Disentangling Britain from America

[Samdelila]

I know we are reliant on the USA for security and they are a major trading partner, but I would like to know what, if anything, could be done to disentangle us from the USA in the future. Does anybody have any ideas?

Poland has made different decisions on defence. There’s no reason each couldn’t do the same. It’s just not been a priority for voters.

I was in favour of the UK remaining. But a United States of Europe was absurd then and even more absurd now. There won’t be such a thing with or without the UK.

Please watch Mark Carny’s Davos speech. It’s not either China or US or even Europe.
if every ‘‘intermediate power’ can coalesce around a set of values that include resisting the excess of the so called superpowers, we have power. If only we didnt have Keir ‘chamberlain’ Starmer grovelling at the feet of Trump we could be part of this.

I agree it was unlikely ever to happen, especially after the UK pushed for wider, not deeper, union, bringing in more countries with far more natural differences in outlook, and thus forced a change of direction to one which focused on trade and pissing off Russia, and which led the EU into a false sense of security that global trade could be a win-win for the whole world and reduce the likelihood of wars, as countries became too economically dependent on each other to want to fight.

ALL decent countries should pull back from the USA.

Politicians will pull back via treaties and policies.

However, as ordinary people, YOU can pull back by stopping buying/using American products until Trump and his enablers are gone. (There is a mid-term election this year that might help.)

Stop buying American fast-food. Stop using Amazon. Stop using Facebook. If you're using US-based email like Gmail and Outlook, switch to something else. If you own stock in US companies, get rid of it. If you're using American beauty products, switch to something else. You get the idea.

The point I was rather making was that I personally didn't choose it. I didn't choose to pay NICs only to be denied access to NHS dentistry and then subsequently have to go private, which fortunately I can afford. To me that wreaks of fraud. But it's all part of the social contract, isn't it? I pay NICs and private costs in tandem to keep the NHS queues from getting that little bit larger, I get no thanks for it, though, I just continue to get taxed.

As for the weapons in America, that's part of the Bill of Rights. The 2nd Amendment Right in action more specifically. If you get a home invader in the dead of night and you and your family get shot and killed because you decided that firearms were bad or 'pointless to have' because you can always call the police to protect you, then it's a pretty dumb mindset to have. Perfectly well within your rights to think that way, but really, really dumb.

The less guns there are in the country the less likely your home invader is to have a gun in the first place.

Unfortunately that's not quite how it works. Remember British BLM activist Sasha Johnson? She was shot, she lost half her cranium. She was partying and there was a gang-related scuffled outside the property. Sasha got caught by a stray bullet. All this in a country where handguns are not meant to be easy to obtain.

There is also that annoying element of crime; criminals don't care for the law.

Firearms offences are low overall in the UK and armed burglaries are extremely rare whereas there are thousands of incidents of burglary in the US where a gun is involved.

That's because here in the UK, instead of firearms, other tools are ritually abused; knives, chemicals, vehicles etc. The crime is all very much there, it just doesn't happen with handguns as much. The ground was laid for the regulation (criminalisation) of handguns before the Dunblane Massacre, the massacre was the excuse for the regulation to receive Royal ascent, a kneejerk reaction of sorts (political expedience in reality).

Just because knives, chemicals and vehicles are used in crimes doesn’t mean that introducing guns into the mix would be a clever idea.

Who said anything about introducing firearms? They exist and are clearly being purchased from the black market, demonstrating that legislating anything out of reach only serves to drive it further underground.

Do you take issue with firearms police having guns? They often have MP-5s and can be seen patrolling busy places such as St. Pancras International and some large shopping centres.

@Walkaround Your post perfectly illustrates why it's so hard to implement serious pro-growth policies. Lots of objections to any particular action.

Nuclear: there are US and French suppliers who can build at scale, and the new small modular reactor (yay!) contract went to Rolls Royce. China was kicked off Sizewell in 2022. But yes, we do need a much stronger domestic supply chain, which implies committing to a sustained building programme.

Housing deregulation: the main deregulation needed is to planning, which keeps land artificially scare in parts of the country where more housing is desperately needed. No major manufacturer sells jeans that fall apart when new, because no-one would buy them. The scarcity is what allows bad developers to survive.

