America is in retreat from its underappreciated good works around the world. Europe needs to act – and Brexit only hinders this essential response. In July 1817, Lord Amherst, the leader of a British delegation to China, stopped on his return journey at Saint Helena and met the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had seldom been out of the news, but Amherst himself was also in the news for having pointedly refused to kowtow when having an audience with the Chinese emperor.
![[William Keegan]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/09/William-Keegan,-L.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
As Sir Brian Unwin notes in his book on Napoleon’s exile, Amherst was berated by Napoleon for having refused to kowtow – not to himself, the former emperor of France, but to the Chinese emperor. One should observe the customs of the country, was Napoleon’s view. But bully for Amherst, who is an example to the Starmer government in general and to Lord Mandelson, our new ambassador to Washington, in particular. Mandelson’s attempts to kowtow to Trump – after expressing his real views on this dreadful president some years ago – were cringingly awful.
As has become obvious to all observers of his administration, Trump is the vengeful elephant in the room who never forgets. There is a difference between realpolitik and diplomacy on the one hand, and greasing up to villains like Trump and Musk, who have nothing but contempt for sycophants. An example of our government’s sad approach to Trump was provided last week when it insulted President Macron and others by siding with Trump’s team and not our fellow Europeans over signing the agreement for sensible regulation of what has become known as AI – that is, the UK did not sign!.
The horrors in store for the world from Trump, Musk and vice-president Vance can easily be underestimated but barely overestimated. They are set on overturning the post-1945 international consensus on human values and economic policy coordination. This was founded on learning the lessons of the nationalism that led to the 1914-18 world war and the 1920s-30s events that led to the 1939-45 world war. Alas, with that cocky smirk that accompanied his disgusting fascist salute, Musk is glorying in tearing up that international consensus.
Trump’s dismantling of the US foreign aid programme (the US Agency for International Development) founded by President Kennedy is a gratuitously inhuman action that experts in the field tell us will endanger the health and lives of millions around the world. The errors of US foreign policy over the years have been well documented. The good deeds have been rather taken for granted – until now. It is obvious to us Europeans that we should fill the gap, in everything from foreign aid to the financing of Nato, that Trump’s arrival is creating.
It should also be obvious that the UK must play a major role in building Europe’s response to the abrogation by Trump of America’s hitherto enlightened approach. On the economic front, it is clear even to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson that the bureaucratic time-wasting in doing business with, or moving to and from, the continent, makes Brexit an unmitigated disaster. Clarkson’s recent bad experience on a work trip across the Channel was well publicised; but all he was describing was the reality that so many businesspeople have been struggling with, and which I have tried to reflect in this column.
Our government goes on ad nauseam about “growth” but Keir Starmer, once a prominent remainer, while promulgating the need to “reset” our relations with the European Union, continues to frolic in the margins and go on about those fatuous “red lines” – no customs union or single market, just attempts at cherrypicking which are non-starters in Brussels. On the good news side, I was much struck by a recent speech by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for European relations, at the EU-UK forum. It was very positive – but only up to a point. He reminded us that the EU is our “biggest trading partner, with trade totalling – in 2023 – over £800bn”. However, between 2021 and 2023 the goods EU businesses exported to the UK were down by 32% while UK goods exports to the EU were down by 27%.
Thomas-Symonds is a biographer of Harold Wilson, so is well aware of Wilson’s historic accomplishment in 1974-75 of dexterously guiding the Labour party towards support for remaining in what was then the European Economic Community. As long as his hands are tied, our minister for European relations can only achieve so much “resetting”. I hope the moment will come when he says to the prime minister: “We are committed to reducing trade barriers with the EU. I have tried but there is an obvious way of achieving this and reviving economic growth.”.
