No country has become more of a US vassal than the UK. This evolution is exposed in an eye-opening book, Vassal State: How America Runs Britain. Donald Trump’s impending inauguration, accompanied by threats of tariffs and the downgrading of its commitment to Nato unless its client states bend even more to its will, has shaken western capitals. But, as author Angus Hanton carefully documents, this is not something new; the US has been putting America first for decades. Trump is only turning up the dial on a longstanding phenomenon. Changing this demands more than appointing the sinuous Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to the US: it is about recognising the extent of what is happening, then fighting fire with fire. It is time to put Britain first.
Hanton writes that 25% of British GDP is made up of sales of 1,256 US multinationals operating in Britain.
I mean I’m willing to be persuaded, yes. Could be, I guess, that 25% of value add in the UK is owned by Americans.
But I sorta doubt it. I have a feeling that what’s been done there is to add up turnover and then compare that to GDP. Which isn’t – really, no – how it’s done. Of course it’ll be enough to fool Willy Hutton but not actually true.
Amen to all of that, but the omens are not great. Nigel Farage portrays himself as a kind of national saviour, instead of being called out as a de facto US quisling backed by a largely fifth-column media intent on intensifying our vassalage.
D’ye think Willy might have been forthing at the mouth as he wrote that?
a de facto US quisling backed by a largely fifth-column media intent on intensifying our vassalage.
Replace US with EU and the word quisling perfectly sums up 80-90% of politicians and 99.9% of civil servants over the past quarter century. Is it any wonder that voters appear (Willy certainly thinks they are) to be flocking toward Reform?
He’s certainly correct about the fifth column media which is why the flying monkeys of OFCOM are constantly rewriting the rule book TTK-style in order to destroy GB News.
Not “forthing at the mouth” but carried away by the season of indulgence perhaps? The notion of “a largely fifth-column media intent on intensifying our vassalage” is a little quaint given that the traditional UK media display the passivity of the graveyard.
To be fair, politicians in the UK can be divided between the European internationalists and the Atlanticists. Nigel Farage was only bothered about the UK losing sovereignty to the EU and not the USA. Nigel’s brown nosing of Trump is testament to this.
However, the biggest test of how nationalistic the USA has become will come in about five years time when the remaining baby boomers and the older gen x start to retire. 40% of the US stock market is non-US money and when those two groups retire, then there will be a sale of assets so their retirement can be funded. It will be the US stock market that will take the biggest hit. And that hit will only get worse once the rest of gen x retires (10-15 years from now). Welcome to the aging global population. Gen Y, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are simply not big enough nor rich enough to inject enough money into the stock market to compensate for the money that will flow out.
I would not put it past America to react to this by using currency controls to stop the money leaving the US stock market and America.
If it were true (which it isn’t) then the UK should be licking up to Trump like crazy for fear of a catastrophic collapse in govt finances, not appointing those that insulted him.
“…the US has been putting America first for decades.”
Why shouldn’t they? This is what all of our politicians should be doing, putting the interests of those that they are elected to represent first. That doesn’t have to rule out co operating with other states to mutual advantage but our interests should always be at the forefront.
The true frothing in the mouth will come as election victory for Reform looks likely.
‘We’ sell ‘our’ companies???? I’ve set up and run my company, it’s mine, and I’ll sell it to whoever I want, whenever I want. Will Hutton can go fuck himself if he thinks it’s up to him if I want to sell *my* company.
Maybe fifthing and sixthing.
The last leading British politician who was agin’ both the Common Market (as it was then called) and the US was Enoch Powell.
It’s strange that the Graun has been putting the Graun first for the last 103 years, when progressive newspapers like the Times puts the Daily Mirror first…
Nobody in favour of bending over and dropping our pants for the byzantine Brussels imperium has any right to throw words like “vassalage” around.
Having plucked up the courage and suppressed the alimentary canal I glimpsed the article and I do wonder what the Graun and the BBC’s response to Nigel renaming Reform to “Britain First”?
In fairness, the government’s planned industrial strategy does offer a possible path to better.
Bags me Minister For Tractor Production, Comrades!
Just read the article.
The UK stock market has seen the number of listings drop a lot since the 1990s. This has happened to other stock markets too but the UK has been hit the hardest. This is down to the rise of private equity and venture capital. New companies are more likely to raise money privately rather than go for a listing. Even when they do list, they prefer to list in New York and not London. It is true that if a British company lists in New York then it will become an American company in the long term.
