There was a time, gather round, children, when Britain at least pretended to do diplomacy. There were communiqués, careful language, and that uniquely British art form: saying something utterly ruthless in a tone so polite you almost thanked them for it.
Those days are gone.
We now live in the age of Trumpism without Trump: governance by threat, policy by megaphone, and diplomacy conducted with the subtlety of a debt collector at midnight. The disturbing part is not that Donald Trump did it. The disturbing part is that countries that once complained bitterly about being victims of Trump’s methods have now copied the template verbatim.
The United Kingdom, ladies and gentlemen, has imbibed the language of the bully.
Visa Diplomacy, or “Nice Country You’ve Got There…”
The latest episode reads like a rejected chapter from The Art of the Deal. Three African countries, Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have agreed to accept the return of foreign offenders and so-called illegal migrants after the UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, threatened them with visa penalties.
The message was not nuanced. It was not diplomatic. It was pure Trump:
Do what we want, or we shut the door.
Namibia and Angola fell into line in December. The DRC followed shortly after. And suddenly, cooperation was secured miraculously, once the threat was applied.
“My message is clear,” the Home Secretary declared, in the sort of language normally associated with mafia films and playground bullies. If foreign governments refuse to accept the return of their citizens, there will be consequences.
Ah yes. Consequences. The favourite word of strongmen everywhere.
The Curious Case of Paperwork and Power
We are told the problem was “obstructive returns processes”: paperwork delays, missing signatures, citizens being asked how dare they to sign documents affecting their own removal. In other words, bureaucracy had the audacity to exist.
Britain’s response? Visa sanctions. An “emergency brake.” Collective punishment. Because nothing says rules-based international order like threatening millions of ordinary citizens for the administrative behaviour of their governments.
This is Trump governance stripped of its red cap and orange tan. Same instincts. Same threats. Just delivered in a more respectable accent.
From Moral Lecturer to Moral Blackmailer
The irony is almost painful.
This is the same Britain that lectures African states about governance, rule of law, proportionality, and human rights. The same Britain that insists on international cooperation until cooperation requires persuasion rather than coercion.
Now we are told that over 3,000 people from these three countries could be removed. Numbers are rolled out like trophies. Deportations are framed as evidence of strength. Borders must be “controlled,” order must be “secured,” and anyone asking awkward legal or moral questions is waved away as naïve.
It is governance as theatre: tough language for domestic consumption, applause lines for tabloids, and a quiet erosion of the very standards Britain claims to export.
The Slippery List of the Next “Uncooperative”
And, of course, the list does not end here. India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Somalia, Gabon, named, shamed, and gently threatened. Today it is visa penalties. Tomorrow it may be trade, aid, or security cooperation.
This is not partnership. It is leverage politics. It is the assumption that power justifies tone.
Sound familiar?
Trump Without Trump
Here is the real tragedy: Britain learned the wrong lesson from Trump. Instead of rejecting his governance style as corrosive, it has adopted it, minus the honesty. At least Trump never pretended this was about shared values. He called it what it was: leverage.
Britain still wraps it in moral language, human rights footnotes, and policy papers. But strip away the civil service prose and the message is brutally simple:
We will hurt you until you comply.
For a country that prides itself on soft power, this is an extraordinary hard-power cosplay.
When Victims Become Converts
The most unsettling part is not that African states capitulated. Power works. It always has. The unsettling part is that a country that once recoiled at Trump’s language now speaks it fluently.
Trumpism has won not because Trump is in office, but because his method has been normalised.
And when bullying becomes policy, everyone should worry, not just those at the receiving end, but those applauding it today. Because bullies, as history repeatedly teaches us, never stop once they discover it works.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 