Posted on 11/11/2011 2:14:23 PM PST by Apparatchik
The UK should stop using the term "special relationship" to describe its alliance with the US, former Prime Minister Sir John Major has said.
The ex-Tory leader said the term was "patronising" and "sentimental" and should be "consigned to history".
In a speech in London, he said the US would increasingly be looking to Asia for economic and political support.
But the UK's trade, defence and cultural links with the US meant it could play the role of "candid friend".
The term "special relationship" was first used by Sir Winston Churchill in a famous speech in 1946, reflecting the two countries' fight against fascism during World War II and his personal friendship with President Franklin Roosevelt.
'Preserved in aspic' It has been used by a succession of prime ministers and presidents, most recently by David Cameron and Barack Obama during the latter's state visit to the UK in May.
With economic power shifting to Asia, he said it was natural that Washington's focus should be on developing relationships with powers such as China and India and - as this happened - it would be wrong for US-UK relations to be "preserved in aspic".
"Too often people talk of a special relationship. Every US president is advised to use the phrase and courteously does so but - although not intended to be so - it is rather a patronising term.
"The president cannot ignore the changing world. He would be failing in his duty to America if he did. He is likely to be followed by many presidents who must take account of strategic realities, however bound emotionally they may be to the ties of the 'special relationship'.
"It is time to consign this phrase to history. We don't need it."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Thus the reason John Major has become the UK’s most forgotten, and most forgettable, post war Prime Minister. Even Tony Blair was better than this starched suit.
I think Obama set the tone when he removed Churhill’s statute.
“I think Obama set the tone when he removed Churhill’s statute.”
We need to get the statue back into the White House and send Obama out of it.
Please, UK, stick around and pay no attention to the Cretin in the White House.
Hopefully we can 1) get rid of this bottom dweller next Nov, 2) immediately start legal proceedings on a great number of his felonies, 3) convict the b*stard (and he really is one in every sense of the word) , and hopefully 4) send the piece of excrement back to the country that he was born in.
There are no “friends” between nations.
Obama and the EUrtopians have killed any “special relationship”.
you’re being kind.
“There are no “friends” between nations.”
Churchill said, “Nations don’t have friends. Nations have common interests.” I think we have more in common with Britain than with any other nation. We should be working hand-in-glove with them on our common problems. Instead, Obama has gone out of his way to destroy our relationship with Britain. It will be very difficult to recover it and it may never be the same.
The problems created by Obama between Israel and America are also huge. We have much in common with Israel and NOTHING in common with the Muslim Middle East. We need to repair that relationship as well.
How can a term invented by a British Prime Minister be condescending to Britain? Only in Major's dull mind.
It has become obvious since the fall of the Berlin Wall that the West relies on the English-speaking nations to lead when freedom is in peril.
Heh.
Indeed.
Easy, Americans in future should say that they have a “special relationship” with Britain that they could *never* have with Brussels.
Sadly, he has a point. The UK let itself be overtaken by islamos and the extreme PC Left, and the US sure isn’t what it was at one time.
I don’t think it’s dead. I don’t think John Major does either. It’s just no longer quite as “special”. For a variety of reasons (some good, some bad and some just inevitable) the two countries are no longer as close as they once were. As the balances of world power - economic, demographic and military - shift, then the stances of both countries will have to shift too. What John Major is saying is nothing more than a plea for both countries to recognise that basic truth.
John Major was the premier Euro-Enthusiast in the Tory (Conservative) Party in Great Britain through the 1990s. This enthusiasm inevitably leads to a corresponding decrease in the affinity towards the United States. That this poor successor to Lady Thatcher feels this way enlightens only his mindset of then and now.
John Major is overdoing the decline in relations between the US and UK. The most important and closest relationship the US has is with Canada, and I doubt that is ever going to change. The biggest drag on the relationship currently is sitting in the Whitehouse, but the relationship would be getting less tight for other reasons anyway over the next few years. One other quirk is that relations between any two English speaking nations have never been zero sum since 1816.
Patronizing? Is the “special” in “special relationship” like the one in “special ed”?
Seriously though, he sounds kind of like a jilted lover who is rationalizing about why the man they love doesn’t call them anymore.
I’d say we have more in common with Canada than Britain, but with Britain a close second. Agree with everything else you’ve said.
And, given Obama's blatant disrespect for the UK these past three years, why would you think Major should think any different? Faith?
So wrong you are off the chart.
No, we dont, as the other option was Neil Kinnock and Labour circa 1992.
Major was no putz, he was in hindsight a pretty decent PM.
And an honest man.
You want to see a disaster?. Get a time machine and live in this country from May 1997-May 2010. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Labour were a disgrace and disaster from which it will take the UK years to recover from.
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