SO this shifty looking punter walks into a Tesla showroom and is greeted by a jolly orange giant with a wide smile and open arms.
“Have we got a deal for you!” yells the super salesman.
“Our limos not only drive themselves, they take you anywhere you want to go in the world’s richest country.
“In return, you can buy some chlorine-washed chickens, but that’s your consumers’ choice.”
The gent looks at the gift horse and says: “What about that half-empty VW showroom across the road and the Renault closing-down sale next door?”
“Oh yeah”, says the dealer, “they charge like wounded bulls just to let you inside the door. Those guys are going out of business because they don’t give a damn about their customers. And you won’t be able to catch a fish you can call your own.”
This is the scenario facing Sir Keir Starmer as he rejects a glittering US trade deal and, like a dog to its vomit, returns to the clapped-out, cash-strapped socialist EU bloc.
Starmer is poised to betray 17.4 million Brits who seized the chance in 2016 for Britain to leave the EU and make its own way in the world. If that means losing dozens of Red Wall seats to Nigel Farage or the Tories, so be it.
Starmer pretends he is still deciding between a trade deal with the booming US under Donald Trump or a sly “reset” which means abject surrender to Brussels.
Indeed the prospect of a US trade deal is already dead in the water. Downing Street has a 100-strong team of eager beavers working on negotiations — ten times as many as on Brexit — and EU heavies are licking their lips over punishing us for daring to leave.
Leftie MPs and ministers would rather slit their throats than do a US trade deal with the world’s most powerful leader, the man they love to hate.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has denounced Trump as a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”. Health supremo Wes Streeting calls him “an odious, sad, little man”.
And Starmer says “humanity and dignity” are foreign words to a Trump White House.
In a swift reverse ferret after the Republican landslide, the PM now hails The Donald’s comeback as a “historic victory”.
He can see the author of The Art of the Deal has the world at his feet. Events in Syria and the Middle East have upended the global poker table, leaving Trump holding all the aces.
Russia, China and, crucially, the Mullahs of Tehran are on the back foot.
As Commander-in-Chief with supremacy over Congress and the Supreme Court, Trump will be able to make EU and Nato allies dance to his tune.
His first step will be to impose trade tariffs — or taxes — on what he sees as unfair competition to the US.
China is in his crosshairs, but so is Brussels and its subsidised farmers and manufacturers. And Britain, if Starmer missteps.
A US trade deal would protect Britain from tariffs and open the world’s biggest market to British firms — and jobs.
In return, we would need to ditch regulations on farm produce inherited from Brussels — seen in Washington as the “Museum of Agriculture”. It is, literally, a no-brainer.
Returning to the EU would be tantamount to rats joining a sinking ship. Brussels has never forgiven Britain for voting Leave. Wherever possible, spiteful Commission chiefs have punished us with the harshest interpretation of European Court of Justice rulings.
A needless veto on trade across the Irish Sea almost unravelled the fragile Good Friday peace agreement. An armada of illegal immigrants has been wished bon voyage, sailing unhindered from the beaches of France and Belgium.
Now “Sir Shifty”, who vowed repeatedly in the Election never to reverse Brexit, wants UK taxpayers to eat humble pie — and pay dearly for it.
Labour high command has learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the 2016 referendum. Even back then, the former Common Market was already fragmenting.
Today, it is visibly coming apart at the seams, thanks to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It was Merkel, revered champion of ever-closer union, who opened the borders to one million Syrians and Afghans in 2015, unravelling the fabric of European society and triggering Brexit.
It was Merkel who drove the disastrous green revolution, scrapping Germany’s nuclear power grid and leaving Europe exposed to Russian gas supply blackmail.
It was Merkel who slashed defence spending so deeply that German troops had to carry broom sticks instead of rifles for war games.
And it was mule-headed Merkel who put boosters under Brexit by humiliating PM David Cameron and refusing to strengthen Europe’s borders.
Merkel now admits in retirement that she might have done more to persuade Britain to vote Remain — a decision she blames for the “disgrace and humiliation” of the EU.
Today, the angry citizens of 27 member states, including once-welcoming Sweden and Denmark, are paying dearly for her bovine inflexibility. Every PM and president wants the same border controls Cameron sought.
They know uncontrolled mass immigration is wrecking what the dictatorial EU calls democracy. Germany and France, once its political and economic dynamos, face economic Armageddon as welfare budgets soar out of control — and wealth-generating industries, such as VW and Renault, grind to a standstill. Growth has slumped.
The EU is a basket case economy. And thanks to Rachel Reeves’ budget and Starmer’s so-called “reset”, Britain is becoming ever more closely aligned.
