In July 1817, Lord Amherst, the leader of a British delegation to China, stopped on his return journey at Saint Helena and met the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte.<\/p>\n
Napoleon had seldom been out of the news, but Amherst himself was also in the news for having \u00adpointedly refused to kowtow when having an audience with the Chinese emperor.<\/p>\n
As Sir Brian Unwin notes in his book on Napoleon\u2019s exile, Amherst was berated by Napoleon for having refused to kowtow \u2013 not to himself, the former emperor of France, but to the Chinese emperor. One should observe the customs of the country, was Napoleon\u2019s view.<\/p>\n
But bully for Amherst, who is an example to the Starmer government in general and to Lord Mandelson, our new ambassador to Washington, in particular. Mandelson\u2019s attempts to kowtow to Trump \u2013 after expressing his real views on this dreadful president some years ago \u2013 were cringingly awful<\/a>.<\/p>\n As has become obvious to all observers of his administration, Trump is the vengeful elephant in the room who never forgets. There is a difference between realpolitik and diplomacy on the one hand, and greasing up to villains like Trump and Musk, who have nothing but contempt for sycophants.<\/p>\n An example of our government\u2019s sad approach to Trump was provided last week when it insulted President Macron and others by siding with Trump\u2019s team and not our fellow Europeans over signing the agreement for sensible regulation of what has become known as AI \u2013 that is, the UK did not sign!<\/a><\/p>\n The horrors in store for the world from Trump, Musk and vice-president Vance can easily be underestimated but barely overestimated. They are set on overturning the post-1945 international consensus on human values and economic policy coordination. This was founded on learning the lessons of the nationalism that led to the 1914-18 world war and the 1920s-30s events that led to the 1939-45 world war. Alas, with that cocky smirk that accompanied his disgusting fascist salute<\/a>, Musk is glorying in tearing up that international consensus.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s dismantling of the US foreign aid programme (the US Agency for International Development) founded by President Kennedy is a gratuitously inhuman action<\/a> that experts in the field tell us will endanger the health and lives of millions around the world.<\/p>\n The errors of US foreign policy over the years have been well \u00addocumented. The good deeds have been rather taken for granted \u2013 until now. It is obvious to us Europeans that we should fill the gap, in \u00adeverything from foreign aid to the financing of Nato, that Trump\u2019s arrival is creating.<\/p>\n As long as his hands are tied, our minister for European relations can only achieve so much \u2018resetting\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It should also be obvious that the UK must play a major role in building Europe\u2019s response to the abrogation by Trump of America\u2019s hitherto enlightened approach.<\/p>\n On the economic front, it is clear even to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson that the bureaucratic time-wasting in doing business with, or moving to and from, the continent, makes Brexit an unmitigated disaster. Clarkson\u2019s recent bad experience on a work trip across the Channel<\/a> was well publicised; but all he was describing was the reality that so many businesspeople have been struggling with, and which I have tried to reflect in this column.<\/p>\n Our government goes on ad nauseam about \u201cgrowth\u201d but Keir Starmer, once a prominent remainer, while promulgating the need to \u201creset\u201d our relations with the European Union<\/a>, continues to frolic in the margins and go on about those fatuous \u201cred lines\u201d \u2013 no customs union or single market, just attempts at cherrypicking which are non-starters in Brussels.<\/p>\n On the good news side, I was much struck by a recent speech by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for European relations, at the EU-UK forum. It was very positive \u2013 but only up to a point. He reminded us that the EU is our \u201cbiggest \u00adtrading partner, with trade totalling \u2013 in 2023 \u2013 over \u00a3800bn\u201d. However, between 2021 and 2023<\/a> the goods EU businesses exported to the UK were down by 32% while UK goods exports to the EU were down by\u00a027%.<\/p>\n Thomas-Symonds is a biographer of Harold Wilson, so is well aware of Wilson\u2019s historic accomplishment in 1974-75 of dexterously guiding the Labour party towards support for remaining in what was then the European Economic Community.<\/p>\n As long as his hands are tied, our minister for European relations can only achieve so much \u201cresetting\u201d. I hope the moment will come when he says to the prime minister: \u201cWe are committed to reducing trade barriers with the EU. I have tried but there is an obvious way of achieving this and reviving economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n