“I don’t see any special deal coming for the U.K,” Kim Darroch, former U.K. ambassador to Washington, told The Times. Trump’s moves “will be quite a challenge for the U.K,” he said.

Unless the U.K. can secure some kind of carve-out from Trump’s blanket tariffs, Starmer will likely resist pressure to think again about the EU reset. That’s music to the ears of some.

‘Politically suicidal’

“We’ve got an isolationist president-elect in the United States,” Richard Foord, a Liberal Democrat MP, told a gathering of EU citizens in London days after the U.S. election result. “ I am concerned that Trump’s comments during the election campaign are not mere campaign slogans, but are how he intends to govern. These are reasons, for me, why we need more Europe in the U.K.”

Nick Harvey, a former armed forces minister in David Cameron’s coalition government, said the U.K. would pay a price if it didn’t start looking towards Brussels. “We cannot be the 51st state of America – it makes no sense geographically, politically or industrially,” he said.

“If we attach ourselves pathetically to their coat-tails, instead of being a major player in Europe’s defense, we will pay a price for that folly.”

Harvey, now chief executive of the European Movement U.K, argues that failing to link up with the EU would be “potentially suicidal both militarily and economically.”