Martin Kettle is right: Britain has clung too long to illusion and lazy imitation of the US (The shocking US election result will create a new world order – and launch a fresh wave of Trump wannabes, 6 November). Every dark cloud has a silver lining, and the upside of Donald Trump’s election is possibly that British politicians will at last learn not to use the pathetic phraseology of the “special relationship”. Trump already knows what our prime minister and foreign secretary really think of him, and we already know that Trump would prefer to deal with the likes of Nigel Farage.
The dumping of this special relationship nonsense is well overdue, and should have happened as long ago as 1956, when President Dwight Eisenhower directed the British government to stop its military adventures around Suez, and to go home at once and behave. Ironically, since then, the special relationship has more often been used by the US to drag Britain into unwise military actions, rather than to put a stop to them.
In today’s dangerous times, Britain can no longer fulfil the Churchillian pledge to “stand alone”. In a world dominated by the autocratic and narcissistic leaders of Russia, China and a protectionist, inward-looking and xenophobic US, the rational choice for British politicians is to align as closely as possible with our nearest democratic neighbours. The obvious path to take is towards rejoining the European Union.
Dr Charles Smith
Bridgend
I always appreciate Martin Kettle’s thoughtful pieces, but I do feel the analysis of Donald Trump’s re-election has missed a point. And I say this having lived in the US in the 1990s, when a Democrat with deep personal flaws also won re-election. It is possible when looking at Trump from the left to always overthink it. People have not considered the postwar consensus on rules-based liberal politics and rejected it. They have voted for a party and a person they believe will make them better off.
In the rural south or the wide open spaces of the west, and even in the inner cities, people have voted on the cost of living and their families’ prospects. We have just seen the Tories turfed out on the same basis here. And anyone who knows the US will also know that, outside of a few small enclaves, foreign policy plays little part in electoral choices, let alone the principles underlying it.
In the US, and to an extent here in Britain, the centre-left has left its old constituencies behind and they have turned to something else, not out of conviction but abandonment. That is the challenge for the left in the next years.
It is time to recognise that we need a different approach to looking after the interests of those who have been so badly affected by pandemics, energy shocks and instability.
Mark Hammond
Chichester
Martin Kettle highlights several concerns that those of us with a progressive internationalist worldview fear for the next four years. However, by questioning the extent of the cultural ties that exist between the peoples of the US and these British Isles, he risks exacerbating the potential political rift that we now face.
Rather than pulling back from a “dystrumpian” US, we should instead be redoubling our efforts to appeal to the hearts and minds of our closest friends with whom we still share a common purpose in making the world a better place. The democratic process often throws up challenges, but we need to embrace them and meet them, not retreat. That way, tyranny certainly lies.
Paul Weatherall
Ballaragh, Isle of Man
Many adjectives have appeared in your articles to describe Donald Trump’s victory, but Martin Kettle’s use of the word “unforgivable” is inadmissable. The election was conducted properly, and Trump won both the electoral college and the popular vote. That’s democracy, so there is nothing to forgive, though plenty to deplore. I agree with him that we must now establish a closer relationship with Europe, and despite Keir Starmer’s ludicrously bleak forecast of “not in my lifetime”, the Labour party should campaign for re-entry to the EU. Rachel Reeves is an economist, so she will know that the main obstacle to economic growth, Labour’s primary aim, is our absence from the EU. She should have the economic common sense to set about removing it.
Roderick MacFarquhar
Edinburgh
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