One of the phenomena of recent years is the “Conspiracy Theory”. One of oldest dates from the 1950s following the sighting of UFOs starting with the “Roswell incident” of 1947. The theory is that the governments (principally the US) are concealing their ongoing contacts with advanced extra terrestrial civilisations and are turning a Nelsonian “blind eye” to aliens abducting humans for medical experiments in return for limited technology transfers. There are of course others.
A recent one to rear it’s head is the theory that the “Ultra Brexiteers” could be seeking to bring about a hard Brexit to bring about a rapid entry into a special arrangement with the USA. The theory goes like this:
The Ultras are deliberately seeking to bring about a hard Brexit and when it occurs blame the chaos and disruption on those awful Europeans. Then, put forward – presumably with co-conspirators in the Trump administration – a treaty proposal to incorporate, for the purposes of trade only, a special arrangement whereby the US and UK markets become a single market.
The idea would be to bring about a wholesale change in the British political culture more along the laissez faire US lines than the social contract British lines.
This, quite frankly is lunacy!
Practically, this could not be done overnight. It would take time. Politically the UK would be completely dominated by the USA to a far greater extent than it ever was by the EU!
Such a relationship would inevitably lead to the replacement of the NHS with an insurance based healthcare system. With our ageing population and the fact that old people vote and the young do not (in the same numbers) this would be political suicide.
The idea is bonkers!
David Aaronovitch was joking when he suggested (Times 29th December, 2011) that the UK should consider becoming the 51st state!
Speaking the Truth unto the Nation
