What does Trump’s victory mean?

Donald Trump’s victory means that the essential facts are now these: the world is dominated by two nation state super-powers, the US and China. Britain does not share China’s political values, and it never will. With Trump back in the White House, Britain will not share the US’s political values either.

Britain has clung on to the “special relationship” for years, on the assumption that the US and Britain share common aims in defence, security and commerce. But that fiction has finally collapsed. Trump and Starmer are politically alien to one another. The US president elect is much more at home with his fellow authoritarians than he is with European social democrats.

Starmer will have no influence over Trump, who appears to see Britain as nothing more than a golfing playground. The PM has already sent his congratulations across the Atlantic, but they will count for very little, as they come from a man whose cabinet openly detests Trump. Many of Starmer’s most senior ministers have said so in public, including David Lammy, the foreign secretary. Trump will have no time for Starmer.

Which leaves Britain alone, floating in the Atlantic between the poles of geopolitical influence – incompatible with China, politically estranged from the US, and out of Europe. And so the Trump victory presents Britain with a hard question – who are we? What do we really believe? Who are our friends?

The sound of Nigel Farage on BBCRadio 4’s Today programme comes as a reminder that there are people in Britain who are desperate to drag Britain towards the Trumpian model, towards a political culture based on the hatred of immigrants, and an argument that links immigration with economic hardship. Parts of the Tory party think the same way.

As overwhelming as this Trump victory might seem, Britain must now shake itself awake. No – we are not America. We do not want or need the Trumpian model that Farage and his acolytes promote. We have just elected a centre-left government, with values that are sharply opposed to those of Trump. We will have to deal with Trump, but we are not part of his world. We do not share his worldview or his values.

So if not the Trumpian US, then who? Where are Britain’s allies?

The answer that stares us in the face is Europe. There is no avoiding it now. The dream of the Thatcher-Reagan era is dead. It’s over, and was the product of a one-off period of international relations that can never be repeated.

Starmer must now confront this reality. We cannot hop up and down in the hope that Trump will grant Britain a trade deal that will make up for the losses suffered by Brexit. If anything, his protectionist instincts will lead in the opposite direction – to tariffs on foreign goods imported into the US.

Britain cannot survive in a protectionist world. Niesr, the economic think tank, estimates that Trump’s planned trade policies will cause UK growth to halve. Which means we must develop and deepen our relations with states that do not see things in this way, and with which our economic and security interests are directly aligned.

The answer is Europe. The EU. There is nothing else out there for Britain now. It is the only realistic way ahead for Starmer.

The alternative is that our island of 65 million continues to float free in a world of 8 billion. Since 2016, that approach has made us weaker. If we continue in this way we will become weaker still. And no sensible government could allow that to happen, especially not now there’s a madman on the loose.