Posted 8:09 AM by Paul
51st State - Let's Join the Union and Stop Pretending

So, what's the point. If the UN passes a second resolution by a slim majority - Bush will invade. If Saddam relents and allows Hans Blix to search his underpants for anthrax - Bush will invade. It the UN does not pass a second resolution - Bush will invade. If the Iraqi parliament adopts the US Constitution - Bush will invade. If the French, the Russians and the Chinese use the veto - Bush will invade.

It is a done deal. However, over here in the UK we are still going through this pantomine that we can somehow influence the result.

One of the saddest things about the debate in the UK Parliament yesterday was the belief by most MPs that in some way the opinion of the UK Government mattered. Personally, I would like to think that the UK had influence in Washington - but it doesn't. We should wake up to the fact and stop the pretence. Lets look at the recent evidence.

Blair complained about the punitive tarrifs that Bush placed on imported steel. The tarrifs are still in place and UK workers are facing the sack. Jack Straw asked the State of Texas to commute the death sentence of a British citizen to life in prisonment without parole. The prisoner was strapped to the table and executed by lethal injection. Blair pleaded for the USA to fall into line on greenhouse gas emissions as laid down in the Kyoto Agreement. Bush loosened anti-pollution laws in the USA. Now of course you may well applaud the stance that the US adminstration has taken on these issues. It could be argued that they were in the best interests of the average Joe in the USA. My point is that the view of the UK Government is irrelevant when the boys in the West Wing are playing hard ball.

The only person who summed up the Realpolitik in the parliamentray debate about Iraq was an MP called Peter Kilfoyle. He is a chainsmoking bruiser from Liverpool who has spent most of his adult life expelling Trotskists and other far leftists from the Labour Party. Call him a Pinko and he would probably break your nose. He is on the right of the Labour Party but against Blair's policy of total compliance with the White House demands that we disarm our critical faculties. Kilfoyle just stood up and laid it on the line. "The decision will not be made in the Foreign Office or in No. 10 Downing Street because the decision has already been made in the White House." At last, a man who tells it like it is.

So, what's the alternative? Given that many people in the UK have a pathological fear of being subsumed into a Great Europe,
( jealousy of German efficency and superior French cuisine perhaps?) maybe we should allow ourselves to be subsumed into a Greater America. We could submit an application to join the Union after Puerto Rico. There is no strict geographical imperative to the USA. London is nearer Washington than Honolulu. We might have more influence as a State of the Union than a state of compliance. We could at least get votes in the Electoral College. At present we are a dependency whose role seems to limited to replying "How high?", when George asks us to jump. Even Mexico is displaying more independence than the UK. Perhaps Vincente Fox knows something about Bush that Tony Blair does not.

Which brings me to my final point. The French are smart and will come out of all this with more influence in the USA than the UK .
The simple reason is that they have leverage because they have already impacted on US geo-political planning. If I were on Bush's team I would advise against making any concessions to the UK. What's the point? The Brits are a free lunch. They never say no. Better to save any money, aid or favours you have stashed in the bank for countries that might need some cojoling. Like France or Turkey.

P.S Don't believe the anti-Disney reviews. Treasure Planet is not a complete turkey. I took the kids and they loved it. Bizarrely for an American film one of the heroic characters even had an English accent.