How important is Britain really?

How important is Britain really? In the Real World, that is? On what used to be called "the world stage"  - although to be fair even that doesn't sound like quite such an important place as it did?

That surely is the question one has to ask when one sees our creepy little twerp of a Prime Minister desperately trying to insert himself into the Donald's shot as the great man is announcing Peace In Our Time in the Middle East. And if something's so cringe that even Jeremy Kyle thinks it's cringe, you know - or at least you ought to know - that you've crossed a line.

On the one hand, of course, you've got UK education secretary Bridget Phillipson insisting without a jot of evidence that our great country indeed 'played a key role behind the scenes' in shaping Trump's peace deal between Israel and Hamas over Gaza. On the other hand, you've got, er, the US ambassador to Israel saying quite clearly 'I assure you she's delusional."

And then of course you have the uncomfortable reality: peace could have been achieved a good deal earlier, if only Britain and America had worked together, with the latter keeping a close eye on Netanyahu whilst the former put in the diplomatic legwork to get the Arab states to condemn and isolate Hamas.

Of course, the isolation and surrender of Hamas did eventually. The Israelis bombed Iran. Then Britain and America helped them bomb Iran. Then the Israelis bombed Qatar. Then the Qataris decided that supporting Hamas wasn't quite such a good idea. Then Hamas surrendered.*

But in the meantime Britain, along with Canada and of course France, had done the exact opposite of what was wanted by deciding to "recognise" a "Palestinian state". And apart from because it pandered to their increasingly substantial domestic national socialist Moslem minorities, it wasn't at all clear why.

It is of course possible that it depends whom you ask. Anyone in the Real World, such as poor dear Marco Rubio, will tell you that the Moslem Occupied Governments' decision to reward Hamas by giving their cause diplomatic support did no good whatsoever. But from the point of view of reliably loopy Blairites such as Jonathan Powell it was all part of a cunning plan that couldn't fail.

The plan is, of course, a "peace plan". It's modelled on Powell's other great success, which was of course his plan for "peace" in Ireland. (How's that working out? Oh, yes!) And unfortunately the likes of Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are clearly sold on the idea of having a sovereign state governed by Hamas. (How would that work out? Oh, yes!)

The fact that Powell and his cronies (and Blair himself is hovering stage left, if reports are to be believed) wouldn't recognise an enemy of western civilisation - whether it be Arab nationalism or Chinese communism - if it were goosestepping up Whitehall is not unimportant. And yet because he has a serious face and a posh accent the Yanks have yet again fallen for the British shtick. "Don't worry, my dear fellow. We know how to handle these people."

The "British", bear in mind, are the supposed colonial experts who almost lost Iraq, just as by now we've all but lost the Chagos Islands, just as we lost most of the rest of the Empire in the 1960s, just as back in the day we lost a handful of colonies on the east coast of North America.

So why exactly Trump & Co are currently seeking and accepting our advice over "peace" in the Middle East raises some very nasty possibilities indeed.

*And pace Douglas Murray, that is essentially what they've done.