If ever evidence was required to demonstrate in glorious technicolour just how subservient Britain is becoming to the United States – one only has to read some of the cables released by WikiLeaks in February this year.
Some of the cables show David Cameron’s government were offering themselves up in a shameful display of lap dog politics, which is as embarrassing as it gets and is cringeworthy to read for anyone who considers themselves British with some self-respect.
The extensive WikiLeaks document releases provide important insights into UK foreign policy under the Conservatives before the 2010 election. This information gives us a real sense of who was subsequently leading the nation after the Tory election win (coalition) and what their frame of mind was concerning Europe. The cables conversely provide US views of the former Tory leader David Cameron, whose prime ministerial term is widely regarded as disastrous both by many Conservatives, opposition politicians and many governments around the world.
The WikiLeaks’ releases are all valuable in highlighting information not otherwise revealed in the British media as they simply do not report such matters (links below).
Three examples are particularly worthy of note.
A lapdog to the USA
The WikiLeaks releases shed details on Conservative leaders’ relationship with Washington. A 2008 cable, for example, shows then shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague telling the US embassy that – “we want a pro-American regime. We need it. The world needs it.”
The US official noted: “Hague said whoever enters 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister soon learns of the essential nature of the relationship with America”.
Hague also said that he and Tory leader David Cameron were “children of Thatcher” and “staunch Atlanticists” – meaning neoliberal capitalism being their driving economic ideology and that they were more loyal to America than to Europe. This is an important insight. It hints at the Conservative leaderships’ desire to break with the European Union.
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In the words of the US embassy, Hague added that he: “has a sister who is American, spends his own vacations in America, and, like many similar to him, considers America the ‘other country to turn to’”.
Similar assurances were made by Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary who in 2009 met the US ambassador, telling him not only of his “desire to work closely with the U.S. if the Conservative Party wins power in next year’s general election” but also that “we (Conservatives) intend to follow a much more pro-American profile in procurement”.
This is an important admission. Liam Fox founded a so-called think tank (that was struck off as a charity in Britain and subsequently closed) called Atlantic Bridge. Connections with the far-right Tea Party and Republican party alongside other opaque think tanks created the environment of a scandal that eventually blew up in the faces of some of the most senior Tories.
George Osborne, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and William Hague were all on its advisory council alongside Fox, its UK chairman. All four stood down as awkward questions over its political activities, which contravened charity laws, resulted in the organisation being forced by British authorities to wind up.
Liam Fox is so pro-American in outlook, one could be forgiven for thinking he is not British at all. In one speech he even said (bearing in mind he was shadow defence secretary and took that role in government) – “For too many, peace has come to mean simply the absence of war. We cannot allow that corrosive view to go unchallenged.”
Fox also used the think tank to attack the NHS in front of American pro-insurance/privatisation fanatics and promoted the view that regulation and legislation were damaging wealth creation. Just from these comments alone, you can see why a government such as David Cameron’s would want to leave the EU and do a trade deal with their very best friends. You can also see why Liam Fox, himself sacked in disgrace for breaching national security in another scandal, ended up being the trade deal tsar in a post-Brexit world under the Tories. As it turned out, Fox resigned knowing that he had dramatically failed in his role to replace the EU deal with deals outside of the union. At present – it is estimated that after three years of negotiating trade deals internationally only 15% has been replaced from the current trade deal Britain currently had with the EU.
