It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks.
It was the week when Israel killed Ayatollah Khameini and the United States launched missiles at Iran’s infrastructure of terror.
It was the week when the Islamo-Green alliance used Urdu-language campaign ads with anti-India and anti-Israel imagery and went on to win the Gorton & Denton by-election.
And it was the week when the Special Relationship may have died.
If it is dead, it was killed on February 28 with Keir Starmer’s statement following the joint Israeli-American attack on Iran. “The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes,” the prime minister said.
Starmer has the worst case of compulsive handwashing since Lady Macbeth.
He cited “international law”, then called for a “diplomatic process” with the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism – a regime that has lately murdered at least 30,000 of its subjects.
No wonder the Americans did not tell Britain before they went in. Britain has lost America’s trust.
First came the weird machinations over surrendering the Chagos Islands, the site of Diego Garcia, America’s key Indian Ocean base – proof that Labour are pretentious bunglers.
A government of lawyers is living in La-la Land. They mistake the dreams of international law for the reality of international relations. This was impossible even in the good years of the 1990s. It is dangerously delusional now.
The murky deal to pay Mauritius to take over the Chagos Islands would have undermined America’s national security. Starmer doubled the insult by preventing US planes from using British bases to strike Iran.
His government refuses to explain whether this was on the advice of attorney general Lord Hermer. He is an old legal chum of Starmer’s. So is Philippe Sands, the fixer of the Chagos deal.
On March 1, after the Iranians had lobbed missiles at British bases in Cyprus, Starmer shifted. Britain would defend our “partners in the Gulf” and “allies across the region”. Starmer did not mention Israel, a key supplier of intelligence to Britain, including warnings of Islamist plots.
In the Commons on March 2, Starmer implied that the US and Israel had broken international law. This is government by Guardian editorial.
Americans see this and ask what happened to Britain. They see the answer too.
Islamists and Labour activists have been on the streets since the night of October 7, 2023. The Gorton & Denton result shows that Labour have lost the automatic support of Muslim voters. The Peter Mandelson fiasco has started the countdown to Starmer’s exit.
Labour is heading for destruction unless it placates Muslim voters. Starmer is putting his survival in office and Labour’s survival as a major party before the national interest.
Americans like Britain. They want Britain to be strong and successful. But they are practical people.
The Special Relationship was always more special to Britain than to America. An empire needs client states, the more the better. But the clients depend on the favour of a single court.
In the Cold War, America’s imperial patronage was Britain’s lifeline. And Britain was Airstrip One. It had western Europe’s largest military and a second-strike nuclear submarine capability. Its airbases placed American bombers on Europe’s doorstep and it was a reliable vote at the UN Security Council.
Britain’s military is enfeebled and its leaders are undermining America. Why should America share intelligence with us? Why should it indulge the illusion that we can expect preferential trade terms and “punch above our weight” globally while insulting our closest ally?
The empire has choices, and it’s using them. This war confirms that Israel has replaced Britain as America’s most reliable and capable ally.
“Israel has clear missions as well, for which we are grateful,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on March 2. “Capable partners are good partners, unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.”
Israel is also replacing Britain in India’s strategy. Two days before war broke out, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi visited Israel and delivered an epochal address at the Knesset.
Modi characterised Israel and India as “ancient civilisations” with shared commitments to democracy and innovation. This is how American and British leaders used to talk in the Cold War. It is still how American leaders talk. It’s Britain’s leaders who have sold their national security for a mess of woke pottage.
India is loud and proud about its strategic cooperation with Israel. Britain is hypocritical, privately pocketing intelligence and defence technology while publicly degrading the Jew among the nations.
The tripartite alliance between America, Israel and India is now in place. It is not impossible that a post-regime Iran will join them soon. The Gulf states will follow.
And where is Britain, or France for that matter? Their governments are paralysed by electoral cynicism and the fear of violent schism.
The governments of western Europe, and especially the parties of the Left, cultivated special relationships with their restive Muslim minorities. The results are pulling Britain apart: terrorism, “grooming gangs”, decades of vote-contracting in Labour seats, and Gorton & Denton’s witches’ brew of “family voting” and naked incitement – and a gathering rage of nativist reaction, primed to blame the Jews.
This domestic failure warps Britain’s reliability as an ally. It reduces our capacity to act in the world. Now it has led Labour to trash Britain’s interests in the hope of deferring a reckoning.
When that reckoning comes, it will be worse because we will have forfeited our closest ally. We have failed to take a stand, so we will fall. That was the week that was, and this is the Britain that was.
Dominic Green (@drdominicgreen) is a Wall Street Journal contributor, a Washington Examiner columnist and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute’s Center for the Study of America & the West
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