March 1, 2025 - 8:00am
Even the most fervent Remain supporter would concede that “take back control”, that three-word motto at the heart of the Brexit campaign, was a stroke of genius. After decades of politics feeling increasingly remote for most people, it returned voters to the centre of the national story.
The phrase was a hit, but it also grew out of a certain diagnosis regarding national dysfunction. Whatever happened at the ballot box domestically, the thinking went, Britain remained essentially controlled by a continental elite. Freedom of movement meant migration could never be controlled by Westminster, while our laws were set in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights.
What if that diagnosis was correct, but the target was wrong? What if Britain was indeed becoming less sovereign — its economic life saturated by foreign interests, its cultural existence a facsimile of elsewhere — only the primary entity responsible wasn’t the other side of the Channel, but across the Atlantic?
The evidence to support such an argument is longstanding, but it makes sense to start with the Prime Minister’s Washington trip this week. While speaking to Fox News, he was pressed on Trump’s comments about the annexation of Canada — particularly relevant given King Charles is that country’s head of state. Starmer’s response was supine, as he evaded the question and doubled down on Trump being the first dignitary to receive a second invitation for a royal visit. It is remarkable that a prime minister has so little to say about an ally which sent almost 10% of its adult population to fight in the First World War. But a century of sacrifice and friendship now counts for less than finding favour with the man currently occupying the White House.
Such passivity makes sense once you understand a simple point: Britain is not a sovereign country. As the American Empire shifts from subtle to overt dominance, our genuflection is becoming similarly conspicuous. Trump’s extraordinary dressing-down of Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House yesterday is further evidence that British efforts to move his position on Ukraine are an entirely fruitless exercise.
That we are a vassal state of Washington is no longer a Left-wing talking point but an inescapable truth. US corporations have more employees in the UK than Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Sweden combined, while the largest American companies sell more than $700 billion of goods and services to the UK — more than a quarter of national GDP. A combination of Big Tech and private equity has taken this trend to new heights. In the 2000s the likes of BP, HSBC and even Vodafone would feature among the world’s largest companies. Today, by contrast, Apple is worth more than the entire FTSE 250 combined. Facebook and Google receive two-thirds of all UK spending on search and advertising. That money should be going to British broadcasters and outlets to pay for public interest journalism. Now it goes to California instead.
Then there is defence. Debates around Trident being an “independent deterrent” focus more on deterrence than independence, but both are equally important. While Britain builds its Vanguard-class submarines at home, and manufactures the nuclear warheads, the D5 missiles are leased from the Americans — and can only be serviced in Georgia. Any falling-out with Washington would obviously make that arrangement harder. Starmer’s emollience is partially because of nukes but for now, without American collaboration, Britain doesn’t have its own capability. The fact this observation even featured in last weekend’s Financial Times shows how seriously elite circles are beginning to take it.
Our armed forces are designed to operate as a junior partner to the US within Nato, but one man’s “interoperability” is another’s dependence. If the gravest threat to Britain’s national security is a European land war — something for which we are apparently unprepared — then why does the country have two aircraft carriers that barely function? The answer is that these were built with the Indo-Pacific in mind, underscoring how the Ministry of Defence’s thinking since the Cold War hasn’t focused on Europe at all.
Now the Prime Minister is looking to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. But if the United States is no longer a reliable ally, then surely it makes sense to reassess the point of Britain’s armed forces first. Spending billions more on aircraft carriers that don’t work, or being a gleeful lieutenant to an America that wants to withdraw from Europe altogether, makes little sense.
Within the EU, Britain was a leading voice among equals. Yet in its relations with the US, elite sycophancy is matched by ever greater economic and technological tutelage. Whatever happened to taking back control?
Aaron Bastani is the co-founder of Novara Media, and the author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism.
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SubscribeBritain IS America! The majority of Americans have ancestry in these islands. Their constitution, laws, politics and culture all developed out of ours. Trump, Vance, Musk have all spoken repeatedly about their British heritage. I find there is almost no difference between my British and American colleagues which is not true for the few Germans and Frenchies that I work with (nice people though they are). We are much better throwing our lot in with the USA than with the EU (which is both weak and also hostile to Britain). That, in fact, was one of the main benefits of Brexit.
Trump has given Starmer a simple choice: agree an FTA with the USA or cosy up to the EU and find yourself on the wrong side of a tariff wall. That choice will set the course for the future. Unfortunately it falls to 2TK to make it! God help us!
The notion that there are no significant differences between the national characteristics of British and American people, justified with reference to your colleagues, likely belies the rarefied kind of environment you work in more than anything else.
The growing influence of Islam in Britain and the concurrent loss of freedom is a big difference.
There are loads of people of European heritage in the USA. Loads. But I hear what you are saying.
Its about culture, American culture vs European culture.
