news from the old country

Diplomacy makes for odd bedfellows. British PM Tony Blair has been the most stalwart of allies, yet is determined to further integrate his country into the EU—a process that will without doubt erode Britain's national sovereignty while simultaneously rendering the “special relationship” between the US and UK untenable.

Blair's Labour Party is, with precious few exceptions, far more Eurocentric than Atlanticist. But the opposition Tories certainly know that their future lies not with socialist Europe: better to align with the superpower that, despite its faults, at least shares a common heritage.

Not exactly.

If [Tory leader Michael] Howard has shifted against Bush—and of course he claims not to have done so—then he is merely reflecting the views of his MPs. George Osborne, the Tory MP for Tatton (and definitely not of the Michael Moore persuasion), reports that John Kerry is significantly more popular than George Bush among both Tory MPs and Tory voters. Indeed, he thinks that Kerry would probably do better in the Tory shires and suburbs than he would do in Labour's urban heartlands. His fellow MPs produce a laundry list of complaints about the Texan in the White House, ranging from his decision to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty to his keenness on God to his general demeanor (he looks as if he “might wail at the moon”).

In general, the Tory party's position on the Iraq war is almost identical to John Kerry's. It voted for the war after much grumbling about “crusades” and meddling in other people's affairs. And now the party is keen to exploit Tony Blair's embarrassments about everything from weapons of mass destruction to the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

Thus far, one might be willing to ascribe such sentiments as natural, coming from a party long out of power and with not the brightest of electoral prospects.

But it gets worse.

Unconvinced? Try Sir Max Hastings, a former editor of the [conservative-leaning] Daily Telegraph and, for a time, one of Mrs. Thatcher's favorite journalists. In a recent column entitled “I hate George Bush” (at least you can't accuse him of burying the lead), Sir Max denounced American conservatives as “lunatics” and proclaimed that “every single bleak forecast about their follies has been fulfilled.” To back up these arguments, Sir Max employed the full gamut of Moorist tropes—America is a land of gun-toting religious zealots; the Bush administration thinks that democracy can be marketed in the same way as Enron shares, etc.—before urging his readers to pray for John Kerry's victory in November. […]

It is hardly surprising that conspiracy theories of the sort that Michael Moore peddles go down extremely well. Several Tory backwoodsmen peers have informed the House of Lords that American foreign policy is being run by a Likudnik cabal. John Laughland recently wrote an article in the [also conservative] Spectator, headlined “I believe in conspiracies,” in which, among other things, he asked why “you are bordering on the bonkers if you wonder about the truth behind events like 9/11.”

Indeed, when it comes to the United States, the British right and the British left often speak with the same voice. The Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror are at opposite ends of the political spectrum on everything from Europe to fox hunting. But when it comes to the Bush administration it is impossible to tell them apart. […] The Spectator is becoming as antiwar as the New Statesman and has hired Andrew Gilligan, the man who was sacked by the BBC for falsely accusing Tony Blair of “sexing up” a government dossier on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, as its defense and international editor.

Just in case you didn't have enough to be depressed about already.

(Link via EURSOC)

It really *is* depressing, isn't it? Seems as if it's become fashionable to hate the United States, and to look for nothing but the worst in us. I've come to the conclusion that that smartest thing we can do as a nation is to deliberately go isolationist for a couple of decades. I'd begin by washing our hands of Europe completely. It's inevitable anyway, so why not do it sooner than later?

Interesting times ahead, no doubt.

I agree that the times ahead will be interesting.

But, to say we should collect our toys and go home to play by ourself is somewhat adolescent. I will admit my initial reaction is to concur. However, we must be compelled toward what is right. And what is right is to continue to be Liberty's champion, whether we are loved or hated for it.