THE 'SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP'

ONCE MORE THE CHATTERING CLASSES IN THE MEDIA are speculating about our relationship with the USA. The reason is, once more, to do with a visit by a British prime minister to those shores. The so-called ‘special relationship’ was given birth by Winston Churchill who saw America as being part of the English speaking peoples and thus culturally speaking… our cousins.

Both this country as well as the continent of Europe have had their survival as free countries made contingent upon American support on two occasions: twice in recent history they helped us defeat an enemy who would have ravaged the continent without the formidable military and industrial might of America.

Today’s generation know little or anything about the sacrifices made by America on our behalf, mainly in terms of their young men’s lost lives: but also in terms of the military equipment they supplied to the war effort in Europe without which we would never have survived as a democratic nation.

America could have easily turned its full attention toward Japan after Pearl Harbour and left us, the last free people in Europe, to manage as we could. If they had done that instead of dividing their military capability upon two fronts, they could have brought the war against Japan to an end far more quickly than they did at much lesser cost in their young men’s lives, as well as our own in Burma.

SO WHEN WE TALK about a ‘special relationship’ with America it is far more than mere rhetoric. In the past it meant a great deal to this nation, and I hope and believe it meant as much to the USA after our joint involvement in two world wars.

But time moves on and I am prepared to accept in a somewhat belligerent manner that the ‘special relationship’ now needs to be written with inverted commas flanking it.

I would however say this. America and the UK still have the same cultural symmetry that Protestantism introduced to America, with its ethic of hard work and the family as the anchor that proved the harbinger of economic success.

Many people in America still live by this, but are reduced to ridicule by other parts of the union. The so-called ‘Bible Belt’ is a term of contempt most commonly used by liberals in the media throughout the world to describe these well anchored people.
If I had to chose a future for my country that involved its submergence into any other, then that country would be America. I would sooner this country that I am so proud of should become the 51st state of America than a mere canton within Europe.
For this is what this country is now being faced with. If we cannot act independently as a free nation, whose laws are binding without external interference; where our foreign, defence and financial independence is subjected to an overriding authority within Europe…then better we become, if they would have us, the 51st state of the Union.

THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP MEANS very little to president Obama, as no doubt David Cameron will have gathered from this visit. This current president carries baggage that should have been left at the checkout when he became president of the greatest nation on earth.
But Obama carries a history of dislike for the British for personal reasons. Reasons that rightly or wrongly should not be part of contemporary history. If he wishes to pursue his resentment of the British, then he must do so out of office, despite what his wife may tell him.
I believe this country should remain a country; but our politicians are hell bent upon making us a canton of Europe. Under such an invitation, I as a British citizen, would prefer our incorporation as a nation into another state of America than a mere sterile appendage to Europe.