«there is a genuine sense that transatlantic relations are and should remain rooted in a shared cultural and ethnic heritage which aligns mutual interests in a way which is not purely mercenary.»
“Speaking at a splendid Buckingham Palace dinner, the President of the United States told the assembled great and good:
‘You must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers; we are neither. Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the US. Nor must too much importance in this connection be attached to the fact that English is our common language… no, there are only two things which can establish and maintain closer relations between your country and mine: they are community of ideals and interests.’»
«We must address our demographic issues and prevent our own replacement.»
Those "our"s are quite too generic:
* Conservativism is not about conserving identities and values in general, that is just public relations: what is most conservative is higher incomes (from ownership of properties and businesses) and lower costs (of labor), that is conserving (and boosting) the wealth and power of those who already have them
* Mass immigration has achieved very significant increases in incomes (from property and business) and noticeable reductions in costs (of labor) during the last 4 decas in which only thatcherite conservative (whether with New Labour or Conservative majorities) governments have been in power.
* During the Great Plague there was a period of population contraction that resulted in large increases in wages and a crash in the value and income from properties and businesses; the middle and upper classes of both UK and EU do not want anything like that to happen to them.
* The middle and upper classes of the UK and of the EU (to a lesser extent) generally do not regard their servants (the working class and the under class) as "our" people but just as fungible labor "bulk headcount") and do not care about their skin color, ethnicity, religion; for example the largest wave of immigration to the UK up to 2020 has been 8 million cheap white christian east europeans; many UK expats have been perfectly comfortable earlier in India or Nigeria or more recently in Dubai to be served by large numbers of cheap people-of-global-majority; as long as they were cheap the rest matters a lot less.
* I guess that in the UK few conservative middle class or upper class people would be bothered by a situation like that in Kuwait and other places where 60-80% of the residents were cheap immigrant servants, but only as long as long as they had little or no civil rights and no political rights, as in Dubai or Kuwait etc.
Regardless the demographic question will reverse itself: women have children either because of reproductive instinct or because of deliberate calculation (usually related to pensions) and currently those with no reproductive instinct have deliberated to make themselves extinct so eventually there will be a large natality surge as only women with a strong (and inheritable) reproductive instinct will be left and they will have daughters and grand-daughters with a strong reproductive instinct too.
«It goes without saying that a significant part of American opposition to European unity is rooted in pure self-interest: it is easier to negotiate with 38 small nation states than with one unified entity»
Quite the opposite: the EU Single Market was supported by USA corporations (and Thatcher) because it made a big market accessible to them without having to deal with many different smaller markets: since USA corporations already had scale thanks to the huge unified USA market they expected to be able to out-compete in many sectors european national industries hobbles to that point by the small scale of their national markets. That worked very well: large scale USA corporations have swamped most european competitors in sectors as different as computers and telecoms and movies and soft-drinks.
Thatcher went along with it as her transparent plan was for the UK to be the trojan horse through which USA (and japanese) imports (as her plan also included wrecking UK industry to starve the labor unions of members) would flood the EU Single Market; this would lead to lots of bankruptcies in other EU countries, with mass unemployment, which would then lead to France and/or Italy to exit the EU resulting in its collapse. That plan was restarted by Blair. It turns out it rather backfired as it was the UK that exited the EU.
«There is also a strong faction within the American right — mostly made up of tech executives — which opposes EU regulatory control of American companies.»
That seems to me difficult to believe: USA tech and other executives know that EU regulators and politicians are as easy and cheap to "sponsor" as USA regulators and politicians.
«there is a genuine sense that transatlantic relations are and should remain rooted in a shared cultural and ethnic heritage which aligns mutual interests in a way which is not purely mercenary.»
I wonder which "shared cultural and ethnic heritage" exists between the USA and Japan or China-Taiwan or Korea-south or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait...
“Barack Obama and his aides regarded the idea of a special relationship between Britain and the US as a joke, it was claimed last night. Jeremy Shapiro, a former presidential adviser, said the special relationship was ‘unrequited’ and he revealed he would insert references to ‘the Malvinas’ – Argentina’s name for the Falklands – into Press conferences. Mr Shapiro said that although US officials stressed the importance of the relationship to British visitors, they would make jokes about the Falklands away from the cameras.
He added that the so-called special relationship with Britain ‘was never really something that was very important to the United States’.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Mr Shapiro said: ‘From my perspective it was very important for us to mention the special relationship in every Press conference that we had when the UK were here. But really we laughed about it behind the scenes. Typically, I would try and slip in a reference to the Malvinas or something to spoil it.’ [...] Referring to a 2009 survey that revealed 14 out of 25 EU countries believed they had a special relationship with America, he said the relationship with Britain ‘didn’t differ dramatically from other countries’.”
«We do not want to be an American vassal state. For the first time in a hundred years, they do not want us to be either. We are learning, painfully, that independence is a burden. It costs money, and it incurs responsibilities.»
