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Spectator
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Make Trump Britain's prime minister
When I was a young man, the claim that Britain was in danger of becoming the 51st state was a political slur mainly thrown about by the left, particularly those who objected to the presence of US military bases. But there was some anti-American sentiment on the right, too – Enoch Powell, for instance, had a dislike of America's hostility to the Empire that dated back to his service in the second world war. I'm even guilty of some anti–American prejudice myself and wrote a memoir in which I tried to convey that my failure to take Manhattan in the mid-1990s was because I wasn't willing to sell my soul to Mammon. Well, I take it all back. Having watched Donald Trump's performance at the joint press conference with the Prime Minister on Monday, I wish he was our leader and not Sir Keir Starmer. On all the key topics the President touched on – immigration, net zero, the awfulness of Sadiq Khan – I am in violent agreement with him. I would now like nothing more than for Britain to be the 51st state. It's not just because I'm more closely politically aligned with Trump than Starmer. If Britain was part of the United States, Trump wouldn't hesitate to start deporting undocumented migrants, as he's done in the US, where (according to the White House) illegal immigration has fallen by 95 per cent since he became the 47th President. All those tedious legal obligations we have under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Refugee Convention would be swatted aside like so many pesky flies. If the price to pay is renaming the stretch of water between Britain and France the 'American Channel', so be it. When it comes to energy, I can think of no greater boon to the British economy than re-starting oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, lifting the fracking ban and exploiting our mineral rights in the South Atlantic. It's our insane net-zero policy and our resulting electricity prices that is partly responsible for our GDP per capita being lower than Mississippi's, the poorest state in the union. Incidentally, average GDP per capita was higher in the UK than the US as recently as 2007. We passed the Climate Change Act the following year, around the same time as our long, ignominious decline began. Above all, there's the First Amendment. Oh, how I wish the speech of British citizens enjoyed the same protections as that of Americans. All the fetters on freedom of expression that have sprung up like knotweed since the passing of the Race Relations Act in 1965 – buried in nasty little clauses in the Public Order Act 1986, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Communications Act 2003 and the Online Safety Act 2023 – would not survive a First Amendment challenge. The moment we became the 51st state, they would all be placed in what Americans call 'the circular file', i.e. the bin. Of course, it won't ever happen – and I don't want this to read like a counsel of despair. I still hold out a sliver of hope that a future British government will do its best to implement all of these policies, although stopping the boats, scrapping net zero and restoring free speech would be a good deal easier if we were the 51st state. In the words of Paul Goodman, a Conservative colleague in the House of Lords, if a ministry led by Nigel Farage tried to do any of these things, it 'would be met on day one by an institutional intifada'. A radical, reforming government might have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to this onslaught, but, like Lord Goodman, I fear it would soon be seen off by the closed ranks of the Establishment, much like Liz Truss's was. But I have a solution. We all know Trump to be an ambitious man who will be reluctant to surrender power in 2028. So why shouldn't he become a British citizen and run against Sir Keir in 2029, either as the newly installed head of Reform UK or as the leader of a new political party? His mother was born in Scotland, so he's eligible, and unlike in the US, you don't have to be born in Britain to occupy our highest political office. I imagine the prospect of addressing the House of Commons as our prime minister will appeal to him as an act of sweet revenge after being denied the opportunity to address parliament during his forthcoming state visit. If anyone can take on the Blob, the Donald can. Kemi Badenoch can be deputy prime minister and Nigel our ambassador in Washington (after being given a hereditary peerage). Mr President, if you're reading this, I want you to know I stand ready to serve. Let's make Britain great again.
