JOHN BOLTON, President Trump’s National Security Adviser, was in town yesterday recruiting mercenaries to the US cause, including its trade war with China and the EU, and its war plan against Iran.
His campaign started at the very top with Prime Minister Johnson. He came bearing potential gifts to bribe the already pro-Trump UK leader.
His message was that the UK is ‘first in line’ for a trade deal with the US, and that the US supports a ‘no deal’ Brexit as part of the US trade war against the EU, and its campaign to make France and Germany pay for the US’ ‘protection of Europe’.
His message to stiffen Boris up for Leave Day October 31 was that the US supports a no-deal Brexit and that Trump proposes an accelerated series of trade deals to be done ‘sector by sector’ – if the UK falls into line with US policy to send more warships and troops to the Gulf, and to break with any notion of working with China’s Huawei company.
According to Bolton, a bilateral agreement or ‘series of agreements’ could be carved out ‘very quickly, very straight-forwardly’ since, he explained, ‘both President Trump and I were leavers before there were leavers’.
Bolton said the US understands the importance and urgency of ‘doing as much as we can agree on as rapidly as possible because of the impending 31 October exit date’, although a trade deal for financial services and agriculture would not be the first to be agreed.
He also assured Johnson that there would be enthusiastic bipartisan support in Congress for speedy ratification at each stage – provided the UK delivers its side of the bargain. He also criticised the European Union and accused it of treating voters like ‘peasants’.
‘The fashion in the European Union when the people vote the wrong way from the way that the elites want to go is to make the peasants vote again and again until they get it right,’ he said.
He made it clear that the US government ‘fully understands’ that Brexit is the UK’s first priority, and said issues like Iran, China, and the involvement of the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei in building the UK’s 5G mobile infrastructure, could be put off until after the UK leaves the EU October 31 – in just over a month.
He concluded: ‘We just ask that, as issues come up, we resolve them individually and we reserve the time to have a larger conversation on some of these important issues at a moment that is really right for the new government. We just felt we owe them that.’
Bolton also gave Johnson a pat on the back lauding his willingness to participate in Operation Sentinel, which aims to beef up the military presence in the Gulf in the face of tensions between the West and Iran, saying he was ‘pleased’ as this ‘reflects a change from the prior government’.
Lewis Lukens, a former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in London and former acting US ambassador, confirmed that Bolton is aligned to President Trump’s ‘America first agenda’ and would be making ‘strong demands’ on the UK to back the US position on issues like Huawei, China and Iran. For example, he said Bolton would want a ‘clear indication’ from the UK it would leave the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew the US from in May 2018.
Johnson is expected to have his first face-to-face meeting as prime minister with Trump later this month at the G7 summit in France. However, the UK already dispatched the warship HMS Kent to the Persian Gulf on Monday as part of the US-led Maritime Security Mission in the area.
The United States, in turn, has stepped up its military presence in the Middle East in what Bolton called ‘a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime’, sending a carrier strike group, Patriot missiles, B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters to the area, according to the Pentagon.
Johnson will pay a price for any Trump ‘support’ of Brexit. Not only will the UK have to provide the cannon fodder for US military adventures in the Gulf – and even in the Americas – the NHS will have to be opened up to the US giant private medical industry which has already begun to take it over.
The real situation is that the UK is no longer a great imperialist power. It is more of a scavenger now, and its ruling class is split and at war with itself over whether it should serve Brussels or Washington.
However, the UK working class has not broken with the EU to serve the US bosses and bankers. It must force its unions to take general strike action to eject the UK from the EU on October 31, and then go forward to expropriate the bosses and bankers and bring in a workers government and socialism. This will inspire the US and EU workers to emulate them, putting an end to capitalism worldwide. This is the way forward!