In his speech to the Labour party conference in 2005, Tony Blair used a seasonal analogy to make the case for embracing disruptive but inevitable change. “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation,” Mr Blair told delegates. “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”

Twenty years on, to quote the billionaire US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, it is the threat of a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter” that haunts the global economy. Donald Trump’s imposition of swingeing US tariffs has unleashed mayhem on stock markets across the world, upending assumptions governing the world trade order since Bretton Woods. As Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said at the weekend: “Globalisation as we’ve known it for the last couple of decades has come to an end.”

What that means for the Labour government he serves and for Britain is both fraught with consequence and, to a significant degree, beyond Whitehall’s control. Second-guessing Mr Trump’s ultimate intentions – and the political and........

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