Britain | Bagehot

The rise of isolationism in the Conservative Party

Britain is starting to look like a very lonely little country

A FEW YEARS ago Britain liked to think of itself as the belle of the globalisation ball. David Cameron invited Xi Jinping, China’s president, for a state visit that involved a trip down the Mall in a gilded carriage and a banquet in Buckingham Palace. He wooed Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, in a bid to breathe new life into Britain’s membership of the European Union. He liked to boast that his friendship with Barack Obama, America’s president, was so close that Mr Obama had once tucked him up in the presidential bed on Air Force One.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Contra mundum”

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