In troubled times, many on the Left instinctively run for the protective skirts of Nanny Europe.
I’m just back from Brussels with the Business & Trade Committee and I have to say that while the welcome was cordial, it was not warm.
There was much fine talk about the mood music having changed since Labour took the helm here, but the Europeans are baffled as to what the Prime Minister seeks from his much-vaunted ‘reset’.
Good protectionists that they are, they have drawn up an invoice, though, for whatever Sir Keir Starmer’s ask is.
They want a youth movement scheme, and access to more of the fish in our pristine waters.
That’s big-ticket stuff, skating dangerously close to the edge of free movement, and imperilling fragile coastal communities.
Clearly, Nanny EU is still not pleased with our naughty Brexit decision.
Perhaps China offers better refuge? Well, the Chancellor’s visit to Beijing – there were gasps on the Government benches when I called it ‘Operation Kowtow’ – secured just £600m of investment over five years.
Economic game-changer? It rather feels like a disappointing visit to one of the Chinese dropshipping websites that clutter our social media.
So what of the United States? This surely is the obvious choice, not least since the US economy is far outpacing that of the EU. Santander say that around the turn of the century, the EU economy was some 10pc bigger than that of the US, while by 2022 it trailed by 23pc.
Rather than cosying up to the US solely in a bid to dodge threatened trade sanctions, it’s a no-brainer – as they say in the West Wing – economically.
In 2023, the UK exported £60bn of goods to the US, around 15pc of all UK goods exports. On services, we exported a hefty £119bn in 2023, just over a quarter of all UK services exports. That’s a good start, and one on which we can build as America surges.
That said, Labour have an issue with the White House incumbent.
Dispatching activists in a bid to stop President Trump’s return to the Oval Office was bad; both the Foreign Secretary and Downing Street’s choice as US ambassador being downright rude about him is worse. Much worse, since Mr Trump sets great store by personal relationships.
And just as Trump is removing the shackles from the US economy, 10 and 11 Downing Street talk a good game on growth.
The reality is, however, more taxes on jobs and extra red tape as entrepreneurs take flight. The Employment Rights Bill, incompatible with the stated aim of cutting business costs, looks lethal to the bottom line of many a firm.
With its rolling back of Conservative checks and balances, well… unions gonna party like it’s 1979.
And another cloud on the horizon of UK / US relations is the woeful capitulation on Chagos islands sovereignty, and the joint military base on Diego Garcia.
It’s humiliating already, but worse may follow.
Afraid of a possible setback at the International Court of Justice – and many say it has no jurisdiction since we have a carve-out for Commonwealth matters – Labour want to pay untold billions to Mauritius to lease back what’s currently ours anyway.
If – as seems probable – the US quashes the deal as Mauritius is making doe eyes at China, whither our maladroit Foreign Secretary then?
President Trump and his team are nothing if not arch pragmatists.
Labour need to grasp the opportunities an Anglophile President offers. We cannot ride three horses, wooing the EU, China and the US.
So let us stride out – alone, yes, but confident and unafraid – and grasp a very real chance to secure a post-Brexit free trade agreement with the US.
Let’s not lose it all over shroud-waving about chlorinated chicken. I had chlorinated salad the other day.
Let’s be genial with the EU – especially on defence – but on our terms.
In 1942, Winston Churchill boarded a flying boat in Loch Ryan at the western end of my constituency, destination America.
His message then was: ‘Let us go forward together.’
It should be the same message flashed from London to Washington DC today.
