the transfer of money from median earners to owners of capital, and in philosophical terms is to achieve uniformity of regulation in areas as diverse as health, food and even vice.
The UK will negotiate with us in such a way that it will be clear that is the EU political process and not European peoples that is deserving of being given the British two-fingered salutation. In the future, just as Ireland claims millions of non-Irish people as their children, we in a reformed EU will be able to claim UK citizens as part of the European extended family. Of these things I am certain.
The EU needs reform
We will change nothing by leaving
What did we change when inside it?
Workers’ rights
Thanks – insightful as always.
Like you I thought Trump would win. Call it Brexit-cognition – or maybe it comes from personal experience of the Scottish Referendum – but I recognised the change-hunger and understood that only the demagogic Trump was offering (at least the illusion of) that.
However as to the UK consequences of Trump’s win – well, I am hoping that I am more pessimistic than you.
My reasoning follows this dismal trajectory:
1) Farage was the first British politician Trump met with. They appear to have a bond and Trump reportedly rewards ‘loyalty’ (sycophancy).
2) Trump is on record as despising the EU.
3) By negotiating and signing a trade deal with the UK Trump has the opportunity to slap down the EU.
4) Of course May et al have to be ‘punished’ for not being nice to poor old candidate Trump – so President Trump will pointedly flag Farage’s input as progenitor of the deal.
5) With his abilities as a mover and shaker on the world stage given a gold star, Farage’s electoral ‘credibility’ (at least in England) will increase. There are certainly a large number of change-hungry folk who would be receptive to his right wing populism.
6) Trump gets his win-win – sticking one to the EU and insulting May whilst rewarding his pal Farage.
Of course there would be big consequences if that happened…
Success for right wing populism in England would likely be the death knell for ‘the Union’ – because neither UKIP nor a harder right Tory party will cut it in Scotland. The SNP (despite being poor political managers at the moment) were and are Scotland’s protest vote against the establishment. Scottish change-hunger manifested in anti-Westminsterism, Scots (me included) were ripe for that, having been ruled by a long succession of governments we didn’t elect and who didn’t resemble the values we tended to vote for. Given that those governments were right wing (or hawkish, pro-privatising Labour) then our protest was always going to go to whoever managed to carve a different offering. Scottish Labour couldn’t offer anything sufficiently powerful enough and were seen as part of the problem – they were the de facto establishment here. So the Nats got the votes. They’ll not be losing them soon as there is simply no credible alternative.
I’m not even sure that it’s dogma: the Brexit case, or ethos, or delusion does not have a core of coherent arguments and ideology.
We are left with May’s visceral dislike of the ECHR and a general desire to pursue the UKIP voters, plus a motley bunch of opportunists who would like to remove all regulatory protection for the workforce, the consumer, and the environment.
I cannot call the latter group ‘deregulators’ because they show no aversion to imposing bureaucratic measures that advance their own agendas.
Be that as it may, the Conservatives in general and the Brexiteers in particular have a near total absence of awareness of ‘foreign’ and no concept of a foreign policy.
There is not and cannot be a corresponding concept of ‘national security’ in terms of diplomatic relationships, alliances, and a foreign policy agenda: ‘security’, on the current front bench, is a matter of domestic surveillance and policing, supported by intelligence gathered in foreign countries.
…Which leads us to the most troubling omission in your argument: the national security view of overseas relationships is all about cooperation in surveillance programs and shared intelligence.
This involves collaborating with regimes of dubious legitimacy, and actions against our own population which erode our own legitimacy as a government: and the senior partner in all this – the USA – has elected an authoritarian with a cavalier disregard for human rights and any pretence or propriety.
The loss we face is worse than being alone in an increasingly dangerous world: it is that our most important international security relationship may lead us down into the abyss in which our own actions, committed in pursuit of our own ‘national security’, become a greater danger to our nation than the worst that a hostile foreign power can do.
Interesting and valid point
Hmmm……
I do not think that the US has turned its back on us. Sure – it may do so in the short term as it adjusts internally to its new government.
But what I worry about is that the US turns in on itself – becomes more insular but still continues to interfere and disrupt other sovereign nations around it in the pursuit of resources and power (particularly resources).
This USA – even more blind to the injustices and problems this creates is a far more dangerous interation of the USA we have been living with since the end of WWII.
It will not turn its back on us for long. It will back with the aim of exploiting everything we have believe you me. And with a British Government that has boxed itself in away from Europe it will not be long bfore American health companies will be telling us about how we run the NHS.
I agree. In any case, Trump won’t be there forever.
I’m sure the the Americans – whoever is in charge – will talk to us when it suits them.
I just wish we had the kind of leaders with the backbone to stand up to them when required, and not encourage them in their overseas “adventures”.
I think we can be independent, without being isolationist. Perhaps a bit like Norway. In fact I think we could do a lot worse than team up with Norway, at least informally. We are traditional allies, after all….apart from that little local Viking difficulty.