As Trump menaces us in Canada, we have a question for Britain: when will you stand up to him? | Jennifer Welsh

The UK has long benefited from its Commonwealth. Though we will take steps to ensure our survival, the silence from London is deafening

David Lammy thought he was reassuring Canadians. During his visit to Canada – for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers– he was asked about Donald Trump’s claims that the country should become the 51st state of the US. The UK foreign secretary stressed that Canada is a “proud [and] sovereign nation”, and – in his view – would remain so. When pressed further, he invoked Canada’s shared history and monarch with the UK, and our work together during the second world war.

Canadians are already well aware of that shared history, and how Britain has long benefited from its Commonwealth. My 96-year-old father just missed the age of enlistment in support of Britain in the 1940s but his two brothers, young boys from the Canadian prairies, lost their lives as RAF bombers. One of them is buried in the beautiful Commonwealth war cemetery in Harrogate.

Jennifer Welsh is the director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University, Montreal

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