MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

'Brexit leaves UK isolated from allies and begging for trade deals with ex colonies'

Lord Malloch-Brown said UK’s loss of influence was exposed at the G7 summit, where Mrs. May was left a “spectator” to a clash between US, Canada and the EU.

Britain will be left a “mangy old lion” as a result of Brexit, isolated from its allies and reduced to begging for trade deals from one-time colonies, a former Foreign Office minister is warning. Lord Malloch-Brown, who chairs the Best for Britain campaign for a second referendum, said that the UK’s loss of influence was exposed at last week’s G7 summit, where Theresa May was left a “spectator” to a clash between the US, Canada and the EU.

 He added that Vladimir Putin’s Russia had identified the UK as Europe’s “weakest link” to be targeted with fake news, political interference, dirty money and poison attacks.

In a speech in Oxford on Wednesday evening, Lord Malloch-Brown, a former United Nations deputy secretary general who served as foreign minister from 2007-09, warned that Brexit has “ruined” UK foreign policy, leaving the country “all at sea”.

“On foreign policy as on so much else, to stay and fight for a stronger Europe remains the only real path forward for a Britain confronted by a Europe and world in crisis. Far from running away from Europe, we should remember the real lesson of our history. Our security and prosperity is bound up first and foremost with Europe.”

Lord Malloch-Brown said Britain was previously “America’s pre-eminent link to Europe and Europe’s intermediary with Washington”. But both relationships are now “in crisis” because of the result of the EU referendum and the election of US President Donald Trump.

“Britain has lost its anchors, one has been cut by Britain’s own choice; the other by President (Donald) Trump,” he said. “Theresa May appeared a spectator in the corner at last weekend’s G7 summit in Canada. A stranger to Europe and to Trump.”

He added President Putin’s Russia seems to have determined that Britain is Western Europe’s weakest link. “The crude attack in Salisbury; the interference in the Brexit referendum as well as more widely in British politics and media; and the penetration of Britain’s financial and legal establishment by Kremlin-linked oligarchs. All seem to add up to a targeting of a Britain, isolated and vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, Britain has been left “a supplicant at the doors of its former colonies looking for trade deals that aren’t there”, he underlined, adding: “Talk about mangy old lions”.