The Herald Scotland
20-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
The super-rich are lying to us. Time we turned the tables
The Rich List, which has just made its annual appearance, is nothing but pornography: a slavering, debased and obsequious genuflection to Mammon. In the list, we so often see riches in the possession of those already born into unimaginable wealth, not the self-made; or hoarded by those who simply watch their inherited assets accrue vast interest, not those who create jobs or work like the rest of us. Read more by Neil Mackay The mere "wealthy" – the comfortable – aren't in these categories. Anyone who makes a million from nothing but their own sweat deserves respect. The mere wealthy – those on handsome six-figure salaries – pay their taxes, go to work, and often employ others. The super-rich – the billionaire class – are an entirely different matter altogether. Even those of the billionaire class who run businesses, are most often job destroyers not creators. How many high street stores died so Jeff Bezos could shoot his phallic rockets into space? How many federal employees did Elon Musk make redundant while he shoots his own phallic rockets into space? When hedge fund billionaires buy Scottish companies, the first act is often redundancies. It's stream-lining for efficiencies, we're told. Lies. It's sackings to increase the money going into billionaires' pockets and the pockets of their shareholders. How many companies have been strip-mined in Britain – often by foreign tycoons – so shareholders can buy flash new cars for their kids, fit outdoor swimming pools, or get the yacht which guarantees entry to the new aristocracy? Those strip-mined companies were all making money – just not enough to satisfy the super-rich. There's always more sweat to ring from plebs. Your labour goes in, their wealth comes out. That's the equation. In Scotland, Harbour Energy will eventually axe 600 jobs in total despite issuing nearly £1 billion in shareholder dividends. But, of course, taxation is blamed. It's rampant greed. Over the last few decades, the number of billionaires has risen in direct proportion to the decline in income for the vast swathe of ordinary people. Where did we hear that refrain before? In the anthem of the Great Depression: 'One thing's sure and nothing's surer, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.' The glitter from the ever-growing mountains of billionaires' gold is blinding us. We seem unable to see the parents starving themselves so their kids can eat, while they work three part-time minimum wage jobs. Perhaps the glow isn't glitter, though, perhaps its radiation burning a hole through our society. How can democracy be worth the word in an era of such income inequality? The billionaire class buys democracy. We vote. That's all. Our say boils down to an X on a ballot every five years. The billionaire-class can speak directly to power, indeed the billionaire-class tells power what to do. Political donations are price-attached. Tom Hunter, described with a curtsey as "Scotland's first home-grown billionaire", is currently lecturing us on economics. Fundamentally, he wants lower taxes, and fantasises about some Caledonian Singapore. 'Nothing is free in Singapore, but here everything seems to be,' he claims. The poor and hungry, unable to buy clothes for their children, must hang on his every word. 'A different tack needs to be taken,' Hunter says. The irony would choke you. Here's a man – a knight of the realm, no less – calling for our failed economic system to fail even more. Since the 1980s, the policies which made Hunter rich, made millions poor. Of course he wants to not just keep the current economic model in place, but to entrench it even further. It worked for him. It's done nothing for the rest of us. However, he's right on one matter: a different tack needs taken. The billionaire class must be dealt with, as they were dealt with before: first, through smashing monopolies – the same medicine robber barons tasted in the 19th century – and then through reimagined programmes like Roosevelt's New Deal and the creation of the Welfare State to rebalance the scales in the interests of the people. To continue along the path we're on economically is to slit democracy's throat. Why wouldn't people vote for the far-right if democracy only makes them poorer? The billionaire class is lying to you, wilfully deceiving you. They demand more of the same – in fact, an even more unequal system than exists now – because they benefit from the status quo. Evidently, billionaires will fight like hell to deepen the current system: it works for them. Most of us are so drugged to the eyeballs on the baubles we purchase from the super-rich – their streaming TV, their social media– that we cannot see their fingers dipping into our pockets like thieves. There's a saying now: your enemies do not arrive in small boats, they arrive in yachts and private jets. It's true. How many high street stores died so Jeff Bezos could shoot his phallic rockets into space? (Image: Getty) A media system owned by the billionaire class works tirelessly to blame anyone but themselves for the woes we endure. Migrants aren't hurting you, billionaires are. When Britain's Government says it cannot invest in better services for the people, that's lies. We're the sixth-largest economy on Earth. What the Government is actually saying is that it will not invest in better services because it won't tax the rich to the same extent that it taxes the rest of us. Equalising dividend and capital gains tax with income tax – in other words, taxing those who loaf around doing nothing but watch their money grow, to the same extent as those of us who work – would raise £21 billion. That's just for starters. A storm is coming. You can smell it. This system won't endure much longer. In America, the storm has already broken, dragging the nation into the maelstrom of MAGA. It's time to turn the tables. We either deal with the billionaire class in order to protect the people or we face America's terrifying storm clouds. Neil Mackay is the Herald's Writer-at-Large. He's a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.
