It’s the silver lining from this terrible age of Donald Trump: he is pushing Britain closer to the EU

## Summary
Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian It’s the silver lining from this terrible age of Donald Trump: he is pushing Britain closer to the EU Gaby Hinsliff 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? 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. 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. It’s 10 years this June since Britain voted to leave the EU, though it feels longer: 10 years since Brexit was Brexit and we were going to make a success of it, a line that now makes its architects visibly squirm. (When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage mention Brexit?) It’s remainers, sensing the tide turning finally in their favour, who want to make a big deal of an anniversary that leavers would seemingly rather forget.

## Article Content
Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian
View image in fullscreen
Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian
It’s the silver lining from this terrible age of Donald Trump: he is pushing Britain closer to the EU
Gaby Hinsliff
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.
It’s 10 years this June since Britain voted to leave the EU, though it feels longer: 10 years since Brexit was Brexit and we were going to make a success of it, a line that now makes its architects visibly squirm. (When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage mention Brexit?) It’s remainers, sensing the tide turning finally in their favour, who want to make a big deal of an anniversary that leavers would seemingly rather forget.
If there were a referendum tomorrow, 63% of Britons
would vote to rejoin the EU
, according to recent YouGov polling. Since rejoin would probably win an even bigger landslide in many of the urban seats up for election in May, a cynic might say Starmer had his reasons for suddenly warming to Brussels and cooling on Washington. But at Easter, let’s not be churlish about this minor miracle, not least as it’s not confined to Britain.
Like a tyrannical father who can’t understand why his adult children are no longer talking to him, Donald Trump seemingly blames everyone but himself for the US’s growing isolation in this war. But he is the one who pushed his country’s closest friends away, despite their best efforts to stay close. The playground insults openly flying across the Atlantic, with Trump taunting Emmanuel Macron
over his marriage
and mocking Starmer’s refusal to send Britain’s supposedly “old, broken down aircraft carriers” to the Gulf, are a symptom, not a cause, of a broken relationship. What kind of ally publicly rubbishes their defence partner’s kit, advertising weakness to their enemies? The kind, of course, who attempted to
annex Greenland in January
and now
threatens to walk away
from Nato altogether. Though Britain still hasn’t given up entirely on the relationship, with the king facing an increasingly awkward-looking state visit to Washington this month, you can’t keep building bridges for ever to someone who keeps setting fire to them. Even Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, once seen as the closest European leader to Trump, declined US requests this week to
use a Sicilian airbase
.
The Greenland crisis taught European leaders that not only is the US unlikely to save them in a crisis, but increasingly it may
be
the crisis, encouraging them to huddle closer to each other for protection and blurring the lines between EU and non-EU members with a shared interest in defence. Now the threat of a destabilising recession made in Washington is only likely to encourage further circling of the wagons.
Back in Britain, all this comes just as Downing Street is finally beginning to realise that it can never be tough enough on immigration to please Reform UK voters, and that all it’s achieved by trying is to boost the Greens. Though the idea of winning people back instead by tackling the cost of living looks almost impossible in the short term, in the long term Labour’s best hope is almost certainly unwinding a hard Brexit thought to have
knocked up to 8% off GDP and a whopping
18% off investment
. The one good thing about having voted to repeatedly bang your head against a brick wall, it turns out, is that it’s within your power to stop.
Starmer’s close ally Nick Thomas-Symonds has accordingly spen

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- It’s 10 years this June since Britain voted to leave the EU, though it feels longer: 10 years since Brexit was Brexit and we were going to make a success of it, a line that now makes its architects visibly squirm. (When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage mention Brexit?) It’s remainers, sensing the tide turning finally in their favour, who want to make a big deal of an anniversary that leavers would seemingly rather forget.

### Areas for Consideration
- What kind of ally publicly rubbishes their defence partner’s kit, advertising weakness to their enemies?
- Now the threat of a destabilising recession made in Washington is only likely to encourage further circling of the wagons.
- On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader.

### Implications
- Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian It’s the silver lining from this terrible age of Donald Trump: he is pushing Britain closer to the EU Gaby Hinsliff 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.
- Since rejoin would probably win an even bigger landslide in many of the urban seats up for election in May, a cynic might say Starmer had his reasons for suddenly warming to Brussels and cooling on Washington.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers britain, trump, starmer topics. Notable strengths include discussion of britain. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1271.