JOHN BOLTON, National Security Adviser to Donald Trump’s “America First” administration, swept through London this week in the manner of a Roman prelate concerned to ensure that the fabric of the empire remains intact and that the submission of the border tribes to imperial power is sufficiently policed.
He wanted assurance that those recently raised to local eminence are fully apprised of the benefits which might accrue to them if they are able to demonstrate both their unconditional fealty and their command of the plebeian masses.
Trump and his satrap Bolton sense both danger and opportunity in the present conjuncture in Britain.
Boris Johnson, both in his disastrous tenure as foreign secretary and in his more recent elevated capacity, has shown a humiliating tendency to ingratiate himself with Washington that now teeters on the edge of outright subservience.
Yet, as every visit Trump has made to these shores has established, this policy is resented and resisted by the mass of the British people.
The confrontations that Trump has engineered around the world, above all in the Middle East and the Far East, want for allies.
Johnson seems the most promising bet, a leader desperate for international alliances and refracted prestige to compensate for his lack of parliamentary majority and, indeed, dignity.
Boris Johnson is quite prepared to put Britain last after America First while he manoeuvres to secure a mandate for his new hard-right cabal in power.
From reports, it appears that Bolton had two main demands. That Britain align fully with Trump’s drive to war with Iran, and that it stop playing footsie with Chinese high-tech giant Huawei in terms of the development of Britain’s 5G infrastructure.
On both issues the prostrate Johnson has already giving his overlord some satisfaction. He has already sent the Royal Navy to join US warships in flotillas in the Persian Gulf to confront Iran.
Next he may tiptoe away from support for the Iran nuclear deal, the sabotage of which is Trump’s main demand and one which Britain has hitherto resisted in company with France, Germany, Russia and China.
In relation to Huawei, Johnson has indicated that the decision taken by Theresa May to allow some participation by the Chinese firm in Britain’s 5G network is to be reviewed. The “golden age” of Anglo-Chinese relations trumpeted not so long ago by David Cameron is evaporating under pressure to align Britain with Washington’s attempt to decouple China from the world economy.
Johnson may believe that by this repositioning he is strengthening a friendship. In reality he is intensifying Britain’s isolation from world opinion, which does not want another Middle East war, sees no virtue in confronting China and is not invested in propping up the decaying US hyper-power and its bigoted nationalistic representative.
In return for these policy reversals, Bolton dangled the possibility of a post-Brexit trade bonanza before Johnson. However, the leading force in the US congress, whose approval is essential for any such trade pact, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that any deal which prejudices the Good Friday Agreement will be dead on arrival.
British politics, the left included, is preoccupied with Brexit — understandably so. But it must not take its eye off the transatlantic ball, and the effort to solidify a war alliance of the two main imperial powers of the last 150 years.
Britain’s impending departure from the EU should be seized as the opportunity for an independent foreign policy based on the peaceful resolution of disputes, the recognition of national independence and a rebalancing of international economic relations.
