Ten years after the Brexit vote, Trump’s disdain and insults are fuelling the belief that the UK should renew ties with Europe
Going anywhere nice this summer?
No, me neither, judging by the warning from the Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, that a global shortage of jet fuel caused by the Iran war may soon lead to cancelled flights. Suddenly a week in Cornwall looks a safer bet, though even that will be a stretch for some families as the cost of long car journeys heads through the roof. When the representatives of more than 40 countries held talks in London earlier this week to discuss unblocking the strait of Hormuz, they convened virtually, not in person. This is no time to be seen boarding a private jet.
As Donald Trump prepares to walk away from the hornets’ nest he so recklessly poked, the rest of the world is now bracing to inevitably get stung. Keir Starmer opened an unusually downbeat local election campaign this week by warning that the coming months won’t be easy, which would be an almost comical understatement except there’s nothing remotely funny about the prospect of American hubris in the Gulf triggering a global economic crisis. Yet the one shaft of sunlight in the gloom was Starmer’s argument – echoing that made recently by Rachel Reeves – that volatile times mean a closer partnership with Europe is firmly in Britain’s national interest. Real patriotism, in other words, isn’t about stringing union jacks from lamp-posts, but defending your country from the mounting threats it faces, in a world grown too dangerous to indulge the isolationists’ fantasies any longer.
