The Economist Declares ‘Structural’ Channels of Special Relationship Remain Intact

Aug. 27 , 2021 (EIRNS)—While Nile Gardiner, the former aide to Margaret Thatcher who now heads the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, fulminates at length that “Brits feel betrayed by Biden’s Afghanistan fiasco. Our ‘special relationship’ is on ice,” in his Fox News opinion column two days ago (a would-be obituary on Biden’s presidency “sinking faster than the Titanic”), the British centuries-old imperial mouthpiece, The Economist, is more sanguine. The Economist is still confident that Britain’s deep penetration of U.S. policymaking institutions since World War II, especially of the “intelligence community” and military, will win the day.

Yes, ties have been weakened by “the Afghanistan debacle,” but the “special relationship” has survived other such shocks, Suez included, The Economist reminds. Even now, “behind the headlines, diplomats on both sides insist that relations are still close.... Sir Simon Fraser, a former head of the Foreign Office now at Flint Global, says structural co-operation in intelligence, security and military matters remains as deep as ever....

“And Mr. Biden should be far more helpful than his predecessor at the climate-change summit in Glasgow in November.”

The Economist nonetheless presses for the U.K. to build up relations with the European Union as a counterweight to weakened U.S. ties, given that there are other “clouds” that may lie ahead in the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” which the British Empire requires to continue to exist.