Alone

The UK stands alone, hoist on its own petard after gambling on a trade relationship with Europe with one with the US.

Sadly, for Johnson, Trump has lost, and for both the US and EU, a trade deal with the UK is a lower priority than rebuilding bridges between themselves after four years of destruction by Trump.

For Biden, a red line with the UK is the GFA and damaging the peace process, which we should remember should have been completed two decades ago.

It is the same for the EU, whose deadline for the UK to remove the damaging clauses from the IMB was on November 2nd, but there was no action by either side.

But what happens this week will be interesting, with the bill back before the House of Lords, a removal of the clauses whether willingly done by "pressure" from the Lords themselves, or from pressure from both the US and EU.

Johnson bet on red and it came up blue, literally.

Now does he follow though on this and go for no deal?

He knows the damage, and yet it hasn't ever been about facts and evidence, it is an internal battle with his own backbenchers and headbangers in the ERG, for whom nothing less than no deal is capitulation.

The next week will be riviting stuff, maybe the rest of the year too.

And all this will be played out with most attention on COVID but the growing scandal of cronyism that is the defining princiiple, other than incompitence, of this Johnson-lead Government.

It won't be dull for sure.

In short, the UK has to decide who it wants to be aligned with in terms of tade and/or politics. What would be in its best interest going forward. Or what would be gained, from being aligned with the US instead of Europe. That is a pretty moot point now Trump is going to be out of the picture for four years, but the question for the UK remains.

Thing is, the US made a mistake in electing Trump, a mistake it has now corrected with Biden being close to seven million votes ahead of Trump, with more votes to count. But the UK cannot easily, or quickly, fix its mistake, not when many in the country cannot yet see it is a mistake, or if they do, are in denial. Or even worse, the fact it has proven to be such a bad idea makes them want it more.