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\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA \u003cem\u003eFinancial Times \u003c/em\u003eheadline today reads: \u0026lsquo;Donald Trump flies in on state visit as political mayhem grips UK.\u0026rsquo; The sub-head quotes Christopher Meyer, former UK ambassador to Washington, calling the timing \u0026lsquo;catastrophic\u0026rsquo;.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYet, as chaotic as Britain\u0026rsquo;s Brexit politics have become, the intersection of Trump and Brexit has a Groundhog Day feeling to it. Just under a year ago, during Trump\u0026rsquo;s previous visit to Britain, we examined his interventions to promote a hard Brexit and the political ambitions of Boris Johnson, his motivations for doing so, and the historical delusion of \u0026lsquo;Global Britain\u0026rsquo; that has driven many Brexiteers and to which Trump also has appealed. Since our piece was published by the\u003cem\u003e National Interest\u003c/em\u003e, British politics has polarised further. Theresa May\u0026rsquo;s proposed deal under which the UK would withdraw from the European Union has collapsed in the face of domestic opposition, and Johnson could well be prime minister by late July. Our analysis from last year still applies; if anything, the underlying issues it addressed have become more apparent.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe July 2018 article follows.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003chr /\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePresident Donald Trump is toxically unpopular throughout Europe, but nowhere does he pose a greater political problem than in the United Kingdom, where he has\u0026nbsp;\u003ca href=\u0022https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/12/donald-trumps-visit-uk-president-arrive-theresa-may-pushes-post/\u0022\u003earrived today\u003c/a\u003e\u0026nbsp;for a long-delayed official visit. Prime Minister Theresa May is facing defections from her government and a potential leadership challenge from radical Brexiteers angry at her decision to seek a\u0026nbsp;\u003ca href=\u0022https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44796517\u0022\u003esomewhat softer\u003c/a\u003e\u0026nbsp;form of Brexit. The last thing she needs right now is a visible embrace from the man whom most British voters find unpalatable. Moreover, it is likely that Mr. Trump will use his visit to reinforce a central delusion driving the UK\u0026rsquo;s separation from the European Union and underpinning the radical Brexiteers\u0026rsquo; resistance to Mrs. May\u0026rsquo;s moderation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the delusion of a \u0026ldquo;Global Britain\u0026rdquo; straining to be unshackled from its European Union chains. At the heart of this delusion is a claim that is preposterous on its face\u0026mdash;that economic integration with the world\u0026rsquo;s largest trading bloc, one adjacent to Britain\u0027s borders, will be replaced by more natural cooperation with the \u0026ldquo;Anglosphere\u0026rdquo; made up of the former Empire, and the Americans. Mrs. May\u0026rsquo;s government has promoted Global Britain for the past two years, but her attempt last week to maintain some alignment with EU regulations after Brexit suggests she has acknowledged that Britain\u0027s economic interests lie more with its neighbors than in illusory trade agreements. Her radical opponents within her party consider this a betrayal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite its illogic, the supposed option of Global Britain has had traction in the Brexit debate in part because it has a long history. Britain as an island state has always had to grapple with problems of scale. Given its size and population, of course, it did enjoy outsized achievements\u0026mdash;politically, culturally, technologically and economically. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was the most powerful state in the world, with the world\u0026rsquo;s largest empire. Yet it was clear that Britain would face larger rivals in Russia, the United States and a newly unified Germany.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the historian Duncan Bell has described, one solution mooted by various scholars and statesmen was to turn the British Empire into a global super-state, an \u0026ldquo;Imperial Federation\u0026rdquo; or a \u0026ldquo;Greater Britain.\u0026rdquo; This notion gained many supporters, but never much political backing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA related idea was to ride on the back of America\u0026rsquo;s rise, imagining the United States as Britain\u0026rsquo;s offspring. \u0026ldquo;Through America,\u0026rdquo; wrote the British MP Charles Dilke in 1868, \u0026ldquo;England is speaking to the world.\u0026rdquo; Cecil Rhodes dreamed of recovering America for the British Empire: his Rhodes Scholarships were intended to foster Anglo-Saxon unity. Many Britons who shared his fantasy of Anglo-American unification or alignment hoped to perpetuate British influence through U.S. power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRead the full article at\u0026nbsp;\u003ca href=\u0022http://nationalinterest.org/feature/trump-visits-uk-brexiteers-who-look-help-will-be-disappointed-25621\u0022\u003eThe National Interest\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","className":"richtext reading--content font-secondary"}), document.getElementById("react_sLi4kHRwGUaQzn7TCuk3bg"))});
\u003cp\u003eThe delusions of \u0027Global Britain\u0027 are illuminated by the behaviour of the US president, write Dana Allin and Benjamin Rhode as Donald Trump arrives for his state visit to the UK.\u003c/p\u003e
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