Be a bulldog, not a lapdog
Never has a photo captured the US-UK Special Relationship so well. The President literally leading the Prime Minister up the garden path.
All PMs think they can influence the President. May told reporters Trump backs NATO “100 per cent”. He kept quiet and smiled.
Trump’s got a woman problem. Two million to be precise, who marched on the White House and around the world against his misogyny.
Theresa was the photocall he needed. And May was happy to help.
She flew into a divided country with a president building a wall with Mexico, demanding the Mexicans pay for it, banning refugees fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq and giving the approval for torture.
May thinks she can get a good trade deal from a man who in his inauguration speech said he wants to “buy American, hire American” and whose first act was to pull out of a free trade deal with Pacific countries.
The man is a hard-nosed business negotiator. May is desperate to get any deal so she can secure a better divorce from the EU.
As Jeremy Corbyn pointed out, US healthcare companies have lobbied for years to get greater access to our NHS. She has refused to say a new trade deal wouldn’t allow them greater access to privatise our NHS.
In 1997 I discussed the special relationship with Tony Blair.
Every Prime Minister, whether Tory or Labour, has to define that special relationship.
Harold Wilson stood up to President Lyndon B Johnson, who tried to pull Britain into Vietnam. Harold deftly resisted all calls but ended up giving Johnson the Chagos Islands and expelled more than a thousand of its citizens for a cheaper deal on nuclear weapons!
May is trying to copy the Thatcher/Reagan relationship. But Reagan didn’t help Britain in the Falklands War, then invaded the British overseas territory of Grenada without telling Thatcher or the Queen. Yet again, America First, Britain Last. Don’t get me wrong, we must work with America. When I was Deputy Prime Minister I worked closely with Vice President Al Gore on the successful Kyoto Climate Change agreement. Tony and Bill Clinton were kindred spirits.
But Blair’s term in office was defined by his relationship with Clinton’s successor – George W Bush.
After 9/11 and Afghanistan, Tony felt he could influence the president in his demand for a UN security resolution before invading Iraq.
He was wrong. Because just as Trump is doing, US presidents always put America first, hoping Britain will support them due to that special relationship.
May had a cheek to say in her US speech there would be no more foreign interventions like the Iraq War, when she consistently voted for it. But she’s tying us to a president who wants a new set of wars.
Trade wars with Mexico and the rest of the world. A war against global climate change legislation and what could turn into a hot war with China.
May has said the rise of China and the Asian economies could cause the “eclipse of the West”. So now we’re siding with America against the Chinese, who were asked to fund HS2 and are paying to build our next generation of nuclear power stations.
May reviewed that nuclear deal when becoming PM, which infuriated the Chinese, who are also leading the world on combatting climate change and keen to do more trade with us.
And she’s bullying Europe to give her a trade deal, threatening to turn us into a tax haven if they don’t. That’ll leave us with even less money to fund an NHS, social care and education system in crisis.
Why is she risking the three million British jobs, 200,000 British businesses and the quarter of a trillion pounds worth of trade we do each year linked with our free trade with the EU?
If May believes in a global Britain, why is she putting her eggs in one basket with Trump? It’s far better to concentrate on keeping our special relationships with our trading partners in Europe and China than binding ourselves to America.
May mentioned Reagan five times in her speech to Republican politicians. But he was a president who helped to bring down a wall in Berlin, not build one in Mexico.
May has secured her special relationship. Trump is the boss, May an eager-to-please apprentice. That will be their special relationship. And Britain will be the worse for it.