The truth at last
I don’t normally blog on a Sunday but I will be busy tomorrow morning so here goes.
The Special Relationship is dead and has been dead for a very long time. But if Donald Trump wins he will take great pleasure in saying so out loud and the Labour government will be blamed.
The fact is that the Special Relationship is nothing of the sort and the best argument I have heard that it still exists is that the Americans really appreciate the work of GCHQ and its NZ and Australian equivalents and that this binds us together. If that is the best that the supporters of the SR can manage they should just admit defeat.
It has been positively embarrassing for years to hear journalists desperately asking presidents of the US “Is the Special Relationship still strong?” Only to realise that the President has had to be told what it is and then throws a bone to the desperate PM who is anxiously looking on.
It is also undeniable that Brexit has made the relationship with Washington more tenuous, we used to be a bridge to the EU now we are a bridge to nowhere, even the Commonwealth is getting weaker and weaker. When only we are willing to host the Commonwealth games, you know it is on its knees. It is just not important to many members.
The idiots who sold the UK public Brexit on the idea that we would be a Global Britain and hand in hand with the USA, have achieved the exact opposite, as anyone with an ounce of sense told them, repeatedly. Even the Americans told them, but they refused to listen.
Maybe it would do some good if Trump were to get elected and tell us the SR is dead and buried, he would doubtless do it to hurt Labour and blame their “interference” in his election. He is certainly petty enough to do that, Harris would probably be politer but even if she is, it is us who are fooling ourselves.
But at least if we were told the truth we would be made to face reality.
We are a small island, off the shores of a huge regional power, our economy is inadequate and our armed forces pathetic and we don’t have any “special friends”.
The fact is that Brexit has made us Billy no mates when the world is dividing ever more clearly into economic and regional superpowers, and we aren’t in any of them.
No wonder Russia spent so much encouraging Brexit, it has been a win win for them.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
Jeez, Jonty, I know you’re right, so totally right, but the truth can be really bloody depressing sometimes.
Let us not forget that the Tories brought about Brexit. As much as I am beginning to detest this anti-free speach, pensioner killing, military depleating Labour government they should not be blamed for what they did not do. It was the Tories and most of them are out of government receiving fat cheques for doing sod all whilst the country goes to the dogs.