Brexit or not, Britain's fortunes are now tied to Europe more than America

I'll admit it. Part of me felt sorry for Rishi Sunak during last night's Sky News leaders debate. Not only did the man look visibly deflated - having clearly been advised to tone down his punchy style following the ITV debate, just as Sir Keir Starmer demonstrably upper his game - but Sunak kept having to answer for the failings of Tory Prime Ministers going back 14 years.

Sunak did not even become an MP until 2015 and yet had to carry the can for everything going back to 2010. Now, fair's fair, Sunak's is very much a continuity government and he was Chancellor during the pandemic. Still, part of me took pity on him. Even if yesterday's economic numbers had come in 'gangbusters' - which they didn't - Sir Keir is heading to Number 10, and there is precious little Sunak can do. No wonder he feels impotent.

However, as I warned yesterday, Sir Keir has little chance of a honeymoon period. Tory mismanagement means there isn't much left in the kitty, and it surely won't be long before the public grows weary of excuses as Labour hikes taxes, keeps immigration at elevated levels, and tinkers around the edges on the NHS, housing and other areas of public policy.

More to the point, a Labour-led Britain's fortunes will be very much tied to those of Europe's. It is no secret Labour wants to draw Britain closer to the EU post-Brexit, yet the bloc is now shifting decidedly to the nationalist and Eurosceptic Right, as evidenced by recent elections to the European Parliament (and that's Western Europe, forget the closed-border nationalist countries of Central and Eastern Europe!)

What kind of EU would Labour even be drawing closer to? An EU where Marine Le Pen's National Rally is in government in France, Alternative for Germany is jumping in the polls in Germany, where Geert Wilders' party is part of the new government in the Netherlands, or perhaps one where Viktor Orban, Roberto Fico and Georgia Meloni are heads of government?

Then there is the immigration question. Having jacked up immigration to the highest levels on record, the Tories have set a precedent that Labour has little incentive to reduce. After all, high immigration is Labour's only option for economic growth on the cheap, never mind that mass immigration is in the party's DNA, while Labour views immigrants as its future voter base.

Consider this: just as the likes of France, Germany and the Netherlands - today, just like the UK, multiethnic societies - begin to slam the doors shut to more mass immigration, what's the betting a Labour-run Britain looks like a more attractive option, both for legal and illegal migration? I'd wager immigration therefore is heading upwards so long as the EU's Rightwards tilt continues.

In this sense, the UK's immediate future is very much bound up with Europe, and that is before getting to the ongoing and unresolved situation with Northern Ireland, or the ongoing and unresolved conflict in Ukraine. Indeed Britain's fortunes are probably bound up more with Europe right now than with America whoever wins the November presidential election.

The Biden-Trump re-match obscures the fact there are massive limits to presidential power and there is considerable continuity to US government policy whoever is in office. Although mass illegal immigration jumped dramatically under President Biden, it didn't stop under Donald Trump, which evidences the challenges a president has in controlling it.

America's immigration situation also has little impact on Britain, whereas - thanks to geography - Europe's does. That said, a world war situation - one involving China - could throw everything up in the air, but, by that point, all bets would be off. Moreover, US cultural power will still have an outsized influence on Britain relative to Europe whoever wins the election.

That said, in the immediate term, given Labour's flirtation with "rejoining" the EU, plus the fact EU governments could be shifting to the Right just as Britain picks its first Left-wing government in over 14 years, Britain's immediate-term is far more bound up with what happens across the Channel than with what will transpire across the Atlantic.

This surely plays into the hands of Nigel Farage and Reform UK as they look to "reshape the Right". The risk for Reform however - as for National Rally in France, or Donald Trump in the US - is that by the time they get anywhere near power again it could be a case of shutting the door after the proverbial horse has bolted. In the meantime though, Britain is set for a period of instability, and one where the country's fortunes are now hostage to what happens on the Continent.