British people marching against Donald Trump need to get a sense of perspective – he is not our problem

I fully concede, indeed am painfully aware, that what President Trump says and does affects the rest of the world. However, we are going to have to get used to him and get along with him; we need to persuade not hector

A placard reads 'Pussy grabs back' during a 'Womens' March' in Marseille against Donald Trump (Getty Images)

They marched in Nairobi. They marched in Sydney. They marched in London. The global Women’s March against Trump – which also numbered some men – was an impressive show of global solidarity by people in pink knitted hats with a witty line in placards. I’m sure it heartened those in America who remain reconciled to the triumph of Donald Trump.

It heartened me, in a way. Watching the TV political obits of the Obama presidency, I almost cried. This dignified, charming, inspirational man hardly put a foot wrong during his years in the White House. Literally, sometimes. Unlike his predecessors, he didn’t collapse while jogging, fall down the steps getting off a plane, forget his lines, throw up during a state banquet, violate an intern or choke on a pretzel in his eight years.

His was an historic achievement, and he lived up to the hopes vested in him. He gave America the nearest thing it will have to a health service, he boosted the economy, he set an example and took action on equal rights, and he took climate change seriously. His is a fine legacy, and most of it is about to be scrapped. So no wonder folk are upset.

People outside America, though, do need to get a sense of perspective. We seem to be shading into a mindset where the “leader of the free world”, a fairly useless bit of cant, becomes our property too. Well, he ain’t. He’s America’s problem/asset. They voted for him. It’s their country, their government, their business.

Under the federal system, which protects the rights of smaller states in the union, he won the presidency fair and square (give or take a little Russian interference – but that again is matter for the Americans to sort out). To be honest, despite my personal feelings, I know that whatever Trump does to Obamacare is not going to affect me. If he builds a wall on the border with Mexico, that’s much more a matter for someone in Texas or Arizona, or Mexico for that matter, than someone parked in London.

I didn’t have a vote in the US election, and it feels uncomfortable to be telling the American people, in effect, that they made what Trump might call a “yuge mistake” in putting him in power. I don’t have to pay federal taxes, I don’t have to watch people go on death row, I don’t have to worry, or not, about gun crime, I don’t have to worry about who’s going to win the World Series, because I live in the UK, not the US. Sometimes we neglect that important truth.

I fully concede, indeed am painfully aware, that what President Trump says and does affects the rest of the world. I don’t like his attitude to the media; I don’t like his populism and erosion of faith in democracy, I don’t like his protectionism, I don’t like him scrapping Nato, I don’t like what he says about women, and I don’t much like anything else. However, we are going to have to get used to him and get along with him; we need to persuade not hector.

In truth, we have had to do so for far worse ogres than him. If Britain only dealt with “nice” countries with pleasant humane non-sexist leaders we’d have a much smaller bill for maintaining our embassies abroad, and HM the Queen would be much less busy entertaining foreign leaders – but it would hardly be in the British national interest.

Tony Blair – I hesitate to use the name, but hey, why not – set the example. He went from cordial relations with his social democratic soulmate Bill Clinton to an equally close (if ill-starred) partnership with George W Bush, who was no one’s idea of a leftie. We didn’t lecture Bush about his domestic policies, and he didn’t tell us what to do with our NHS or schools. Blair did his best to push him along the righteous path in foreign policy, and in the end Blair made his own error of judgement on Iraq. We cannot blame Bush for that.

We – women and men – can march all we like and make as many jokes as we like about this “barbarian”, as many view him, and satirise him on Radio 4 shows, but the bloke in charge of the biggest economy in the world, the biggest military in the world and, admittedly, the biggest ego in the world is there to stay.

That’s because the Americans put him there. Solidarity is a great virtue; but so is respect for the democratic decision of a friendly nation. I don’t see why we – in a foreign country – should join in with the delegitimisers. That’s why you’ll not catch me marching against Trump.