I am pleased to see that the authors are aware that independence and sovereignty are not matters of making loud proclamations while waving big flags but it is expensive. But it is not just expensive: sovereignty is a matter of power and independence is a matter of not having dependencies.
As WW1, WW2, and Suez abundantly proved the UK+EU cannot be independent: UK+EU utterly depend on critical imports of oil+gas and food from overseas, and the USA Navy utterly control all the sea routes and choke points though which all those imports must flow. The USA government have accordingly been determined to prevent the UK+EU from having second sources of oil+gas and food imports.
Technical note: actually the EU looks self-sufficient in food but that is only because of intensive industrial agriculture utterly dependent on imports of oil+gas to make fertilizer and run farm machinery.
The UK+EU also have large "fifth column"/"stay behind" constituencies that owe their careers to USA "sponsorship" and their prosperity to exports to the USA. Many if not most of the UK+EU elites also have most of their wealth invested in the the USA.
Historical note: in the case of the UK most of the funds of the UK elites were moved from the City to New York in the 1910s and 1920s as the UK elites realized they had been defeated by Germany absent USA support, and were scared of the "socialists" of the Labour Party.
The result is the ruling elites of the UK+EU do not want to be "sanctioned" or "color revolutioned" by the USA government and still want the protection of the USA from "socialism".
For the UK+EU vassalage to the USA is not an options it is a fact. What can be negotiated by the UK+EU elites is the degree of vassalage as there are some (not so wide) margins for that (for example the USA elites tolerated the Wilson government).
«(for example the USA elites tolerated the Wilson government)»
My guess is that the USA elites quite rationally consider four cases:
* Developed nations without natural resources: useful but somewhat risky (in case they ally with a natural resource rich nation) vassals over which have suzerainty (control of military, foreign, security forces) with a significant degree of domestic self-government within "guardrails" (UK, most of EU, Japan, Korea-south, China-Taiwan, ...).
* Developed nations with natural resources: actual or potential rivals to be contained, surrounded, broken up (see english empire, soviet empire, russian federation, people's republic of china, iran, etc.).
* Underdeveloped nations with natural resources: to be run in the interests of USA corporations usually through local strongmen to which is left a cut of the local natural resources profits (most OPEC countries except rebels, most central and south american countries, ...).
* Underdeveloped nations without natural resources: to be largely ignored except when they have a geographical location favorable for USA DOW+CIA bases.
«there is a genuine sense that transatlantic relations are and should remain rooted in a shared cultural and ethnic heritage which aligns mutual interests in a way which is not purely mercenary.»
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/11/republished-the-nonsense-of-the-special-relationship-.html
“Speaking at a splendid Buckingham Palace dinner, the President of the United States told the assembled great and good:
‘You must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers; we are neither. Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the US. Nor must too much importance in this connection be attached to the fact that English is our common language… no, there are only two things which can establish and maintain closer relations between your country and mine: they are community of ideals and interests.’»
That "ideals" seems perfunctory to me...
«We must address our demographic issues and prevent our own replacement.»
Those "our"s are quite too generic:
* Conservativism is not about conserving identities and values in general, that is just public relations: what is most conservative is higher incomes (from ownership of properties and businesses) and lower costs (of labor), that is conserving (and boosting) the wealth and power of those who already have them
* Mass immigration has achieved very significant increases in incomes (from property and business) and noticeable reductions in costs (of labor) during the last 4 decas in which only thatcherite conservative (whether with New Labour or Conservative majorities) governments have been in power.
* During the Great Plague there was a period of population contraction that resulted in large increases in wages and a crash in the value and income from properties and businesses; the middle and upper classes of both UK and EU do not want anything like that to happen to them.
* The middle and upper classes of the UK and of the EU (to a lesser extent) generally do not regard their servants (the working class and the under class) as "our" people but just as fungible labor "bulk headcount") and do not care about their skin color, ethnicity, religion; for example the largest wave of immigration to the UK up to 2020 has been 8 million cheap white christian east europeans; many UK expats have been perfectly comfortable earlier in India or Nigeria or more recently in Dubai to be served by large numbers of cheap people-of-global-majority; as long as they were cheap the rest matters a lot less.
* I guess that in the UK few conservative middle class or upper class people would be bothered by a situation like that in Kuwait and other places where 60-80% of the residents were cheap immigrant servants, but only as long as long as they had little or no civil rights and no political rights, as in Dubai or Kuwait etc.
Regardless the demographic question will reverse itself: women have children either because of reproductive instinct or because of deliberate calculation (usually related to pensions) and currently those with no reproductive instinct have deliberated to make themselves extinct so eventually there will be a large natality surge as only women with a strong (and inheritable) reproductive instinct will be left and they will have daughters and grand-daughters with a strong reproductive instinct too.
«It goes without saying that a significant part of American opposition to European unity is rooted in pure self-interest: it is easier to negotiate with 38 small nation states than with one unified entity»
Quite the opposite: the EU Single Market was supported by USA corporations (and Thatcher) because it made a big market accessible to them without having to deal with many different smaller markets: since USA corporations already had scale thanks to the huge unified USA market they expected to be able to out-compete in many sectors european national industries hobbles to that point by the small scale of their national markets. That worked very well: large scale USA corporations have swamped most european competitors in sectors as different as computers and telecoms and movies and soft-drinks.
