All over the Western world, electorates are angry at their self-satisfied, arrogant political classes; they want their views reflected, including, of course, on immigration, and feel that they have been ignored for too long.

Manual workers and the lower middle classes are especially fed up, and feel under pressure financially as a result of the legacy of the Great Recession, automation and globalisation.

First the Leave campaign in Britain and now Donald Trump in America have sought to harness these populist rebellions. But I have news for Mr Trump: he may become the next US president but he never will be Mr Brexit. It’s not even close.

In all of the ways that really matter, the Brexiteer agenda is dramatically at odds with what passes for Trump’s world-view.

The Donald wants to walk away from America’s free trade deals; Brexiteers are desperate to sign as many as possible as quickly as possible.

Leavers here would love to join Nafta; Trump wants to quit it. Almost all Brexiteers want to use Nato to help protect the West and project UK and US power; Trump sees it as a drain on resources.

The utter incompatibility of visions ought to be obvious. Brexit is the politics of hope, of positive change, of radical reform; Trump is the politics of despair, of powerlessness, of retreat.

Brexit was primarily about regaining Britain’s self-government; it is a bold, powerful statement that liberal, independent, free-trading democracies are the best way for countries and their people to prosper in a modern, complex world.

It is a denunciation of post-war technocracies, a rejection of top-down rule, and a commitment to a massive increase in democratic control.

David Fuller's view

This is one of the best articles on Brexit that I have seen, and I commend it to you.  If you agree, feel free to forward it, including over the Atlantic because most of the American newspapers appear not to understand why the UK voted for Brexit.   

Here is a PDF of Allister Heath's column.