For the most ardent supporters of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump was a mixture of vindication and salvation. The president of the US, no less, thinks it is a great idea for Britain to leave the EU. Even better, he seems to offer an exciting escape route. The UK can leap off the rotting raft of the EU and on to the gleaming battleship HMS Anglosphere.

It is an alluring vision. Unfortunately, it is precisely wrong. The election of Mr Trump has transformed Brexit from a risky decision into a straightforward disaster. For the past 40 years, Britain has had two central pillars to its foreign policy: membership of the EU and a “special relationship” with the US.

The decision to exit the EU leaves Britain much more dependent on the US, just at a time when America has elected an unstable president opposed to most of the central propositions on which UK foreign policy is based.

...

The refugee row underlined the extent to which Mrs May and Mr Trump have clashing visions of the world. Even when it comes to trade, the supposed basis for their new special relationship, the two leaders have very different views.

https://www.ft.com/content/fde7616a-e6cf-11e6-967b-c88452263daf

Britain is becoming subservient to a United States that will be extremely difficult to cooperate with judging by President Donald Trump's "serious and worrying" first acts, French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will hold talks with Trump later on Friday, wants a renewal of the "special relationship" between London and Washington at a time her conservative government redraws its relationship with Europe.

"Britain lived in an equilibrium with Europe," Macron told France Culture radio. "But now it is becoming a vassal state, meaning it is becoming the junior partner of the United State."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-macron-britain-idUSKBN15B16A

In normal times, you'd say everything went swimmingly. Sure, the American president seemed a tad unsure how to say the name of his guest – whom he greeted as Ter-raiser – slightly reinforcing the White House's earlier failure, in a briefing note, to spell the British prime minister’s name correctly, dropping the "h" and thereby suggesting Donald Trump was about to receive Teresa May, who made her name as a porn star.

But other than that, the PM would have been delighted. In the press conference that followed their Oval Office meeting, there were no bombshells: Trump managed to get through it without insulting an entire ethnic group, trashing a democratic norm or declaring war, any of which might have diverted attention from May's big moment. He was on best behaviour, diligently reading the script that had been written for him, attesting to the "deep bond" that connects Britain and the US. May received all the assurances she craved that her country's relationship with the US remains "special". Why, he even, briefly, took her hand.

However, these are not normal times. May and her team will be pleased with the optics and indeed some of the substance – artfully, May got Trump to confirm, on camera, that he is "100% behind Nato" – but the underlying truth is that this dash to Washington was mortifying.

...

He will have seen May as that most desperate of creatures: the housebuyer who rashly sold her old house before she had found a new one. Having tossed away Britain’s keys to the European single market, she will soon be homeless – and Trump knows it. For all the niceties – May’s shrewd deployment of a royal invitation for a state visit and her compliment to the president on his “stunning election victory”, flattery which saw Trump glow a brighter shade of orange – he will have seen May as a sucker who needs to make a deal. And he will look forward to naming his price.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/27/never-mind-the-optics-theresa-mays-us-dash-was-mortifying

MATT DRUDGE @DRUDGE

In brave new media era, your eyes and ears will not witness same things...

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/