Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

According to German media, there is no progress at all in the fourth round of talks between EU and UK. Seems fairly pointless as there seem to be very few common goals. The UK has a fundamentally different approach than the EU, so this impasse will not be resolved.

[The Larch]

It's always cringey fun to read handwringing articles about the Special Relationship from the UK when it's so painfully obvious they're the only ones who believe in it, clinging to it as one of the last fading remnants of their international relevance in these times of Brexit.

UK diplomats fear end of special relationship if Trump re-elected
Former senior officials also worry Britain may be sidelined if Joe Biden becomes president

The UK's special relationship with the US may end if Donald Trump wins a second term, some of the UK's most senior retired diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists have said. They also say that if the Democrat Joe Biden wins, Washington may view the EU rather than the UK as its primary partner.

[Tamas]

Yeah I mean when was the last time this Special Relationship materialised, or was even brought up by a US President/official in any other context than a pointless platitude to a British audience?

[The Brain]

It's always cringey fun to read handwringing articles about the Special Relationship from the UK when it's so painfully obvious they're the only ones who believe in it, clinging to it as one of the last fading remnants of their international relevance in these times of Brexit.

UK diplomats fear end of special relationship if Trump re-elected
Former senior officials also worry Britain may be sidelined if Joe Biden becomes president

The UK's special relationship with the US may end if Donald Trump wins a second term, some of the UK's most senior retired diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists have said. They also say that if the Democrat Joe Biden wins, Washington may view the EU rather than the UK as its primary partner.

If the special relationship exists with Trump now in his first term, why would it disappear with a second term? Since no one in the US knows/cares about the special relationship it's not like Trump needs to avoid ending it to get reelected.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I mean when was the last time this Special Relationship materialised, or was even brought up by a US President/official in any other context than a pointless platitude to a British audience?

No. At least not on a political level - and there's no point in expecting favours from the Americans. We discovered that during the Falklands - our only truly reliable ally is France

But, my understanding, is that on day-to-day operational matters with diplomats, spies and military it does sort of still exist.

Though I believe France is, especially in the diplomatic world, replacing the UK as the US's main European ally. In part that's Brexit, but I also think it's a wider point that probably goes back to at least the financial crisis of the French state having a clearer idea of itself and what it wants to do. I have a friend who works for a UN connected body and has been all over the world - Balkans, Africa, Asia. His observation was that the British spread themselves very, very thin - they want to be everywhere and they can still do very good work and have influence in places they care about, but are stretched everywhere; the French on the other hand are very focused on where they care about and maximising their influence - if it isn't somewhere the French care about they'll have a pro-forma embassy. So everywhere he's been has a visible British presence, but they're often very stretched and overworked and under-resourced, whereas the French you might not even know if they have a presence, but if it's place they care about strategically, you know the French are there.

I mean in general I think the French state has higher capacity than the UK, especially at the minute.

[Tamas]

I was thinking: this fresh focus on old symbols that have grown controversial by today's standards can fairly easily result in the end of "old Britain" and the monarchy as well. I mean, if you (especially if forcibly) destroy the Empire-era symbolism, what remains of the monarchic symbols?

[Sheilbh]

I was thinking: this fresh focus on old symbols that have grown controversial by today's standards can fairly easily result in the end of "old Britain" and the monarchy as well. I mean, if you (especially if forcibly) destroy the Empire-era symbolism, what remains of the monarchic symbols?

Nothing

I think re-naming the OBEs etc is long overdue given their ruritarian quality and the ever-increasing number of people who won't accept them. I normally see the proposal as being to, for example, "Order of British Excellence". Similarly I think the general complaint about the Empire is more about ignorance about it in the UK. You know, I mean, look at other parts of Europe - Belgium and France for example - I don't think we are unique in not confronting our past. But all of us are just behind the US in terms of this discourse.

Also I think there is a difference between people who are inextricably linked with slavery or exploitation - where that either is the "good" that is memorialised or it is the basis of it. So, Edward Colston or the big statue of Clive of India outside the FCO. Personally in general my preference is to add context and a memorial for their victims because I think it is useful to see the lavish foreign office building which is a consequence of Clive (I think there's a very real risk that without understanding our past British people think we got where we did off our wits and hard work which, as anyone who's ever worked in a British office can tell you, is nonsense).

