‘Britain still US cat’s paw getting nothing in return’

Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist.

There is little democracy left in the UK, according to Toni Gosling, investigative journalist. David Cameron’s policy is influenced by Washington not directly, but through the City of London, part of the same organization as Wall Street, he told RT.

RT: Almost 70 years ago Winston Churchill called the relationship between the UK and the US a special one. Is it still a special relationship between these two countries? And do other nations also see it like this?

Toni Gosling: Well, it certainly is still a special relationship between Britain and America and I think the French more than anybody else sees it like that. Charles de Gaulle, the French President, back in the 1960s was so annoyed by the fact he saw the Britain as a Trojan horse for the United States in Europe that he actually blocked Britain’s membership at the European Economic community, using the French veto to stop Britain coming in. Because basically he saw, and I think quite rightly, Britain at that time as a cat’s paw for the United States really just doing everything the US wanted. Let’s not forget, you know, back then, and still to this day, we’ve got a large contingent of American forces here. They came over to Britain during World War II and ten thousand of them are still here in Britain. So for many people including the Brits and including other Europeans they see the special relationship is still very strong because the UK seems to do almost anything the US wants.

RT: What does Great Britain have in return?

TG: Well they give supposedly military support in return. But actually we don’t really need that. Nobody is threatening to invade Britain so really there is nothing that we get in return. It’s very difficult I think to fathom for ordinary folk why we are in such a close relationship, but the fact of the matter is I think most see through the threats and menaces because the United States is so economically powerful with oil and petrodollar. From after WWII the dollar has been incredibly powerful and the US has been using that power ever since. We had a big agreement after the WWII, the Marshall Plan with the United States in order to get Britain back on its feet after WWII. And of course anyone that is borrowing money from somebody else knows - you have to be nice to the person that you borrowed the money from and that’s been a situation with Britain. Really as a dying empire we have had to go cap in hand to the Americans for a long time for both military support and financial support.

The Canary Wharf financial district is seen at dusk in east London (Reuters/Toby Melville)

But I think Britain actually could and should reassert its independence and actually some people in the House of Lords agree with me because this time a year ago, back in January 2014, the House of Lords ordered a thorough review into the US troops’ presence here in Britain. Roughly 10,000 US troops in Britain and yet there is very little regulation of them. So they do what they want behind the barbed wire fences in the US military bases. And the reason that Lord Hodgson, as a conservative peer put his name to this review, is very simple: it’s because we now have evidence that there are war crimes going on behind those bits of barbed wire, not just American barbed wire but possibly British too, particularly with those drone strikes, illegal drone strikes, possibly illegal under international law and so this has been a thorough review into that so-called special relationship ordered by the House of Lords

RT: What can you say about David Cameron’s policy?

TG: Well David Cameron’s policies are influenced by Washington, but I don’t think directly, I think through the City of London, because the big financiers in the big banks in the City are really part of the same organization as Wall Street and actually the same in many ways as the Swiss and the European Central Bank. These financiers have a very different view of the world to ordinary people. They are the financial elite. So they have very little contact with most of the rest of us and those are the kinds of people that are really telling David Cameron what his policies should be. We have very little real democracy left in Britain, because most of the top ends of all the political parties now have been bought by this closely-knit financial center. The finance people and the military though do get together and they lobby politicians right across Europe not only in Britain.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.