Irwin Stelzer

Don’t listen to Obama – real Americans want Brexit

Because Americans love Britain, and because we are a presumptuous lot, we often advise the United Kingdom on its foreign policy. And not only the UK, but Europe. Successive US administrations have urged European nations to form a United States of Europe as an answer to the question attributed to Henry Kissinger: ‘Who do I call if I want to call Europe?’

The latest such unrequested advice was offered to your Prime Minister by no less a foreign-policy maven — see his successes in Libya, Middle East, China, Crimea — than Barack Obama. The outgoing president informed David Cameron that his administration wants to see ‘a strong United Kingdom in a strong European Union’. He seemed to assume that, in the words of the Sinatra ballad, you can’t have one without the other.

But many of us here in the US are rooting for Brexit, and not just because we want what is best for Britain. We think Brexit would be in America’s interests.

Britain has long been America’s most valuable ally. During the second world war, it was Britain that held the fort against Germany while we dithered. Not France, which quickly surrendered. Not Italy, which opportunistically lined up with Hitler. Not Spain, which that wily fascist Franco kept out of the war. You get the point: because Britain was in a position to act on its own, without consulting any so-called allies, and because it was blessed with Winston Churchill as its prime minister and war leader, as well as a willingness of its parliamentarians from all parties to cease their inter-party wars and concentrate on the more important battle, we in America benefited from a period in which we geared up our military and industry to enter the war and relieve Britain of some of its burden.

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