The definitive text on this question, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens, shows how the alleged special relationship is deeply one-sided. Now more than ever.
«“Churchill was reduced to a subordinate position in the Grand Alliance as early the Teheran Conference in 1943, when he "realised for the first time what a very small country this is". By Yalta in February 1945, he was "weaker than ever before" [...] for Great Britain as a bantam in a heavyweight league, for the Anglo-American alliance as an expedient relationship premised on subordination...”»
Tony Benn, 1965: «Defence, colour television, Concorde, rocket development - these are all issues raising economic considerations that reveal this country's basic inability to stay in the big league. We just can’t afford it. The real choice is — do we go in with Europe or do we become an American satellite? Without a conscious decision being taken the latter course is being followed everywhere.»
JM Keynes: «The financial history of the six months from the end of the summer of 1916 up to the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, remains to be written. Very few persons, outside the half-dozen officials of the British Treasury who lived in daily contact with the immense anxieties and impossible financial requirements of those days, can fully realize what stead-fastness and courage were needed, and how entirely hopeless the task would soon have become without the assistance of the United States Treasury.»
Andrew Marr: «Nonetheless, John Maynard Keynes, the chief economic advisor to the new Labour Government, warned ministers in August 1945 that Britain's world role was a burden which '... there is no reasonable expectation of our being able to carry [...] ' As he pointed out, the entire British war effort, including all her overseas military commitments, had only been made possible by American subsidies under the Lend-Lease programme.»
Sovereignty is not loud proclamations next to a huge flag, it is about power, and independence is about not being dependent. The Suez 1956 episode removed any delusions the UK ruling class had.
«The French drew the clearest lessons. Suez showed that they could never rely on perfide Albion. Britain, then Europe's strongest power, would, it seemed, always put its “special” relationship with America above its European interests. And the Americans, to the French, were both unreliable and annoyingly superior. [...] The major lesson of Suez for the British was that the country would never be able to act independently of America again. Unlike the French, who have sought to lead Europe, most British politicians have been content to play second fiddle to America.»
The definitive text on this question, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens, shows how the alleged special relationship is deeply one-sided. Now more than ever.
«What led a statesman motivated by Empire to surrender global hegemony to the United States»
Weakness:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667997/How-victory-spelt-the-end-of-empire.html
«“Churchill was reduced to a subordinate position in the Grand Alliance as early the Teheran Conference in 1943, when he "realised for the first time what a very small country this is". By Yalta in February 1945, he was "weaker than ever before" [...] for Great Britain as a bantam in a heavyweight league, for the Anglo-American alliance as an expedient relationship premised on subordination...”»
Tony Benn, 1965: «Defence, colour television, Concorde, rocket development - these are all issues raising economic considerations that reveal this country's basic inability to stay in the big league. We just can’t afford it. The real choice is — do we go in with Europe or do we become an American satellite? Without a conscious decision being taken the latter course is being followed everywhere.»
JM Keynes: «The financial history of the six months from the end of the summer of 1916 up to the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, remains to be written. Very few persons, outside the half-dozen officials of the British Treasury who lived in daily contact with the immense anxieties and impossible financial requirements of those days, can fully realize what stead-fastness and courage were needed, and how entirely hopeless the task would soon have become without the assistance of the United States Treasury.»
Andrew Marr: «Nonetheless, John Maynard Keynes, the chief economic advisor to the new Labour Government, warned ministers in August 1945 that Britain's world role was a burden which '... there is no reasonable expectation of our being able to carry [...] ' As he pointed out, the entire British war effort, including all her overseas military commitments, had only been made possible by American subsidies under the Lend-Lease programme.»
Sovereignty is not loud proclamations next to a huge flag, it is about power, and independence is about not being dependent. The Suez 1956 episode removed any delusions the UK ruling class had.
https://www.economist.com/node/7218678.
«The French drew the clearest lessons. Suez showed that they could never rely on perfide Albion. Britain, then Europe's strongest power, would, it seemed, always put its “special” relationship with America above its European interests. And the Americans, to the French, were both unreliable and annoyingly superior. [...] The major lesson of Suez for the British was that the country would never be able to act independently of America again. Unlike the French, who have sought to lead Europe, most British politicians have been content to play second fiddle to America.»
Sad soul