We could solve this through better, more streamlined regulation and through tax incentives to encourage more money into the UK stock market (reverse Gordon brown’s pension tax raid?). This is not likely to happen. What is more likely is the Labour government changing the pension and ISA rules so that UK savers have to put a certain percentage into the UK stock market. The more people complain about the state of the Uk stock markets, the more likely labour will do something.
Oddly enough, I suspect it would work to Labour’s benefit. If they force the UK pensions funds and ISA savers to inject money into the UK stock market, then it would go up, with increases to the FTSE 100 and 250 indexes. Come election time, Labour would be able to point to those increases as evidence of their “good” management of the economy.
Complete the following sentence:
“In fairness, the government’s planned industrial strategy does offer a possible path to …”
Caracas?
“Gen Y, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are simply not big enough nor rich enough to inject enough money into the stock market to compensate for the money that will flow out.”
Millennials and younger are set for a generational cash windfall from older cohorts plus there’s a lot of foreigners getting richer who will want to invest in the world’s biggest stock market. I wouldn’t short the S&P 500 just yet.
“In fairness, the government’s planned industrial strategy does offer a possible path to……”
The thirteenth century.
Replace possible with damn-near certain.
I also question the word “planned” as that would infer a modicum of joined-up thinking which would be well beyond Rachel from complaints.
@Marius
The younger generations will only inherit if the older ones do not spend it. With the cost of health care and care homes going up, there might not be enough to make a difference. That said, it will mean that there will be money in businesses that look after old people. It is a tough thing to predict as some old people will try and get ahead of inheritance taxes by giving assets away. The only thin we can be confident in is that people get old and retire.
As for the middle income countries getting richer – true but those countries are aging as well. That leaves the poor countries. From a birth rate point of view, they are better (though some of those countries are now below replacement rate), but they would need to get richer fast in order to replace the money that will start to leave.
There are things American companies can do to mitigate this. One thing they can do is to start to pay dividends. Older companies already do this but the trendy fast growth tech companies do not like to pay dividends as they want to concentrate on growth. I think they will have to change their minds on this in order to keep money invested. Retired people want income so if you become an income stock, then there is a reason for old people to keep hold of your companies shares.
My main worry is that if the S&P 500 stops rising ever higher and starts to resemble indexes like the FTSE 100 or the Nikkei (i.e rising and falling between support and resistance) then America will become childish and petulant and try and do something nasty.
@ Jim
The thirteenth century is where a lot of our cousin marrying, goat herding immigrants are currently in terms of society so it’ll work well for them.
Goodbye to our significant presence in the space sector, as Inmarsat was bought by California’s Viasat, and Britain is downgraded from a potential tier-one to tier-three space power.
Oh no, not Inmarsat. We need to operate a small and marginally profitable legacy satellite communication service in order to be a “tier one space power”.
Whatever that is.
Tax departments of US multinationals are regarded as profit centres, using every avenue available – selling into the UK from low-tax Ireland
The bastards are selling to us from the EU! Get them!
We have many of the necessary assets, ranging from great universities to huge pools of risk capital
Hopefully the risk capital is real.
A progressive, rich donor – Dale Vince? Gary Lubner? Clive Cowdery? – should make sure every MP and peer is sent a copy of Vassal State.
Money well spent.
“Goodbye to our significant presence in the space sector, as Inmarsat was bought by California’s Viasat, and Britain is downgraded from a potential tier-one to tier-three space power.”
The UK? Space Power?!! Oh gods… my sides… they hurt…
This is hilarious stuff. A good example of why we’re in such a mess.
“… unless its client states bend even more to its will …”
By spending more than 25p a year on their own defence. The German army might even have to buy some guns.
“Tax departments of US multinationals are regarded as profit centres”
They want to make profits? The bastards!
“… selling into the UK from low-tax Ireland”
Which we should have copied the second we were out of the EU.
“A progressive, rich donor – Dale Vince? Gary Lubner? Clive Cowdery? – should make sure every MP and peer is sent a copy of Vassal State.”
Which they can burn to keep warm when Mad Millibands policies come to fruition.
Not just Labour. Johnson spunked 400 million on a UK satellite company which is now worth 100 million. At the time SpaceX was worth $500 billion, now it’s near a trillion.
But, as author Angus Hanton carefully documents, this is not something new; the US has been putting America first for decades. Trump is only turning up the dial on a longstanding phenomenon.
I don’t suppose Angus gives us an example of a democratic country who’s leader don’t put their own country first?
That Trump is making squeeky noises about defense spending is not evidence that the UK is a ‘vassal’. The UK, along with most of the rest of NATO, has not been meeting its contractual obligations – so the US is now crying about it. That’s it.