The UK political classes tend towards the European whereas the average commonsense working man and woman knows instinctively that European culture is failing, we should hitch our ride to America whilst we build up our own militarty independent of Europe.
Britain is not America… We are much more quaint and fair, as evidenced by this week of crappy and angry US diplomacy. But UK weakness got us here, years of political folly and bad voter decisions, so it’s only ourselves to blame for our culture being overrun with Americanism rather than expanding the sense of British value and decorum. What a shame it is.
That said we should align with the USA but not because of heritage but because of rational self interest in a threatening world. I would like it to be other than that, but the USA consistently shows itself to be selfish pig headed nation so why would we treat it otherwise? Also, I don’t care if Vance is Scottish in name only, I care whether he makes reasonable decisions and policy, and isn’t a d**k towards those who put reasonable questions forward when they were clearly put into a show trial by the ones that invited them, i.e. Trump said it himself, “you see what we have to deal with, that’s why we did this and let it run so long”. Zelensky happily played his part, so hats off to him.
America is a dice we don’t want to roll with in full. They have repeatedly wrecked economies that commit to war agreements with their backing, including ours. Why on earth Starmer would commit to 100 years in Ukraine beggars belief. But I guess he’s steadfastly placating and trying to pry every dollar out of the USA for the benefit of the UK before any other nation gets there first… Something we deserve since we only just finished paying back the USA for all our suffering and efforts in WWII (and hat was a real costly war), not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan. About time we got a real investment from big brother Sam instead of stern moralistic criticisms and more tax avoiding businesses.
What “big investments” are you demanding?
I have to say as an American reading this, that sentiment is moving and inspiring, and even as an American with no anglo heritage I can also say the feeling is widely mutual.
We had two American air bases near where I grew up, so I’ve known dozens of yanks over the years.
In my opinion there is a world of difference between the outlook of the people of both countries. It may be less pronounced than the Continentals because we share a language (even if the Americans struggle to spell the words correctly) but the differences are large nonetheless.
Don’t get me wrong I liked the yanks, they were all pleasant and (overly at times) friendly, but they saw the world and politics in a different way to most Brits, which isn’t surprising as their upbringing was completely different to ours
Never heard that Musk is of British heritage.. he is South African.
You are right Aaron, in the sense that despite being a Sovereign nation we are all interdependent, being Sovereign means you have a choice.
Starmer was stitched up by Trump, the inference was surely, you go our way or its 25% tariffs.
The EU is now being dumped by the US, so they too are about to learn what Sovereignty is all about.
The UK should go the US route, giving us an opportunity to re-build our military, which the left have opposed forever.
The question is are British subjects materially better off going alone, going with the EU or being controlled by the USA? This changes every four years. I would say the young are infinitely happier with global ideas and international mindsets. Culture is mostly a globalist mix now. Economically we have brilliant people dragged back by the work shy leftist nutters. I’d love to see some truly raw competitive capitalism to drag people out if their socialism slumber.
If this was the mid 70s, disengaging from the US to ‘take back control’ might have been possible (with very considerable pain). And in such a counterfactual the UK would simply have coupled completely onto the EEC/EU, given the useless political class we have had, so no ‘control’ after all. But the truth is, the UK cannot disengage from the US at this point. The problem is the extent to which the US owns corporate UK, and the extent of UK investment sunk into corporate America. A disengagement would entail preventing the US from buying UK assets as and when necessary, and that would trigger a tailspin of retailatory actions where the US remains pretty much unaffected, but ten million UK pensions would burn, plunging vast numbers into penury.
A better bet would be, we apply to become the 51st state – after all US FDI into Canada of around 450 billion is dwarfed by US FDI into the UK of 700 billion, so us rather than Canada makes more sense. Note, these numbers don’t touch the sides of US corporate wealth – the valuations of any of the tech giants runs into the trillions.
And the biggest advantage of my proposal? The UK political class class can then carry on exactly as they currently do as though nothing had happened by joining into the appropriate political grouping in the US – and there are equivalents of what’s here, and more in the US. Aaron for example, could join the ‘quad’ (at which point they would of course become the ‘quint’), and he would find he fits in like a Lego brick on opinions about geopolitics and economics.
So, the UK becomes Airstrip One. Along with the recent leaning towards prosecuting Thoughtcrime, Orwell’s vision becomes less of a fantasy all the time.
I think you mean nightmare, but there is a certain inevitability about all of what’s happening. Simple geography and demographics really.
The only thing that matters from my perspective is that we now have a US willing to strengthen itself to meet the geopolitical requirements of the 21st century, given the opposing factions in the east – or more likely from its perspective, to the west of the US.
The UK has both the advantage of being an island and to the far west of the European landmass. We’re also absolutely better off following Brexit rather than being tied to a failing European project. What we now need is leaders to come forward who are capable of using these natural advantages to secure our future, as far as that’s possible.
