Without the EU, the joke is on us if Trump gets his tariffs | William Keegan

‘As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.”

Those were the words of the great American journalist HL Mencken (in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 26 July 1920). The impending arrival back at the White House surely fulfils his prophecy.

Last time Trump arrived in office, he was relatively unprepared. Indeed, there are those who say he did not expect to win. Then he was hampered by a democratic system of checks and balances, and an admirable government establishment who often kept him in his place. This time he is well prepared to cause domestic and international chaos, as his bizarre collection of initial appointments demonstrates.

On the economic front he is obsessed by what he regards as the need to impose tariffs, theoretically to protect US manufacturing and improve the balance of trade. For Trump, “tariffs” is “a beautiful word”, more beautiful than “love”. They are “the greatest thing ever invented”.

However, it appears that a number of US citizens have swiftly woken up to the inflationary implications of tariffs, with some voters who have found they have been taken for a ride asking on social media whether it is possible to change their vote …

I have read quite enough post-presidential election analysis, but, for me at least, the most convincing conclusion is not that Trump won but that the Democrats lost.

One’s mind goes back to the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union, when there was no doubt that the Remainers were ineffectual and, unlike Harold Wilson in the 1975 referendum, Labour had a leader in Jeremy Corbyn who, to say the least, hardly fought the good fight and gave many people the impression he was a Leaver anyway.

There has been much in the public prints about whether Labour now should try to come to a trade deal with the US. The very idea is preposterous. Experts know that Trump would insist on terms that would be formidably disadvantageous to the UK. But if we were part of a European Union trade negotiating team, we should be in a far stronger position.

Talking of which, I welcome the recent intervention by Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England. He has been criticised by the Tory right wing and their useful idiots in the rightwing press for daring to point to the damaging consequences of Brexit and saying we need closer relations with the EU.

He has diplomatically said he takes “no position on Brexit” and that the people have voted, implying that we have to make the best of it. But he is hardly being controversial in pointing out the consequences.

His immediate predecessor, Mark Carney, had no doubt about the disastrous course the UK had embarked upon. But Carney’s immediate predecessor, my old friend Mervyn, now Lord, King was, and still is, a Brexiter – for reasons best known to himself.

I think Bailey is being too diplomatic in accepting the 2016 vote. Most surveys now find that a majority of the electorate regard Brexit as a serious mistake and would like to rejoin the EU. True, there are serious leadership problems in Germany and France, and the EU has many economic problems, but given what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, and the Ukraine war, Europe needs desperately to hang together, and we are European!

The referendum was more than eight years ago. We have elections every four or five years, and the whole point is that people are allowed to change their minds. Moreover, some voters are no longer with us, and others have arrived on the electoral register. I have no doubt that if Keir Starmer and my (almost) friend Rachel Reeves were to rise to the occasion and change their minds about membership of the customs union and single market they, and we, would not regret it.

The fact is that the election of Trump and his obsession with embarking on trade wars is bad news for the world economy, which, oddly enough, we are an important part of.

I cannot resist concluding with a remark I recently heard from an American visitor to London who told me: “What you English don’t understand is that Donald Trump is a comedian.”

He could have fooled me. One cannot help being reminded of that great Bob Monkhouse remark: “They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. They’re not laughing now.”

The terrible thing is that Trump is having the last laugh, and the rest of us can’t help being apprehensive.