If that is scary to the UK – well, its scary *because* the UK hasn’t been spending much on defense, has been dependent on the US to do the bulk of the heavy work, and thus *has put themselves* in this position. To get out of it, all the UK needs to do is become reasonably defense-independent.
Beyond that, what does the US do to interfere in British politics (compared to what they are doing to interfere in ours;) or British domestic and foreign policy?
Let’s say that the UK is a US vassal – seems to me that that vassalage would be a lot more bearable than when they were an EU vassal and a lot easier to leave that status when they choose to do so.
The UK may not have been spending much on its own defence but since 2022 it has given Ukraine nearly £8bn in military assistance.
To put that figure into context it’s equivalent to the cost of maintaining the winter fuel payment for the next five years.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/
Leftist ‘thinkers’ across the UK media: “It’s outrageous that a foreign billionaire is trying to buy political influence over us.”
“What about Soros, then?”
[crickets]
Justin Trudeau.
Every German Chancellor since (at least) Kohl.
The true frothing in the mouth will come as election victory for Reform looks likely.
An election victory for Reform will never look likely, though it is possible. The reasons are:
1. To win outright, Farage would need to double the party’s vote share and see both Labour and Tory support collapse. Reform now lies in second place in 98 constituencies, 89 of which have a Labour MP. The Tories, meanwhile, are in second place in 292 seats, 218 of which have a Labour MP.
2. Reform are probably peaking too early in the electoral cycle. Once they reach their ceiling (see [3] below), they will stall. And, like most insurgent parties, party discipline may decline, factions emerge, policy differences amplify…
3. The electoral market for a party that is socially conservative but left-of-centre economically is limited to a maximum of c.30%. The electoral market for a party that is socially conservative but Thatcherite economically is even more limited.
Meanwhile, “a week is a long time in politics”…
Every German Chancellor since (at least) Kohl.
Germany always acts in its own national interest, as its elites perceive it at the time. By contrast, UK elites, carrying a self-imposed imperial guilt, often act against the national interest quite deliberately in order to virtue-signal.
To get out of it, all the UK needs to do is become reasonably defense-independent.
Tough to do when the military is bleeding soldiers at an alarming rate and nobody wants to sign up to fight for TTK or Ol’ Jug Ears the Woke.
Luckily we’ve been importing loads of military age simple men who are keen to fight for our way of life…
Simple?
Freudian typo.
Single
I’ve been enjoying Trumps trolling of Trudeau let’s hope he keeps up with it through the imminent election. Canada is becoming an expert in putting the country last.
A lame duck PM and party trying their best to delay an election and deal with an incoming Trump presidency from a position of weakness isn’t putting the country first.
MSM (who hate conservatives as they are campaigning on removing media subsidies) has even suggested that should Trudeau resign his party could seek to prorogue Parliament while they have a leadership contest pushing an election out even further, seems like someone trying to gauge public opinion.
Then there’s an opposition party leader who’s party has been propping up Trudeau but now says they won’t in the new year, which coincidentally means said leader will reach the February date for a guaranteed pension kicking in, pure coincidence of course
Chris Miller has it- and the likes of Hutton would be more than happy with vassalage to the EU or WEF as they would be the ones in control.
“But, as author Angus Hanton carefully documents, this is not something new; the US has been putting America first for decades.”
Why the fuck would the US not do this?
The USA support for other places was entirely about enlightened self-interest. They saw defending Europe as being in their interest. Having allies, having trading partners. But the world has changed. You had the former chancellor of Germany on the board of a Russian energy company. What does that say about the state of NATO?
WB – You had the former chancellor of Germany on the board of a Russian energy company. What does that say about the state of NATO?
That it should have been disbanded in 1991.
Instead of trying to regime change Russia, we should have seized the historic opportunity to integrate Russia into the Western sphere of trade. Combine Russian resources and Western European manufacturing, technology and finance and who needs China? Russia would have been, in the words of a 20th century German leader, “our India”.
The Germans were trying to do the sensible thing, oddly enough. Russia has always been a strategic problem for Germany, and war didn’t yield the desired results. Making Russia and Germany besties in the pursuit of profitable business was the way to go. But Western foreign policy has a zero sum mentality. Or rather, decided from 1999 onwards that the United States government no longer needed to even pretend to respect the sovereignty of other countries.
“Making Russia and Germany besties in the pursuit of profitable business was the way to go. But Western foreign policy has a zero sum mentality.”
Umm, well, the Russkies get a voice in all of that. And, from personal experience, being cuddly with Germans wasn’t going to be part of it.
