Like Brexit, Trump and Musk's Agenda is 'Ideologically Incoherent and Ultimately Self-Defeating'

The disaster of Brexit is now being replicated on a global scale by a US administration determined to shoot its country's own interests in the foot, argues former UK diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall

As I struggle to make sense of everything happening in America right now, I often find myself reaching for comparisons with Brexit. There are, of course, many differences, most significantly, perhaps, the fact that whereas Brexit largely harmed only the UK, the turmoil in America is already causing damage across the globe.

However, there are also striking similarities. Not least of these is the deeply disorientating nature of events – the sense that none of the usual norms apply, that the Overton window has been shifted significantly to the right, and that things that once seemed unimaginable have become normalised.

In the UK, it has become commonplace for some politicians to lie with a straight face, trash European partners, question adherence to core international conventions, such as those protecting refugees or human rights, and to smear civil servants. There’s also an increasing tendency to view multiculturalism not as a worthy goal to be embraced, given the UK’s diversity, but something to be reviled and opposed, implicitly rejecting many British citizens as not truly belonging.

Likewise, things that once seemed enduring aspects of American democracy – respect for the different branches of government, adherence to the rule of law, support for human rights and democratic values, belief in free trade, and commitment to alliances – have gone out of the window. Where once America pitched itself as the champion of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable against the oppressor, America under Trump risks becoming the world’s biggest bully, breaker of rules, and even territorial aggressor, given his outlandish claims on Greenland, Canada, Panama and Gaza.

Another disorientating aspect is the sense of helplessness to influence events. As a diplomat working on Brexit until 2019, it was impossible to have a normal interaction with Ministers about the subject: if you raised any concerns, you risked being regarded as ideologically unsound and sidelined. Any advice had to be couched in enthusiastically pro-Brexit language, to get any hearing, even when you were actually trying to warn, objectively, about the downsides of certain actions. Ministers were rarely in a mood to listen. Brexit meant Brexit, and no inconvenient facts or figures were allowed to stand in the way of the mission.