With the election of the new US President, there is renewed interest in Britain’s relationship with the US, partially driven by the appallingly ill-judged and on-record comments of the Government front bench about Donald Trump. In particular, the buffoonery of our Foreign Secretary David Lammy raises serious questions about his ability to carry out his role as diplomat-in-chief.
President Elect Trump has a transactional approach, in the best interests of America, and it is incumbent on the UK to seek what is best for Britain in the same manner. Two major issues are hanging: Defence, in particular NATO, and trade.
On defence, we find ourselves in a similar position to that of the USA in that we spend considerably more than most EU states on defence. It is ironic that in World War Two we fought, for some time entirely alone, the aggressor Germany to the point of our own bankruptcy and then during the following 80 years funded the defence of Germany while it invested in its economy and built economic hegemony via the EU. At this basic level we should have common cause with President Trump.
On trade, Brexit should place Britain in a special position with respect to the US, if only our Remoaner political class were prepared to seek the opportunities.
In respect of tariffs in particular, it should be remembered that the protectionist EU surrounds itself with tariffs of between 10% and 40% and sometimes more, to defend unproductive industries, even though such tariffs are ultimately self-harm unless related to strategic assets. They can hardly complain about the US. Britain has the opportunity to diverge from this and rediscover the free trade principles that made our country prosperous.
In a pragmatic approach to the US it is important to recognise that, despite all the establishment propaganda to the contrary, the US and the UK have had a checkered relationship throughout history. After all the US sprung from colonies previously dependent on the UK for defence, they fought to seize a tax-raising monopoly, Britain having eliminated the immediate enemies on the North American continent. And thus was born the United States of America. As always with the US and the UK, it was about trade and tax, about the economy. We then proceeded to burn down the White House in a subsequent border dispute of 1812. We were not the best of friends.
The following century saw major British investment in building the USA, a flow of wealthy US debutants looking for eligible, titled English aristocrats and the development of a continental country behind the accidental shield of the Royal Navy. The one major hiccup in relations was the UK nobley banning slavery and fighting the enforcement of the slave trade, including by US states, at great expense to Britain.
The start of the last century saw the President Wilson doctrine that the US should usurp the British Empire, the establishment of the League of Nations by the US and then its abandonment. So isolationist were our American cousins that the US Navy saw the UK as its most likely adversary in the 1920s and war-gamed anticipated battles with us.
Our current “special” relationship was defined towards the end of World War Two. Britain was essentially bankrupt by the close of 1942, with much borrowing from the Americans. The US saw its opportunity to fulfil the Wilson doctrine and usurp the British world system. The “special” in our relationship was partly a reflection of our common defence arrangements, but also a sop to a population stunned that we had resisted Hitler only to find ourselves having a pyrrhic victory, a state of affairs re-confirmed by the salt in the wounds at Suez.
The US approved of the EU project, ironically supporting Germany as their chosen economic and defence partner and funded them via the Marshall plan. Having at first wanted to de-industrialise Germany, the US instead promoted them as an anti-Bolshevik, industrial powerhouse. Britain was marginalised and placed in the EU box of ever-closer union with Germany and France at the centre. Nuclear weapons sealed America’s hegemony.
The determination of successive Democrat Presidents to keep us in our box has been palpable, the latest being Obama and Biden, both being no friends of the UK.
Now, post-Brexit Britain has a chance to steer our own course between the USA and the EU and also the rest of the world, recognising where there is advantage and where there is not. To paraphrase the great Prime Minister Palmerston, at the height of Britain’s economic prowess, we have no forever enemies and no permanent friends, only interests for the time being, which must be served.
President Trump likely provides an ideal opportunity for Britain to reset and prosper. I do not doubt him, he is a businessman and understands transactional relationships. He is also our stated friend. He will reset the western world.
What I do doubt is the capability of our left/liberal, virtue signally, economically illiterate, political and media class to grasp the scale of the opportunity and how to navigate what is at stake.
John Longworth is an entrepreneur and businessman, Chairman of the Independent Business Network of family businesses and a former MEP
