Britain is great at muddling through. But imagine if its leaders knew where they were heading

Like a chronic ailment, strategic incoherence gnaws at everything Britain does in the world. Keir Starmer's real achievement in resetting relations with mainland Europe - witness the recent visits of the French president Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor Friedrich Merz - does not obscure, and in a way even highlights, this deeper confusion. After 1945, Winston Churchill envisioned Britain's global role at the intersection of three circles: the British Commonwealth and (then still) empire; the Europe whose postwar recovery and unification he strongly supported; and the United States. As Commonwealth countries have formed stronger ties elsewhere, the first circle…