Taking stock of a ‘special relationship’

Will Britain scrap the phrase most often used to describe British-U.S. ties? 

Ever since Winston Churchill used the phrase “special relationship” to describe British-U.S. ties, said Nicholas Watt in The Guardian, it has been invoked by “prime ministers of all hues.” But this week, Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee declared the phrase “potentially misleading” and recommended that it be scrapped. In a report on Anglo-American ties, the committee said the phrase had contributed to the “perception that the British government was a subservient poodle to the U.S.” in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely seen as having supported President Bush’s ill-conceived war while getting nothing in return. From now on, the committee said, Britain should be “less deferential and more willing to say no to the U.S. on those issues where the two countries’ interests and values diverge.”

What took us so long? asked John Charmley in The Times. For more than 60 years, we have “adopted an attitude of more or less complete subservience to the Americans,” trotting obediently after them even as they repeatedly kicked us. During the crisis over the nationalization of the Suez Canal in the 1950s, for example, the U.S. “dropped us in the guano” by siding with Egypt instead of with us. And during the Falkland Islands dispute in the 1980s, President Reagan waffled over whether to back Britain, its firm ally, or Argentina, which at the time was “a nasty dictatorship.” Thank goodness Britain is finally going to stop “behaving like a love-struck co-dependent.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us