Thatcher went along with it as her transparent plan was for the UK to be the trojan horse through which USA (and japanese) imports (as her plan also included wrecking UK industry to starve the labor unions of members) would flood the EU Single Market; this would lead to lots of bankruptcies in other EU countries, with mass unemployment, which would then lead to France and/or Italy to exit the EU resulting in its collapse. That plan was restarted by Blair. It turns out it rather backfired as it was the UK that exited the EU.
«There is also a strong faction within the American right — mostly made up of tech executives — which opposes EU regulatory control of American companies.»
That seems to me difficult to believe: USA tech and other executives know that EU regulators and politicians are as easy and cheap to "sponsor" as USA regulators and politicians.
«there is a genuine sense that transatlantic relations are and should remain rooted in a shared cultural and ethnic heritage which aligns mutual interests in a way which is not purely mercenary.»
I wonder which "shared cultural and ethnic heritage" exists between the USA and Japan or China-Taiwan or Korea-south or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4964236/Special-relationship-seen-joke-diplomats.html
“Barack Obama and his aides regarded the idea of a special relationship between Britain and the US as a joke, it was claimed last night. Jeremy Shapiro, a former presidential adviser, said the special relationship was ‘unrequited’ and he revealed he would insert references to ‘the Malvinas’ – Argentina’s name for the Falklands – into Press conferences. Mr Shapiro said that although US officials stressed the importance of the relationship to British visitors, they would make jokes about the Falklands away from the cameras.
He added that the so-called special relationship with Britain ‘was never really something that was very important to the United States’.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Mr Shapiro said: ‘From my perspective it was very important for us to mention the special relationship in every Press conference that we had when the UK were here. But really we laughed about it behind the scenes. Typically, I would try and slip in a reference to the Malvinas or something to spoil it.’ [...] Referring to a 2009 survey that revealed 14 out of 25 EU countries believed they had a special relationship with America, he said the relationship with Britain ‘didn’t differ dramatically from other countries’.”
«We do not want to be an American vassal state. For the first time in a hundred years, they do not want us to be either. We are learning, painfully, that independence is a burden. It costs money, and it incurs responsibilities.»
I am pleased to see that the authors are aware that independence and sovereignty are not matters of making loud proclamations while waving big flags but it is expensive. But it is not just expensive: sovereignty is a matter of power and independence is a matter of not having dependencies.
As WW1, WW2, and Suez abundantly proved the UK+EU cannot be independent: UK+EU utterly depend on critical imports of oil+gas and food from overseas, and the USA Navy utterly control all the sea routes and choke points though which all those imports must flow. The USA government have accordingly been determined to prevent the UK+EU from having second sources of oil+gas and food imports.
Technical note: actually the EU looks self-sufficient in food but that is only because of intensive industrial agriculture utterly dependent on imports of oil+gas to make fertilizer and run farm machinery.
The UK+EU also have large "fifth column"/"stay behind" constituencies that owe their careers to USA "sponsorship" and their prosperity to exports to the USA. Many if not most of the UK+EU elites also have most of their wealth invested in the the USA.
Historical note: in the case of the UK most of the funds of the UK elites were moved from the City to New York in the 1910s and 1920s as the UK elites realized they had been defeated by Germany absent USA support, and were scared of the "socialists" of the Labour Party.
The result is the ruling elites of the UK+EU do not want to be "sanctioned" or "color revolutioned" by the USA government and still want the protection of the USA from "socialism".
For the UK+EU vassalage to the USA is not an options it is a fact. What can be negotiated by the UK+EU elites is the degree of vassalage as there are some (not so wide) margins for that (for example the USA elites tolerated the Wilson government).
«(for example the USA elites tolerated the Wilson government)»
My guess is that the USA elites quite rationally consider four cases:
* Developed nations without natural resources: useful but somewhat risky (in case they ally with a natural resource rich nation) vassals over which have suzerainty (control of military, foreign, security forces) with a significant degree of domestic self-government within "guardrails" (UK, most of EU, Japan, Korea-south, China-Taiwan, ...).
* Developed nations with natural resources: actual or potential rivals to be contained, surrounded, broken up (see english empire, soviet empire, russian federation, people's republic of china, iran, etc.).
* Underdeveloped nations with natural resources: to be run in the interests of USA corporations usually through local strongmen to which is left a cut of the local natural resources profits (most OPEC countries except rebels, most central and south american countries, ...).
* Underdeveloped nations without natural resources: to be largely ignored except when they have a geographical location favorable for USA DOW+CIA bases.
Doesn't Reform have a commitment to introducing some form of Proportional Representation as one of its main policies?
«a commitment to introducing some form of Proportional Representation»
So did New Labour in 1997 then they got a big majority of seats with a mere plurality of votes and "forgot" about it.