I started this blog eight years ago because of Brexit and what I perceived then was a massive foreign policy mistake, largely because of its impact on trade and travel. I haven’t changed my mind. If anything, events have shown and continue to show that Britain is now poorer than it otherwise would be by £10s of billions a year. There is zero doubt about that, even Brexiteers are reduced to quietly suggesting things aren’t as bad as some predicted back in the day. It’s hardly a ringing endorsement is it? Only hardcore Brexit optimists now think the whole debacle was worth the candle. But the Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s second term have revealed that concerns about a loss of trade and tax revenue are far less important than European defence and security issues.
Britain isn't planning to respond to Trump's ridiculous 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports mainly because we lack the economic muscle to have any impact and we don’t want to upset the idiot in The White House. Meanwhile, the EU has announced targeted tariffs on a range of US products which they planned to impose as of 1 April, although they have put back the date by two weeks to allow more time for talks to diffuse a possible trade war.
But we are well past matters of trade. America is virtually lost to Western civilisation for the foreseeable future. Even if Trump was removed or died in the next couple of weeks, the general direction wouldn't change in any noticeable way. JD Vance and his Christian nationalist and white supremacist friends running the administration would carry on doing exactly what they’re doing now.
Trumpers describe the left in America as ‘radical’ even as he dismantles the Education Department, fires thousands of federal workers, appoints a vaccine sceptic as Health Secretary and denies the result of the 2020 election! The fabulously wealthy men funding the Republicans are determined to change America into a global pariah. The rule of law is breaking down.
Let's not forget, on 20 January Trump swore before the world: "I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article II, section 3, of the Constitution, includes this: “[The president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….”
Starting the same day, he has not just broken dozens of the laws he pledged to faithfully execute but argues that he alone can decide what those laws are. It is an incredible state of affairs. Voices in the press are isolated or cowed and even the courts struggle to restrain him. When they block his actions, judges are threatened and subjected to unbelievable vitriol. I wouldn’t guarantee the Supreme Court will stand up to him, or even if they did, the US Marshals Service would implement the judge's orders.
Marshals report to his hand-picked Attorney General Pam Bondi, a fervent MAGA supporter. No way she would ever resist Trump - regardless of what he did or plans to do up to and including the killing of the first-born.
Trump has stopped funding Voice of America which has been responsible for countering Russian and Chinese propaganda for decades and is considering pulling out of the USA's leadership role in NATO’s European headquarters, according to NBC.
The defence secretary Pete Hegseth, in the face of a world involved in multiple conflicts and threats, has decided a priority is to remove the names of every female or person of colour from the list of notable Americans buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. Only the names of white men remain. They are not even hiding it anymore.
The latest outrage is the deportation of a French researcher who arrived in the US to attend a conference in Houston, Texas but was found to have texted some mild criticism of Trump on his phone. This followed a 28-year-old Welsh woman who was held for 19 days in a detention centre in Tacoma, Washington, (in chains!) apparently for doing some housework in exchange for free accommodation while on a back-packing tour of North America!
A Canadian woman was detained for two weeks by the same Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department in San Diego simply for entering the US to renew her work visa. These are the actions you expect from Iran, North Korea or Russia, not the USA. The UK and Germany have now issued travel warnings for anyone visiting America as if it's become a rogue state, which of course, it has.
I see this not altogether surprising message on Bluesky:
There is a belief in MAGA circles that everybody on the planet desperately wants to live in America. That might be true in some South American or African nations, but it certainly isn't so in Europe or Canada. You would need to be mad to want to live in what is fast becoming a hell-hole for decent people.
Defence
The EU is stepping up defence spending and so is Germany, with vast sums of money being committed over the next few years. Russia is going to be outspent militarily by Europe as it was in the 1980s by America under Ronald Reagan, while its economy is squeezed dry by sanctions. But, Britain will be unable to share in the bonanza or secure contracts for equipment and supplies because it’s outside the EU's formal structures. Boris Johnson didn’t want a Common Security and Defence agreement and now we’re paying the price for yet another strategic mistake the buffoon made.
Why should the EU spend millions, possibly billions of Euros on UK procurement?
Tony Blair was right, by the middle of this century there will be three powerful countries, the USA, China and India and if we want to negotiate with them from a position of strength, we must do it as part of the European bloc, together with other similar like-minded democracies like Japan, Canada and Australia.
The US can no longer be relied on as an ally. We in Britain need to accept that and plan accordingly.
I see within the last hour the government has released figures showing a big jump in borrowing in February (£10.7 billion) meaning that we are not raising enough through taxation because the economy isn't growing while demands on the public purse keep increasing. This is at least partly if not wholly, a predictable result of Brexit.
To think that BoJo told us we would "prosper like never before" if we left the confines of the EU and 'saved' the paltry sums we were paying for membership. Since then we haven't stopped tightening the belt, with more of the same scheduled for next week's budget.
The case for rejoining the EU is growing stronger with every passing week. If Starmer isn't careful he will find himself swept away by the tide of history.