Other old statues may be problematic but I think you can argue what is memorialised is separable from the bad. You know, the statues of Gladstone weren't put up because of his dodgy attitudes on slavery (came from a slave trading family, maiden speech in defence of the slave trade, sympathetic to the Confederacy) but for his Liberal Premierships. Similarly we don't erect statues of Churchill to remember his racism or the Bengal famine. But, again, they are important context. As Stephen Bush pointed out it's odd that a no-hoper, profoundly unimportant Royalist MP like Lucius Cary has a statue in the Commons but there's no monument to, say, Ernie Bevin who helped found NATO (although he was quite anti-semitic and not great over the withdrawal from Palestine) or Nye Bevan who founded the NHS, or the first female Cabinet minister.

In a weird way I think Liverpool is really good at this in that it has a series of kind of ridiculous statues of more recent local heroes as well as the old Victorians. So yes you've got the huge statue of Disraeli outside St George's Hall, but the two statues in the train station are (extremely regional) comedian Ken Dodd with his tickling sticks and Bessie Braddock MP. There's even a statue of Cilla Black - which is weird given that she's someone my dad knew as a kid. As well as, obviously, the Beatles on their way to Hamburg. I'm sure other cities do it but when I see a lot of these in Liverpool I always think it seems to be trying to represent a bit of what Liverpool is and not just "the grand old men of the city" etc.

[Duque de Bragança]

Yeah I mean when was the last time this Special Relationship materialised, or was even brought up by a US President/official in any other context than a pointless platitude to a British audience?

No. At least not on a political level - and there's no point in expecting favours from the Americans. We discovered that during the Falklands - our only truly reliable ally is France

I guess Suez was not enough. 

Still, pretty damning for both (UK and France). 

[Tamas]

Nice analysis, thanks Sheilbh.

What's your take on Rhodes? I don't know the details of his career, wasn't he just the kind of cruel adventurer history is full of (many of whom ends up being largely celebrated), who happened to be building his private empire by exploiting black people as opposed to others who exploited Indians, Native Americans, Slavs, etc? In other words, sure he is controversial but not much more than any other successful historic personas?

[Tamas]

I am probably looking at this the wrong way, but having the British Parliament keep a minute's silence in memory of a US citizen murdered by US police seems odd.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Very difficult to sum up Rhodes in a few words. He was a premier of the Cape Colony, founded De Beers, was behind the infamous Jameson raid and also used his company's police force to found Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe). He was pretty controversial even in his own times. Mark Twain summed up public opinion on Rhodes best, "I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake" 

He is a deserving target in many ways, a racist even by the standards of his day.

[Sheilbh]

Nice analysis, thanks Sheilbh.

What's your take on Rhodes? I don't know the details of his career, wasn't he just the kind of cruel adventurer history is full of (many of whom ends up being largely celebrated), who happened to be building his private empire by exploiting black people as opposed to others who exploited Indians, Native Americans, Slavs, etc? In other words, sure he is controversial but not much more than any other successful historic personas?

Yeah I think Rhodes is pretty awful - but I'm no expert. I don't think he's a run of a mill historic persona just because, in my head, he's kind of the last "private sector" colonialist - like Clive or Leopold and those examples aren't great. I feel like any man who ends up with a big colonial territory named after them is probably particularly awful.

I certainly think that we should not be in a position where the leading scholarship system in the country is still named after him and I think Oxford have basically admitted that the only reason his statue is still outside Oriel College is that loads of alumni have threatened to withdraw tens of millions of pounds of donations if the statue comes down.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Rhodes is a big deal for sure, a figure of historical significance, as opposed to Colston....who is a footnote.

[Tamas]

Interesting, thanks. Sounds like its high time his statue is removed indeed. Hopefully it won't have to come to a mob this time.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, just read a piece in the FT that went through most of the examples I mentioned.

Another they mentioned, who you query if they should have a statue is Viscount Melville in Edinburgh:


Slave trader, very successful machine politician who successfully pushed back the abolition of the slave trade by about a decade, huge supporter of the East India Company, scourge of radicals in post-Revolutionary Britain and the last person to be impeached by the House of Lords (for misappropriation of funds - he was acquitted but disgraced and removed from the Privy Council etc). Obviously he was  a minister in the Pitt government, but that is the sort of career that slightly makes you wonder why he ever had such a grand statue in the first place