Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd : May and the New Imperialism by Bernard Porter

Bernard Porters analysis lacks a vital ingredient: the role of the Commonwealth in the unfolding dispensation.

Lets face it: Since the Blair/ Bush partnership which he cited its been the British political tail wagging the American imperialistic dog.  

Tony Blair knew he had no business going to war with Iraq but would not watch America being disgraced by Iraq under the watch of the non-political savvy double-ya.

I suspect the non-adequately-prepared-for victory Trump realising his opponents are eagerly baying for his blood at home has no alternative but call on the continental alliance for rescue and giudance which Theresa May and the army of technocrats at Westminster will surely not deny him

Firstly Trumps Scottish connection will hopefully help douse the fire of a second imminent Scottish refferendum with fresh deals of needed American trade assistanceship and goodwill.

Second the stand- off with China will also be successfully mediated by British expert diplomacy with a Commonwealth ally.

And finally the new alliance will inaugurate not a British- Anerican Empire but a truly British- American Commonwealth midwifed by the British in mutual interests.

Overall as earlier indicated it will be again the British tail wagging the American dog underscoring the fact that its not always the case that size is everything. (Remember Brexit produced Trump through Nigel Farage more than any other singular factor).

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>

Date: 27/01/2017 10:36 (GMT+00:00)

To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd : May and the New Imperialism by Bernard Porter

May and the New Imperialism by bernardporter2013

At the end of the nineteenth century many far-seeing British imperialists, realizing that the Empire couldn’t survive in its present form for very much longer, placed their hopes in what they called a new ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Empire to succeed it, ruled now by Britain and America, with the USA taking the lead. This for example was one of Cecil Rhodes’s fond wishes, and why many of his ‘Rhodes Scholarships’ (to Oxford) were reserved for Americans. It’s also the idea lying behind Kipling’s ‘Take up the White Man’s Burden,’ which was directed to an American President, urging him to join in Britain’s great imperial enterprise.

During the twentieth century several efforts were made to implement this plan in one way or another, some of them through a secret society which later became the ‘Round Table’ group. There are some American conspiracy theorists who believe that the group did in fact covertly dominate Anglo-American foreign policy for much of the last century, in particular America’s entry into World War II. This general idea may also have lain behind successive British governments’ rather fawning emphasis on their so-called ‘special relationship’ with America, especially under Churchill-Roosevelt, Macmillan-Kennedy, Thatcher-Reagan, and Blair-Bush.

Watching Theresa May’s speech to US Republicans in Philadelphia, however, I was struck by the overtly imperialist tone to it, which I don’t remember from previous ‘special relationship’ utterances; despite her disavowal of direct overseas interventionism. It consisted in her references to Britain’s ‘great’ global history, and her appeal to Britain and the USA to give the world leadership together: which for me has an imperial ring to it. This may be the beginning of a new – third? fourth? fifth? – stage of British imperial history, with Britain sneaking back under America’s skirts. I’m embarrassed by this, as a Leftie and also as an imperial historian. But it will have been a tonic to those old-school (and even new-school: Niall Ferguson?) British imperialists who still, remarkably, cling on to their illusions from the past.

But it was clearly done mainly to pander to President Trump, in order to get the bi-lateral trade agreement between them that May needs so desperately, after Britain’s likely loss of the single European market. Which is an alarming prospect; if only because Trump will demand, in the interests of ‘America First’, all kinds of concessions - like Britain’s opening up her market to genetically modified crops, America health care companies and the like - which Britain on her own will find it difficult to swallow, but will probably have to. This was my major reason for voting ‘Remain’ in the EU Referendum: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/05/22/why-not-a-referendum-on-ttip/; my belief that Europe together was more likely to be able to resist this kind of thing – TTIP, for example, which the EU has resisted - than a solitary off-shore island beholden to America could.

bernardporter2013 | January 26, 2017 at 11:43 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p49fOM-12p

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