Infrastructure underinvestment: if you take the family's weekly shop money and blow it all on one Michelin meal, you haven't "underinvested in food", you've just wasted your budget. UK infra is massively more expensive than peer countries. Phase 1 of HS2, for example, which runs over mostly flat land, cost eight times per mile what the Hokkaido Shinkansen did, which runs through tunnels. That's not a cherry-picked example: every other country does almost every type of big infrastructure cheaper than us, often many times cheaper. Much of our spend goes on reports, consultations, reviews, challenges, etc. that don't deliver anything. Phase 2 of HS2 got cancelled. Let's do it cheaper and deliver a full infrastructure programme, not a couple of bits then cancel.

Immigration: EU-pattern migration worked well for us: people would often come here for their prime working years then return home as they aged, contributing to our economy and tax take. The subsequent 'labour shortage' based schemes do the opposite: almost by definition they target underpaid sectors, bringing people who are very unlikely to ever be net tax contributors especially because there is tendency both to stay and to bring dependents who sometimes do not work at all. We need to strengthen our economy, and immigration is a great way to do that, but not that type.

"Britain is full": if your concern is that our infrastructure and services is overburdened then you should support policies that provide more housing, cheaper infrastructure, and a growing economy and tax base to pay for it.

Our non-immigrant total fertility rate is about 1.5 (2 is roughly the replacement rate). TFR of 1.5 means the population halves in two generations, it falls to a third in three. Tto sustain the population we have, never mind grow, we need immigration. But it's really important we have the type of immigration that strengthens our economy not further burdens it, if we want to be both economically and strategically stronger and more independent as a nation.

The point being made was that the fact guns are prevalent in America makes the UK even less likely to wish to emulate them.

homicide and violent crimes are much higher in the us than the uk.

Afaik most intelligent people in the uk are happy with the balance we have here now re firearms and have no wish to follow the US example.

It's comparing apples and oranges. America has it's own legislation and a codified Bill of Rights from 200+ years of history. We have over a thousand years of history and vast legislation that cannot fit on one Bill.

Guns are prevalent in America because many Americans prefer to be armed. There are over 350 million of them and there will be a good number of outliers who hate firearms and that's perfectly fine as long as they don't preach to gun owners about how they're evil for choosing to be armed (we know they do, though, which is sad).

"Tto sustain the population we have, never mind grow, we need immigration. But it's really important we have the type of immigration that strengthens our economy not further burdens it, if we want to be both economically and strategically stronger and more independent as a nation"

If birthrates among the native population are so low to the point of collapse, surely we want to keep the native population from dying out? In which case we need to incentivise family and make having children much more affordable. With two incomes barely being enough to service a mortgage now, we really are in trouble.

Arguably, but this is an issue across most of the world, across countries with lots of different policies, at a time when (zoomed out) we are basically richer than ever.

Lots of theories as to why. Strange as it may seem I think one of the main ones might be digital media. Basically that we have more fun things to do than to couple up. Plus children in most countries aren’t needed as a family workforce or retirement plan.

Goodness me, not this old chesnut.

Knife crime is also much higher in the US.

Yes, I take it you voted Brexit too. Isolate yourself further. If anything America will disentangled from the U.K. first.

I must said I was shocked to read the below when asking for advice to travel abroad in our government page.
Safety and security
Terrorism
There is a high threat of terrorist attack globally affecting UK interests and British nationals, including from groups and individuals who view the UK and British nationals as targets. Stay aware of your surroundings at all times.

Well, yeah. A larger population tends to mean more crimes committed.

Gun ownership rates are mostly a function of laws at the state level, which range from very permissive (Texas, Florida, etc.) to very restrictive (New York, California, etc) at least for handguns. Long guns are easier to buy. Some people in NY might want a gun, but not enough to go through the bureaucratic process to buy one.

"....but not enough to go through the bureaucratic process to buy one."

Indeed. The process is the punishment. This is by design.

Crime is measured per capita.

Just going back to the last few days / weeks and the politics of it all, with domestic politicians trying to appeal to their voters one of the main people to listen is Mark Rutte.

If the situation with the arctic changes to be stronger for NATO that’s a good outcome. Maybe not for those outside it, but those who want a stronger defensive pact.