The only special relationship we ever really had was with the EU—what an appalling waste to have thrown it away

Sometimes it takes a small event to throw an entire political system into focus. For a moment, everything is illuminated so brightly that even the most stubbornly blindfolded people must acknowledge what they see and confront what it means. The moment was this week’s extraordinary outburst by the President of the United States and the subsequent resignation of the British ambassador.

The events of the last few days have become totemic. The leaking of confidential diplomatic cables from the UK’s envoy to Washington was damaging enough. But Donald Trump’s bilious streams of abuse in response, coupled with Boris Johnson’s submissive cowardice and finally Kim Darroch’s resignation, tell us something supremely important—not just about Brexit, but about Britain. In some ways it tells us all we need to know.

In 2016 the Brexiters declared that the referendum was about regaining sovereignty. They promised we would win back an independence and confidence we had apparently lost. They advertised a utopia of democratic openness and rediscovered global dominance. They lied.

Everything voters thought they were taking back they were in fact giving away. That putative EU “control” was not going to our parliament. It wasn’t even going to our prime minister. It was transferring directly to the United States. Its president now apparently has the power to dictate both our diplomatic appointments and Brexit policy. He has it because we gave it to him.

What have we learned about the current prime minister? Theresa May’s only real foreign policy lies in ruins. May never had time for international affairs while she was botching politics at home, but the one thing she consistently attempted was to woo Trump and establish the foundations of that all-important trade deal. She expended every drop of her political capital in offering, with unprecedented haste, a megalomaniacal bully the full honour of a state visit. One month after that visit the president now ridicules, patronises and dismisses her, tweeting that he “told her how [Brexit] should be done… but she went her own foolish way.” Wise voices warned May to treat Trump with caution, and she ignored them. For her pains the PM has won nothing but humiliation.

What, then, of our next prime minister? Johnson not only failed to back Darroch; he didn’t even have the courage to condemn Trump for an unprecedented attack on a serving British prime minister and Britain’s most senior diplomat. Johnson must endorse anything Trump says because Trump, his only foreign ally, responds to sycophancy alone. Having spurned our real friends, Britain’s next prime minister must now plead with loan sharks. Johnson believes that he, alone among world leaders, will be spared Trump’s set-piece rages and revenges. He is wrong.

Which brings us to the fabled “special relationship.” Trump is not only uniquely erratic. Like Johnson, he has few interests beyond his own power and prestige. Trump may, in his caprice, deign to negotiate a trade deal, assuming we ever leave the EU’s customs union (which we won’t), but he will do it on his own terms and name his own price. He has no respect for the position of British prime minister or its occupant, because he has no respect for Britain itself. The “special relationship” is transactional, expendable and fully subject to a vain man’s spontaneous whim. In Trump’s hands it is an abusive relationship.

The Darroch affair is not a story about one man, no matter how committed and competent his decades-long career. It is a morality tale about a country which resolved to take control of its destiny but instead gave away everything it had. An arrogant government obsessed with its own mythology has been repeatedly humbled for three years: by its largest trade partner, by the small neighbour to the west it condescended to for years, and now by its new overlord across the sea. We thought we were strong and powerful and were determined we could once again lead the world. In return the world laughed. Never before has Britain been so small or exposed.

But the truth is Brexit has been a morality tale all along. It started with David Cameron sacrificing the country to unite the Tories, then tearing both apart. It continued with May conceding everything to the Brexiters in order to save her skin, only to see them defenestrate her. It saw the government refuse any kind of compromise when it had the most power, then plead for it when it had none.

Then there was Ireland, whose concerns the Brexiters ignored until they realised its government had more power over them than they could ever have computed. And of course all the countries who will use their leverage against a weakened UK to demonstrate their own power and advance their own interests. Moldova temporarily blocked the UK’s entry into a services procurement agreement because its envoy had been denied a visa. Many more lessons await when—if—Britain goes out into the world to seek new trade deals. In our hubris, we decided to leave a club we thought we were too good for, and after three years find ourselves on our knees.

Brexit is the purest form of morality tale, but within it is a pure moral. It has shown us what friendship is, and who our true friends are. In 2016 we were persuaded to embrace the Brexiters’ vision and quit the EU. But despite all of our insults and arrogance and folly, that organisation has repeatedly demonstrated that it will look out for our interests and—as with the granting of the first Article 50 extension—save us from ourselves. Even now, EU Commission president-designate Ursula von der Leyen has suggested the UK could extend Brexit further, and that she would welcome us remaining.

Let us face the truth of this week. All the talk of sovereignty meant nothing: having torn up our relationship with a group of equals, we are now entirely beholden to a hostile and volatile American nationalist. A fake monster—Brussels—is giving way to one all too real. The only special relationship we ever really had was with the EU, and that is the one we have chosen to throw away.

The purpose of a morality tale is to demonstrate a lesson. Let us hope that we are not too proud or too late to learn it.