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OPINION

Why Again Do We Still Have a Special Relationship With the Tyrannical UK?

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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AP Photo/Evan Vucci

America and the United Kingdom have long had a special relationship, working closely as allies to protect the West from oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. Here’s the problem. The UK has become one of those oppressive dictatorships that suppress their own people, arbitrarily jailing them and persecuting them for exercising their God-given right of free speech. And I’m not particularly interested in having a special relationship with a country like that. Nor are many other Americans. 

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Great Britain has always had a fraught relationship with freedom, at least regarding people who aren’t British. In its glorious imperialist era, when its colonialism brought the light of civilization to a huge swath of the world, it presumed to tell us Americans what we could and could not do. At Lexington and Concord, 250 years ago this spring, a bunch of redcoats tried to take our guns. We shot them. And we kept shooting them until they went home. But no hard feelings – they even burned down much of Washington, DC, during the War of 1812 as a gesture of friendship to the American people.

Still, our special relationship was built upon a shared reverence for the basic tenets of freedom that the British themselves pioneered. From the Magna Carta to the rise of Parliament and the restraining of their inbred royal rulers, the British set the template for freedom, and we Americans took it to the next level. We wrote our Constitution with a Bill of Rights that addressed some of the presumptuous impositions the British had tried to inflict upon us Americans. The First Amendment was one of the key rights. So was the Second. The Brits had been jerks to us until we shot them and they went crying back to their godforsaken moist and frigid island, but they largely treated their own people well. You could speak freely. You could say things that offended the elite. The idea that you might be tossed into the stony lonesome for sounding off was completely alien to them. And that unique reverence for individual rights was why we could have a special relationship with people who have terrible teeth and food and insist on calling a car’s trunk a “boot.” 

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And that relationship was sealed with blood. Americans and Brits fought together in World War I, World War II, Korea, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And the Brits were hella fighters, too, if you put aside how we kicked their butts. Those lads knew how to take care of business, whether they were fighting a Zulu or a Nazi. They were part of our team in Desert Storm when I was there, and we worked with them in Kosovo when I was there. I’ve got a lot of respect for their soldiers.

But many Americans don’t respect the UK anymore, and it’s all the UK’s fault.

It’s tempting to think that something of the old British Spirit passed away when their magnificent Queen Elizabeth II passed away. This indomitable woman took no grief, but she also presided over a free country. Her lame son doesn’t. Great Britain is not so great anymore. Not to put too fine a point on it, you can now be arrested and imprisoned for tweeting things. Think about that. You can say something, and then cops can come to your house and haul you away to jail, maybe for years longer than actual criminals, because you’ve said something. This is part of a two-tier “justice” system aimed squarely at regular Englishmen with the intent of silencing and disenfranchising them. This is intolerable to any lover of freedom, although the British – by giving up their guns – ensured they can do nothing about it. 

And there are other outrages, too. Keir Starmer, the degenerate communist who got about 30-some percent of the vote and now rules like a dictator, freed criminals, you know, the ones who’ve committed actual crimes, so that he can fill up the jails with people whose “crimes” are dissenting and opposing him. They’re also in the process of culling the kulaks by engaging in a vendetta against rural farmers that uses the inheritance tax to pry them off the land they occupied for generations. Let’s also put aside that the Labour government has been absolutely clear that they consider Donald Trump, and we who voted for him, to be Nazis, which is really weird because the Labour government is channeling the Nazis. You see, Nazis put people in jail for saying things. If you do that, you’re like a Nazi. Fortunately, I’m in a free country, despite the best efforts of Kamala Harris and her voters, and I can say that without having some flatfoot pound on my door demanding that I explain my free speech upon pain of imprisonment. Of course, the Brits are fantasizing about arresting American Elon Musk for tolerating free speech.

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Once, the idea that the UK would someday be ruled by a glorified human resources department backed up by the police would have been simply insane. But now it’s reality. It’s also unacceptable. This means that we, as Americans, must not accept it.

American patriots have noticed what’s happening across the pond. We are already reviewing America’s foreign policy in general, challenging some of the assumptions that have guided us since World War II. And now we’re challenging the idea that we should have a special relationship with a country whose leadership differs in its oppression and suppression of basic civil rights from Vladimir Putin’s Russia only in degree. Vladimir Putin will put you in jail if you say something that he doesn’t like. And Keir Starmer will put you in jail if you say something that he doesn’t like.

We Americans don’t particularly want to put our blood and treasure on the line for a country that does that. We’re supposed to be fighting against dictatorships, not being their buddies. And what do we lose by the UK ending our special relationship by becoming tyrannical? Not much. Uh oh, no more Coldplay – don’t throw us in that briar patch. And yes, I know we have long-standing connections with the British as far as our military and our intelligence agencies. But you know what wouldn’t fill up the Rose Bowl? The entire British Navy. They barely have an army anymore either. The British have chosen to stop having an effective military. And why have they done this? Well, their Labour government is communist, but you can’t blame it all on Labour. The Conservatives, who were not in any way conservative, suck too. They let the military wither and are not much better on free speech. This censorship campaign ramped up under Starmer, but it started under the Conservative governments. I’m trying to imagine Maggie Thatcher, who is the subject of the most brutal and bitter contempt by her fellow subjects, sending cops out to round up her opponents and throw them in jail. It didn’t happen, and it never would’ve happened because she respected the right of people to speak freely, including idiots, morons, and commie halfwits. But she also didn’t have to because, unlike the Conservatives and Labour of 2024, she did not represent a failed ruling elite that can only hang onto power by force and by suppressing the truth about its corruption and incompetence.

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It is degrading to the United States of America to be in a special relationship with a country that puts people in jail for saying things. We are better than that. I thought the British were better than that, but apparently, they’re not. They seem to be tolerating this. Many of them seem to be giddy about it. And to be fair, many Americans would be perfectly happy to put their fellow Americans in jail for saying things if they could do that. But, of course, they can’t do that here. We have a written Constitution and a Supreme Court that enforces it. We are also armed to the teeth. Putting people in jail for saying things is the kind of thing that could spark a civil war, just like keeping people in chains as property once did. And, of course, any government that oppresses its own people by jailing them should they speak unapproved things deserves to be overthrown.

Such a nation certainly does not deserve to be in a special relationship with the United States of America. We are better than that. The UK, as currently constituted, is unworthy. It’s a petty dictatorship. It’s sad.

Maybe there’s some spirit left in the British people that will lead them to vote out these tyrants, assuming they’re allowed to vote against, or even publicly oppose, the current government. We have seen courageous people there speak out. Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, and J. K. Rowling have all spoken out against the party line. One of the three is currently in jail. How long the other two remain free is an open question.

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Fortunately, the Trump administration understands the value of civil rights, largely because this Democrat administration and its allies so grossly violated our new president’s civil rights. We supporters of President Trump have been intermittently and temporarily silenced and censored, but only in a few rare instances have people been arrested for saying things. That was a big issue in our election. We’ve drawn the line here, and free speech is going to reign supreme in America. But until it reigns supreme in Britain once again, and I hope it does, the UK can go have a special relationship with itself.

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