‘Britain can no longer afford to pretend America is a reliable ally’

Back in October I travelled to America to celebrate a big birthday for my best friend. We went to New York and Nashville — a blue state and a red state. We indulged in fine dining, family-style dining and street food. We visited art museums, saw a Samuel Beckett play on Broadway, went to the Johnny Cash Museum and the Grand Ole Opry. We had a great time.

But in the weeks leading up to that trip we had long, anxious conversations about what might happen to us at the border, how to manage our social media output, and took serious advice on what to do if we were detained. When nothing happened, we wondered whether we had been paranoid.

Last week, we agreed not to go back to the US again.

READ MORE: ‘Starmer and Reeves must break with Treasury orthodoxy to fund Britain’s security’

I love America. I grew up soaked in American culture. I wanted to be a kid from Fame. I could think of no one more glamorous than the Sweet Valley High twins. Later, I spent several years seriously — but ultimately fruitlessly — considering a move to New York. I campaigned for Obama on my honeymoon. I spent years immersing myself in US politics, regularly appearing on Democratically 2020, a podcast about the 2020 election.

I also grew up as part of the second generation never to have known a world in which NATO didn’t exist. There are those on the left who have long wished that weren’t the case. But to me that has always felt like the kind of wishful thinking only possible in the absolute comfort of knowing it would never actually happen.

The implications of NATO no longer existing in anything like the form it has taken for the last 70-odd years are profound. Everything we understand about our way of life in the UK is likely about to change — far more than I think anyone in politics, never mind the vast majority of people simply getting on with their lives, has really grappled with. Without a strategic defence alliance, we will need to spend vastly more on our own defence. We may find ways to fund that without further denigrating public services already run into the ground under the Tories. We may not. Either way, this is a discussion we must have — and urgently.

But it isn’t just defence. So much of our economy — and that of many other countries — is bound up with America. We have spent so long, rightly, worrying about how reliant we are on China that we never really stopped to worry about America. Why would we? We’re allies, right?

With all of this in mind, I understand why Labour — and Starmer — have until now taken such a ‘softly softly’ approach to Trump. We lose a lot if we sever these ties – economically, strategically, defensively and culturally. For months I have swallowed the shame of watching ministers — who I know are hating every second — kowtow to Trump rather than stand up to him.

For months, this was the only strategy that made sense. Those calling for the Prime Minister to confront Trump never seemed to have a serious answer for how they would deal with the inevitable retribution. The ‘hug him close’ strategy was worth trying. But those days now seem to be over.

If Trump imposes tariffs on the UK, it will hurt. It will hurt the very people the UK government are elected to protect. And it is the job of government to minimise that harm and to stand up for its people in the face of it. If we can’t stop Trump imposing tariffs on us at will, then the very least we must do — given that we are getting them anyway — is be honest about our opposition to what is happening.

I am a natural diplomat. I dislike confrontation and avoid it wherever possible. This doesn’t mean I shrink from it when necessary. I think the UK, and those who represent us, should behave that way too. There are moments when confrontation becomes unavoidable. I am afraid this is one of them. The point is not to act like a self-righteous teenager. The point is to act like the voice of a Britain that will not accept being cowed.

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The America I love still exists. But the darkness that has always troubled those of us on the left about American power is now overwhelming the good. There can be no nostalgia for the Obama years. Decades of UK leftists fantasising about a politics scripted by Aaron Sorkin are over.

Trump won’t last. One reason he may be lashing out even more erratically than usual is that he is becoming a lame duck in a system that probably — though not definitely — will not allow him to run for a third term.

But vanquishing Trumpism will take more than simply the end of Trump himself. His first term was treated as an aberration rather than a warning — in the US and across global politics. Those who opposed his authoritarianism wanted to believe that so badly they failed to plan properly for the alternative. No one in the USA or outside it can make that mistake – or be that complacent – again.

Imagine if the UK, the EU and others had begun root-and-branch reform of their reliance on America back in 2016. Imagine how much better protected we might now be from the damage being done.

We cannot afford to sit tight and hope to ride out a second Trump presidency. Nor can we indulge in the emotional satisfaction of an immediate disavowal of all things American. What we must do instead is commit to the long, hard work of ensuring we are never again so dependent on a single partner — whether that is China, the US or anywhere else over which we have no real control.

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The long American century is ending. We do not yet know what comes next. That makes it all the more vital that we do everything we can to ensure we are resilient enough to meet what is coming — and dynamic enough to seize whatever opportunities emerge. That must be the long-term consequence of whatever choices the government makes now.

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