Tuesday, 12 August 2008

Could the UK be a neutral country?

Old Holborn suggests that it would be good for us if we were:

So I propose that we do what those smart Swiss people do. Tell everyone to fuck off and mind their own business. Give anyone with a record of paying tax a nice shiny gun to keep in the Everest Conservatory, next to the golf clubs and the shit wicker furniture, train them how to pop a cap in some mofo’s ass from 50 yards and declare ourselves neutral. But nuclear weapons type of neutral. Stonking great fuck off aircraft carrier, Polaris armed subs type of neutral.

The Yanks won’t like it but then frankly who cares? What will they do? Buy less fish and chips? The French won’t like it because whilst they get the Foreign legion (full of dysfunctional Irish, dishonourably discharged Scots and a few other loons) to do any fighting, they won’t be able to rely on Tommy to go where there is no soap or lavender hand lotion and do the actual dirty stuff. Germans won’t like it because they know that once they actually start killing people, they find they have a talent for it and can’t stop. Italians will need more places to hide and the Dutch are all dope smoking vegans with degrees from Den Haag university in asset management.

So, if the yanks want to start wars with everyone over oil, they can damn well do their own fighting (which they are notoriously bad at). We, the British people, will look after Britain if it’s all the same to you lot. Save an absolute fortune, stop worrying about hook nosed ‘stanis and still suck up the oil like every other country without any of the hassle of cluster bombing goat herders.

Armed Neutrality. The Libertarian Way to keep the barbarian hoards at bay.


Personally, I'm not sure of some of the details, but I like the idea in principle.

1 comment:

Wat Dabney said...

It's the nuclear weapons bit that makes if feasible. To maintain its freedoms, Britain has traditionally had to maintain a careful balance of power in Europe by aligning with the weaker alliance of the time - with Prussia against Napoleonic France, and later with France against a unified Germany; all so as to avoid a situation where the dominant power crushed or neutralised the weaker nations one by one, then turned on an isolated Britain to impose whatever conditions it wanted. It's a large part of why Britain had to go to war in 1914.
But a nuclear-armed Britain can stand alone and not be forced to submit to threats, even from a much stronger power.

As for Switzerland, had the Nazis won in the Europe their neutrality would have counted for nought. No nuclear weapons, see.