PRESIDENT TRUMP! FORGET CANADA! WE BRITISH WANT TO BE YOUR 51ST STATE!
“The Briton… should cheerfully acquiesce in the decree of Destiny, and stand in betimes with the conquering American.” So said William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), the prominent Victorian newspaperman and strident reformer.
Stead looked at Britain’s colonial apotheosis with apprehension, understanding that the growth of new great powers meant “we can never again be the first”. As his countrymen grew fat and complacent on the spoils of imperial decadence, Stead saw clearly that the only avoidance of incipient decline would come by uniting our fortunes with “those who had passed us in the great race.”
He was not alone in believing that Britain’s future lay with the destiny of its most talented child. Anglo-Unionism attracted a wide cast of characters at the turn of the 19th century, from Lord Salisbury to Woodrow Wilson.
Their motivations were not so alien to our own, fearing the trajectory of Britain without its imperial appendages, the opportunities and dangers of new communications technology, and the future of war. Too different from Europe to form any lasting alliance and too small to seriously consider autarky, “little Britain” would surely be doomed to irrelevance.
This feared future has since come to be. Governing the world is, for us, yesterday’s dream. Our territorial squabbles no longer define the course of history, but rather provide an opportunity for our leaders to provide yet more pointless concessions to foreign states.
The divergence between our two nations will only become more obvious as Britain flounders under Starmerism while America faces a rebirth under Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda. In short, we’d be lucky to be granted a deal like Trump’s (semi-) humorous offer to absorb Canada into the American Union as the 51st state.
Besides, if any Anglosphere nation should merge with the US, it should surely be Britain. Conservatives will cringe at the prospect of accession, but rather a recognition that America is too important to ignore.
Those who would claim to be our elites hardly lack enthusiasm for this more perfect union. All that has changed is our relative status. The farce of the “special relationship” is kept alive more out of the good-natured humor of American diplomats than any recognition of equal alliance.
Our country has been quietly placed in over the past half century, sold bit by bit to America first under the “foreign direct investment” frenzy of Thatcher and latterly the pitiful machinations of Labor Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Our physical and digital infrastructure is overwhelmingly US owned – even the farm equipment soon to be punishingly taxed under the Budget’s IHT changes is likely to have been owned and loaned by an American firm.
The steady process of economic transfer from provincial England to the American metropole has accelerated in recent years, with the US now seeing the UK as a (services) offshoring paradise akin to India. They take advantage of our perilously low wage growth to skim off the top talent in law, finance and technology.
It’s a terrible deal. We’re lucky, then, to live under the beneficent eye of Trump, a fine negotiator and a man who has done more than any president in living memory to heal the wounds left by George III.
It was Trump who sought to end the attacks on our ancient English liberties through our illegitimate “hate speech” laws. We need not wholly abandon our monarchical system: Trump has proved adept at holding court at Mar-a-Lago, and unlike our own King has no shortage of quivering supplicants pledging allegiance.
Time is not on our side. As the Eurozone crumbles and American protectionism ramps up, our flimsy state will be crushed like an ant between two great elephants.
To see Britain lose itself within America would surely be a tragedy of world-historic proportions. But the alternative – to sink complacently into powerlessness, spurred on by politicians who can hardly define what “nationhood” even means – doesn’t bear thinking about. The politics of self-interest is clearly beyond our miserable band of modern leaders.
Why not jump on to the America First bandwagon and throw in our lot with the winning side? If nothing else, we might get better fast food out of it.
Poppy Coburn is a British journalist and opinion editor at the London Telegraph.