Special Relationship? May’s Sycophancy Is Sickening

“Fake friends are like shadows: always near you at your brightest moments, but nowhere to be seen at your darkest hour. True friends are like stars, you don't always see them but they are always there.” – Habeeb Akande

The British and the Americans have a special relationship. I’ve heard this phrase uttered repeatedly throughout my life. As a child of immigrant parents whose extended family included elders who were staunch anti-colonialists and avowed believers in pan-Africanism, this statement was viewed through a prism of circumspection. My ‘alternative’ education from my African forbearers taught me that the special relationship merely illustrated that two nations were symbiotically linked in their oppression, rape and pillage of the brown, yellow and red skinned peoples of the world. And whilst all of that was true when viewed through their cultural prism, I knew what the proponents of the ‘special relationship’ meant; that there were ties that bound the U.K and the U.S particularly closely on cultural, military, political, diplomatic, historical and – even though this was never stated – racial lines; after all, this phrase was first coined by the revered leader – and avowed racist - Winston Churchill in 1946 so it’s not hard to conceive of an unspoken bond of racial allegiance. But that’s not the point and I’m sure I’ll have no end of proud British patriots telling me to f*** off back to where I come from (London?) as a result of what I’m saying.

The point is that this tired cliché has been used by successive British Prime Ministers to excuse their fawning, panegyrical, kowtowing to U.S Presidents. Thatcher did it with Reagan. Blair did it with Bush to the extent that he followed him in to an illegal war for which the world is still paying bloody, murderous consequences over 2 decades later. Even Cameron felt the need to bask in the glow of the Obama lovefest, gushing at how close he was with the President and that Obama called him “bro”. (Although we did have good old Boris reminding us that as far as he was concerned Obama was just “a part-Kenyan who disliked Britain because of it’s colonial past”; in other words, he may be President but he’s still just a pickaninny). When it comes to America, British politicians are nothing if not consistent in their desire to prostrate themselves before the majesty of America, lie back and think of good old Blighty.

But has any British politician in living memory – or otherwise – been as obsequious as Theresa The Appeaser has with the Sunburnt Stalin? When May visited Trump back in January, the Tory party couldn’t help congratulate themselves, stating that the trip was an indication of how influential she would be, in that she was the first leader invited to visit with Trump. But she forgot that she wasn’t the first British politician. That was Nigel Farage. And that should have told her everything she needed to know about the political intelligence, allegiance and general level of sanity of the new POTUS. But hey, he’s the President and the “special relationship” was all that mattered. So she smiled politely and congratulated him on his ‘stunning’ victory, ignored his comments that ‘torture works’ in combatting terror, was remarkably complicit/silent on his proposed Muslim Ban, rolled out the red carpet with the offer of a state visit and, if inviting he world’s most famous sexual predator (sorry Bill Cosby) to come and grab the Queen’s pussy wasn’t enough, held hands walking in the White House. But she says he was being a gentleman so who gives a shit about the optics?

However, all of that pails in to insignificance in comparison to her latest abdication of leadership. After, as expected, Hair Hitler decided to join those economic powerhouses of Syria and Nicaragua in pulling out of the Paris Accord, Theresa May was silent. Whilst the leaders of France, Germany and Italy issued a joint statement demonstrating their commitment to environmental issues and the President of France actually broke with tradition and spoke in English to address the people of America directly, she ‘expressed her regret in a phone call’ with the Tangerine Tyrant. Maybe all’s not well at home because it seems she’s obsessed with having Trump grab her by the pussy. Her ostensible desire to align herself to Trump’s Amerikkka and distance herself from Europe in this post-Brexit world is both baffling and concerning. And in the eyes of many, cowardly.

Friendship, true friendship, is an incalculably powerful thing. Enemies question you but a true friend will ask you questions and force you to wrestle with your personal demons as much as you dislike to. They allow you to see the genuine, the truth, the reality so that you don’t have to deal with fakery any more. It’s a common mistake to be blinded in love and friendship. But in this case I say without hyperbole, that for the sake of our children – for the sake of the world – it’s time for the “special relationship” to be truly made special. It’s time for two particularly banal, unsuitable leaders to work for the greater good. And it’s time for our poodle Prime Minister to step up and be a true friend in this “special relationship”.