Huawei will be a test of whether Boris Johnson really is going to take back control

But anything short of sticking entirely by May’s decision will be a resounding confirmation that Britain has traded servitude to Brussels for abasement to Washington

The medical advice coming from China right now is not to stockpile antiretrovirals. Then again, you might want to be ordering some antiemetics. Because if you had thought that Brexit Day would be the most nauseating of the coming days, think again.

By the time Big Ben hasn’t bonged on Friday night, Boris Johnson is scheduled to announce whether or not Chinese telecoms goliath Huawei will continue to play a central part in the UK’s nascent 5G network.

It isn’t Boris’s decision alone. By that, I make no reference to “cabinet government” – a more mythical beast than ever with this cabinet of none of the talents, and Johnson reportedly sharpening his axe. I refer, of course, to the president in a pushchair masquerading as a golf buggy.

Donald J Trump is exceedingly keen that Johnson bars Huawei from this thrilling arena of technological progress, although precisely why is debatable.

One theory says that Trump is heeding the counsel of US security experts, who see Huawei as the commercial arm of the Chinese state, and so a tool of cyberespionage. If this theory is correct, Trump is displaying uncharacteristic faith in intelligence advice (you will recall him dismissing the confident conclusion of 17 separate US agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, in favour of blaming Ukraine).

But whether Trump has had an epiphany, or whether his aversion to Huawei stems from general paranoia about the Chinese threat to US economic supremacy, or whether it comes from something Sean Hannity heard from Alex Jones, the source needn’t bother us now.

What concerns us today is how Johnson responds to pressure from Trump, who gave him a cordial warning about Huawei during a doubtless perfectly encrypted phone call a few days ago.

If Johnson tells Huawei to sling its hook, it won’t be down to advice from his own intelligence experts. British security services believe that the risk is manageable, as do the two parliamentary committees that have investigated it. The only conceivable reason why Johnson would reverse Theresa May’s decision is that – and after everything we have been told, can you Adam and Eve this? – we haven’t taken back control after all.

This, after US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin pressured his British counterpart, Sajid Javid, to abandon his shiny new tax on tech firms. Drolly describing it as “discriminatory”, Mnuchin broadly hints that the UK-US trade deal won’t be so oven-ready if, God forbid, Google and Amazon are obliged to stump up.

To reclaim sovereignty from the EU (hahaha) in the very week the UK publicly bowed to the dictates of a foreign power is almost comedic timing.

Seldom since 1945 has a PM defied a president. Anthony Eden kept Eisenhower out of the Suez loop for a while. But the moment Ike found out and ordered him to behave, he was on the phone to the Elysee Palace gibbering about the impossibility of defiance. Harold Wilson resisted LBJ’s request to send combat troops to Vietnam, but offered support in other ways. When the trade union leader Hugh Scanlon berated him for not taking a more stringent stand, he snapped: “You can’t kick your creditors in the balls, Hughie.”

The economic dangers of this PM kicking this president in the gonads dwarf those that cowed Eden and Wilson. The totality of UK economic and foreign policy resides in relations with the United States. So alienating the endlessly vindictive Trump is unthinkable for a prime minister with infinitely more desperation for a speedy trade deal than leverage in negotiating it.

Almost. It is possible – just – that Johnson calculates that a show of defiance is more valuable politically than cravenly surrendering to his master’s voice. Formalising his global role as the Mini-Me to the tangerine Dr Evil might be such an affront to his narcissism that he postpones the decision indefinitely – or does a backstairs deal with Trump (much like Tehran’s over that recent military retaliation) to cover his wizened member with the fig leaf of faux toughness.

But anything short of sticking entirely by May’s decision (and keeping that tech tax) will be a resounding confirmation that Britain has traded servitude to Brussels for abasement to Washington.

For 70 years, Britain staggered about in the fog of post-imperial traumatic stress, trying to decide whether its future lay east across the Channel, or west across the Atlantic.

The former route was foreclosed in June 2016. The latter may imminently be laid wide open.

It would be uncharitable not to wish Johnson luck as he struggles with this dilemma. Who knows, he might startle us with a genuine display of independence. But when Donald Trump offers you a choice between his way and the Huawei, have you any real choice?