Our Associates

John Pilger was largely on fine form last night. But was that elderly nutcase, formerly of the CIA, the only American Establishment figure prepared to speak to him? If so, then that in itself says a very great deal. And Pilger did not differentiate sufficiently, in what was after all quite a long film, among what were often immensely different parts of Latin America's vastness. Scottish separatists should take note if they think that the Americans would ever allow one third of the United Kingdom's land area to leave NATO and set up an oil-funded Socialist state.

Britain has a real opportunity here. Using a formula based on the country in question's own wealth, it should guarantee social democracy (and that is all that, say, Chávez, wants - social democracy with national sovereignty, like the Labour Party back when it really was the Labour Party) to any state on earth which adopted or retained the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, capped and safeguarded by the monarchy; which acceded to or remained in the Commonwealth; which used British Standard English at least as one of its official languages; which used the pound sterling at least as the reserve currency, and preferably as legal tender; which gave priority to British goods, services and capital (the EU cannot stop people from being nice to us like that); which signed a common defence treaty with Britain and every other participating country, and which integrated its own armed forces into an overall British command structure; and which agreed to use any seat on any international body in accordance with British direction, itself formulated in close consultation with all the participating countries.

Those participating countries would be called the Associated States of the United Kingdom. I say again that, subject to the above conditions, absolutely anywhere could become one.

Some sort of deal with the French, Dutch and Portuguese, involving joint membership with bodies based in Paris, The Hague or Lisbon, would be perfectly possible. Spain would be a harder nut to crack, because of Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. But it could be done, and would hardly seem necessary anyway, since we'd be offering such a good deal of our own in Latin America.

And the United States? Well, that is a whole other story, involving the raising of each state's consciousness of itself as having an English, Scots, Welsh and Irish economic, social, cultural and political identity, including the strongest possible economic, social, cultural and political ties between these United States and each and all of the United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; as having a West African slave-descended economic, social, cultural and political identity, including the closest possible economic, social, cultural and political ties between these United States and each and all of the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean; and therefore as desiring the closest possible economic, social, cultural and political co-operation, both within the US and throughout the world, between the people of West African slave descent and the people of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish descent, on the basis of their shared heritage, including their shared English language and their shared blood ties. But, as I said, that is a whole other story...