Steve
…we should have seized the historic opportunity to integrate Russia into the Western sphere of trade.
That is incredibly naive. Russia has very different interests to the West – and knows that it has. Russia also has a deep mistrust of the West – culturally, religiously, politically, economically and militarily. So Russian nationalists would never have accepted any integration into the Western trading system.
And – perhaps as compensatory comfort blanket for their wretched history and sense of inferiority – the Russian nationalist elite believes that Moscow is the Third Rome (after the fall of Constantinople), and that Russians are a “super-ethnos” with the “passionarity” to expand and dominate other ethnicities and states. Their house philosopher, Alexandr Dugin, deludedly calls for an illiberal totalitarian Russian Empire to control the Eurasian continent from Dublin to Vladivostok to challenge America.
The West cannot befriend Russia – only contain it.
Tim – Umm, well, the Russkies get a voice in all of that. And, from personal experience, being cuddly with Germans wasn’t going to be part of it.
Well, they built a ruddy big pipeline as physical proof of their budding Teutono-Russic bromance. Germany’s economy was humming like a Mercedes engine, and guaranteed access to the cheapest and cleanest energy around for decades to come (so long as they didn’t massively fall out with their energy supplier).
Quite a good example for Ricardo, no?
And a great example of what Milton Friedman used to natter about on Free To Choose, all those years ago. If we can’t get along with the Klingons, how is the cold war ever to end?
As ever, it’s Russia that is the spurned lover here. When German tanks poured into Soviet territory, they overtook westward bound trains, still loaded with fuel and food for the Reich, courtesy of their good friend Joseph Stalin. And more recently, it wasn’t the Russians who cut Germany off from Russian gas – even after Germany started arming the enemies of Russia and helping them kill Russian soldiers. Remarkable.
Also I wonder who benefits from Russian energy and their other important resources being redirected towards Asia, particularly China and India, instead of to Europe? I thought we were trying to out compete the Chinese, not help them.
Funny old game.
Theo – Russia also has a deep mistrust of the West – culturally, religiously, politically, economically and militarily.
Yarp, with good reasons. The West has a history of invading Russia. It’s like a meme or something.
So Russian nationalists would never have accepted any integration into the Western trading system
Nyet, I don’t think so. I think they were desperate to Westernise in the 90’s.
the Russian nationalist elite believes that Moscow is the Third Rome (after the fall of Constantinople), and that Russians are a “super-ethnos” with the “passionarity” to expand and dominate other ethnicities and states. Their house philosopher, Alexandr Dugin, deludedly calls for an illiberal totalitarian Russian Empire to control the Eurasian continent from Dublin to Vladivostok to challenge America.
You’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a load of donkey balls, as far as I can tell. The Russian government isn’t ideological in the slightest (one of the good things about Mafia organisations is that they deal in cold, hard reality). The Russian people aren’t weird super-racists, they’re normal people with jobs. Russia is struggling to populate Moscow with Russians. They are not able or willing to conquer Europe. I doubt they’ll want or be able to occupy the non-Russian bits of Ukraine.
The West cannot befriend Russia – only contain it.
That’s cobblers. We were allies with Russia in two world wars, and the WW2 old timers I spoke to were bloody grateful they were on our side.
Once they decided to be, you mean?
Well, correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Soviet Russia invade quite a few countries in the leadup to WW2, including Poland? More sinnned against than sinning? Maybe, maybe not.
@Theo
Germany always acts in its own national interest, as its elites perceive it at the time.
That’s a bit like “everyone always acts in their own self-interest, as they perceive it at the time”. It may be true, but has no predictive ability unless we can determine in advance what someone will perceive as their self-interest. As for Germany – was the Energiewende and closing all their nukes in their national interest?
Trump will wreck the global economy with tariff wars. The republicans are no longer the free trade party. They are in to state control over international trade.
Trump will turn the global economy to chaos when he brings in tariffs. Free trade is being killed by Farage’s hero.
We tried to warn you. He even wants to destroy the economies of the UK, and Canada. I doubt it will even help the USA. It is idiotic protectionism.
Free trade is done for.
As I said USA tariffs will destroy the UK economy.
Does Farage support his hero Trump putting tariffs on the UK? Yes or no.
Does he want the UK economy to collapse so he can rise in the polls?.
Does that make him a Traitor?
dcardno
December 30, 2024 at 4:49 am
I thought it was Adolf who decided that Russia should join the war on the side of the UK.
Of course what has always amused me was him then declaring war on the US as well. Even if the chance of avoiding it was only 1%, he’d still have been more sensible to keep his mouth shut.