I love America. I was lucky enough to work for a wonderful American company for 16 years, and cherished the friendships of many fine American colleagues. But the transformation of the leader of the free world into a cheerleader for brutal dictatorship and the far right cannot be ignored.

In 1776, 13 American colonies declared independence from Great Britain. Just short of the 250th anniversary of that historic event, the perfidious actions of the 47th president of the resulting United States of America make it essential for Britain itself to break free.

Like millions of Europeans, I was appalled to see President Trump bully and humiliate Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in what looked like a hostage video staged in the White House. Trump and Vance constantly interrupted the beleaguered Ukrainian leader, who valiantly tried to cope with the flood of invective. At the very same time Trump was abusing his counterpart, the American president’s friend Vladimir Putin’s forces were killing Zelenskyy’s fellow citizens, as they have been since 24 February 2022.

“You are gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with world war three,” Trump told a man whose country had been invaded by a brutal dictator intent on wiping Ukraine off the map. Fortunately, America’s greatest president, Franklin Roosevelt, took a different line in 1941 with Winston Churchill. Rather than bullying Britain’s wartime prime minister into accepting an armistice with Hitler, Roosevelt gave extraordinary support for his fight for national survival. Alongside the heroic efforts of the Soviet Union, that ensured that Europe was liberated from the tyranny of Nazi rule less than four years after America entered the war.

I am usually very reluctant to mention the Nazis (people do this all too often), but the shocking encounter at the White House reminded me of the humiliation in 1938 of Austria’s chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, subjected to a terrifying two hour tirade by Adolf Hitler in the dictator’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, Bavaria. ‘You have done everything to avoid a friendly policy!’ Hitler screamed. ‘And I can tell you right now, Herr Schuschnigg, that I am absolutely determined to make an end of this.’ The Anschluss – the Nazis’ forced union of Germany and Austria – came the following month, with appalling consequences for Austria’s Jews and countless others. Austria only became an independent country again in 1955, 10 years after the second world war.