WITH more than 100 million gallons of oil already freed to spew all over the US Gulf coast, the ‘special relationship’ between the US ruling class and UK’s capitalists looks to be at an end.
The earlier dismissals of the catastrophe by the BP bosses infuriated the US and embarrassed its president. BP’s attitude was ‘disaster, what disaster?’
ts CEO Tony Hayward then insisted – without either understanding or caring that it would be seen as a form of mockery of the US discomfiture – that BP would be paying dividends as usual.
This is what roused President Obama to a fury. Now BP’s sense of superiority has given way to blind panic, with the company on course to disintegrate after it has paid for the entire cost of the disaster and faced the costs of criminal charges.
A deeper reason for Obama’s ire is the US strategic consideration. This is the need of US imperialism to get to the surface and into use the billions of barrels of oil that lie off its eastern and western coast lines, that could make the difference between life and death for US imperialism.
BP’s costly misadventure has wrecked the prospects for this to happen for at least the next decade, and it will pay the price for this.
Already the knives are out on this side of the Atlantic as much disturbed British Tories scream that the uppity Obama must be put in his place.
Some are hinting that Obama’s Kenyan origins make him intrinsically anti-British, because of the way that the British army crushed the Kenyan people in the 1950’s to destroy the Mau Mau and the ‘Land Freedom Army’.
Other ruling class figures, such as Royal Sun Alliance chairman John Napier, are saying that Obama is ‘unbalanced’.
Meanwhile, the Tory press – amongst it the Telegraph and the Daily Mail – are hinting that Tory leader Cameron is a traitor for not standing up to Obama.
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph screamed ‘Cameron fails to back BP in fight with Obama’, while the Daily Mail shrieked that Cameron must stand up for Britain, especially since President Obama is now demanding the resignation of BP CEO Hayward.
The reality is that British imperialism is now a pigmy compared even to its status at the end of the Second World War. Today it is being pushed into a much-reduced place in the world, as a third class capitalist power.
This is why Cameron is extremely hesitant at taking on Obama and the US ruling class.
After just days in office he is already in the bad books of the US presidency for publicly displaying his enthusiasm for getting out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, and for refusing to allow thousands of British troops to be shifted from Helmand province to Kandahar, where British troops would suffer heavy casualties.
Cameron also knows what happened the last time that the UK had a major row with Uncle Sam.
That was in 1956, when the UK, France and Israel invaded Egypt, and British forces landed near Alexandria, with the object of racing to Cairo and removing President Nasser.
The US stepped in and forced the British and the French to withdraw, making British imperialism the laughing stock of the world, and forcing Prime Minister Anthony Eden to resign.
Britain is now much weaker than it was in 1956.
However, US imperialism is also currently fighting for its life. It is threatening Iran, threatening China that it must revalue its currency, facing millions of unemployed US workers at home, and fighting to dominate world markets. It has no time to worry about its sick British cousin.
Cameron is clear that the main enemy is at home, and that after the June emergency budget, battle is going to be joined with the British working class. This is why he is so keen to get the troops back to the UK.
Such is the crisis of British capitalism, and such is the rate of its decline as shown by the collapse of BP, it cannot survive unless it throws back the working class a hundred years.
Britain is moving rapidly into a revolutionary situation. To maintain its jobs, wages and basic rights the working class will have to overthrow British capitalism and establish workers power and socialism.
This will be part of the world socialist revolution which will be victorious when the US working class and the workers of the world overthrow US imperialism.