In his meeting with Trump, Starmer came over as a craven, unctuous, oleaginous, fawning toady! Supremely embarrassing! And the number of times he pawed Trump almost induced a conversation with the Big White Telephone! Aaargh! Sir Keir Smarmer indeed!
The author is correct: Our Esteemed Knight of the Realm must either commit to an FTA with the USA or sink Britain in the swamp of EU over-regulation, unaccountable spending and corruption.
On Wednesday, a court in London ruled that a boy born there was safer in Ghana than he would be in Britain. With the death of 18-year-old James Wilton from Huddersfield as part of Ukraine’s International Legion, in which he had been fighting alongside the likes of Denis Kapustin’s Russian Volunteer Corps and Der Dritte Weg‘s German Volunteer Corps, that sounds perfectly reasonable.
The time necessary to arrange Donald Trump’s State Visit might be used to cool him down over Canada, but if anyone were determined not to attend, most obviously, the Banquet, then the chance should be offered to someone from each of the other parties that had won seats at the last General Election, in the order that they had done so, and then to each of the parties that had failed to win any seats, in order of votes cast. One party that returned no MPs won more votes than any of six that did, and meeting its Leader would give President Trump a much more favourable impression of Britain than he would gain from any member of either frontbench, never mind from Ed Davey.
Donald Trump’s dream of annexing Canada is just as ludicrous as his now-abandoned dream of a Gaza Plaza. Pipe dreams that Keir Starmer would have been foolish to even mention.
Don’t greatly care for Twotier-Freegear, but unfair. There is no point in being obnoxious to Trump until we are in a much stronger position to do so. Until then, being congenial makes much more sense than proving a point by being rude….
I really dislike that Britain is an American dependency and has been for several decades. The EU was no alternative to American Empire, as the EU wouldn’t have existed without the American Empire. There is some humour to be had seeing the cognitive dissonance of those politicians who acquiesced and collaborated in our subordination to Washington now running around like headless chickens with Trump in office.
Indeed. To a certain type of British person, America was great when it was led by a man who told Britain to get to the back of the queue.
The target wasn’t wrong. The relationship between Europe and the US is of a different character and the dependency problem is the result of Stockholm Syndrome after eighty years. Why was it not ended after 1991?
So you want to go back to giving tongue baths to Brussels?
So communist Bastani is giving lectures on uk being subservient to USA.
He would had no problem with Britain being colony of China or Russia.
His idea of money going to Google etc being somehow diverted to lefty woke commie media like BBC or his outfit Navarra is just laughable.
Money is spent with Google because it works.
The same goes for his pathetic complain about value of USA businesses.
Whose fault is it that EU and uk socialist business model doesn’t innovate unlike USA?
The only thing Europe is good in is overregulation of technologies its has no understanding of like AI.
So yes, being subsidiary of USA is definitely preferable to being subsidiary of sclerotic EU.
This author is unsure of what point he is making. I, the reader, am unsure what to make of this article.
Test
Reality is UK cannot disengage from either US or EU. To suggest it can is infantilism. Almost half our trade is done with Europe. Our culture, History and Defence entwined with US. Either would take decades to fully fracture.
Personally I find many Europeans much closer to us in values and outlook than we often imagine. Our insularity on Language can make us think otherwise.
So our Governments have to tread cautiously between both. That won’t change. Trump has upped the stakes and may well push us more towards Europe for a period because of the desire Europe takes on more of it’s own Defence responsibility. That requires closer coordination. It is thus just one of the contradictions Trump generates you wonder if he’s entirely thought through. But eventually US will re-grasp it needs Allies too to fend off a Russia-China axis, which Trump is in the process of revitalising (and let’s hope that’s just accidental rather than something more malign).
Depends on which Europeans. We are close to Germany in our attitudes.
Trump is hoping to line Russia up against the Chinese. He is unlikely to succeed. He will find out the hard way.
On its own terms, the article seems right until this point: “Within the EU, Britain was a leading voice among equals”
For us to Take Back Control, Brexit was necessary but not sufficient.
Had British politicians been committed to pursuing the interests of the British public, they would have been stymied by cooperation among continental politicians. You don’t meaningfully have a “leading voice” if nobody follows your lead.
Increased use of Qualified Majority Vote, in place of national veto, would have made the situation impossible.
The truth is that British politicians pursued elite interests, just like their continental counterparts.
British politicians and civil servants indeed had influence in the EU, but at no point did this influence promote “Brtitain’s interests”. *Britain* was never a leading voice among equals.
As an international socialist, Bastani understands the reality of elite power, but he chooses not to highlight it when discussing the EU. British national interests aren’t a priority for people seeking “Fully Automated Luxury Communism”. But he’s right that we’re an American vassal.
For a better take on the theme of this article, read Sean Gabb: “Neither Brussels Nor Washington: Arguments for a British Foreign Policy”.