Story highlights Kate Maltby: Parliament's debate over revoking Trump's state visit was a powerless display that was nonetheless meaningful

She says Britain is at crossroads in relationship with America over Trump

Kate Maltby is a regular broadcaster and columnist in the United Kingdom on issues of culture and politics and is a theater critic for The Times in London. She is also completing a Ph.D. in renaissance literature, having been awarded a collaborative doctoral between Yale University and University College London. Her website is www.katemaltby.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

London (CNN) Does the British parliamentary debate that took place tonight have a real chance of blocking Donald Trump's proposed state visit to the United Kingdom?

To find a good answer, look back three years ago to an introspective interview Conservative MP Rory Stewart gave to The Guardian newspaper . It remains one of the most perceptive articulations of power in modern Britain. "In our situation we're all powerless," he said. "The secret of modern Britain is there is no power anywhere. ... The politicians think journalists have power. The journalists know they don't have any. Then they think the bankers have power. The bankers know they don't have any. None of them have any power."

Answers about real political impact in Britain are always lost in the mists of an unwritten constitution, and in ongoing battles between newspapers, politicians and the "non-political" civil servants who survive administration after administration. Politicians make speeches that they believe newspapers want to hear. Newspapers write editorials that they believe readers want to read. Financial elites and low-education voters accuse each other bitterly of setting the agenda. Civil servants complain about the lot of them.

They are all wrong. If anything, the political temperature of this increasingly marginal nation is set externally: by migrant crises, by Middle Eastern conflict, and now, by an unpredictable US President. Monday night saw British parliamentarians debating a motion they couldn't vote on, about a US President they can't change, and a trip they can't cancel. All to please a few newspapers and a few voters. It is the definition of powerlessness.

JUST WATCHED A GPS debate: Trump's visit to the UK Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH A GPS debate: Trump's visit to the UK 06:14

How did we get to this point? To start with the basics: in 2011, in a hasty attempt to catch the rising tide of populism, the Conservative administration introduced a new initiative, which mandates that official online petitions garnering more than 100,000 signatures should be debated within the House of Commons.

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