Fifty-First State (38 page)

In retrospect, it seems obvious that something like this must and would happen. What else did we expect? The US administration had always suspected Britain of laxity in rooting out its terrorists and clinging to outmoded concepts governing the collection of evidence, the amount of time to be spent in custody before being charged, and the trials themselves. A lot of these rights had been modified or even cancelled by riders added to existing legislation but even those changes were being appealed. Britain, it must have seemed from across the Atlantic, was suffering from libertarianism-as-disease, giving free reign to nests of terrorists ready to take planes across the Atlantic to continue their attacks on American soil. The British parliament had given the US military a bloody nose over the sale of the bases. Encouraged by this, a movement was growing to take them back altogether. There were huge crowds at Holy Loch shouting exactly that. Was the USA prepared to tolerate being deprived of the bases it considered necessary for control of Europe and the Middle East (not to mention Russia)? Accept a huge strategic reverse, an insult, a threat? And a big encouragement to any other nation with US bases to do the same (they had already lost their five bases in Iraq, when the new government took over)? And so the Military Assistants arrived, to be followed by many other kinds of Assistant. How stupid we were, even the clever ones. It had been planned in advance, but we hadn't suspected a thing.

And we didn't know, then, that in April Humphrey Starke, Petherbridge's Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a secret visit to Washington. He went to discuss the prospect of Britain joining the North Atlantic Trade Agreement, initially a consortium of nations with which the US shared borders – Mexico and Canada – and then, later, under the Latin American Plan, including several countries in Latin America. The trade alliance was controlled, of course, by the country with the most economic clout, the United States.

The news of the Chancellor's visit to Washington finally leaked, in Berlin, a month later. The EU Finance Ministers had been anticipating something like this. For how long no one could guess. Certainly by February, when Gott had dined at the French Embassy, the British Foreign Office already knew, or guessed, something of the sort. The Council of Finance Ministers demanded an assurance that Britain was not planning to break all its treaties with the EU and join something which did not
yet exist, but could rapidly be created – a Transatlantic Free Trade Area. They said that if Britain joined a free trade area with the US, it was probable the country would have to leave the EU. The Foreign Office had always taken the line that the nations of Europe would never abandon their trade with a nation of sixty million people. Whether they fully believed this or not, it was what they told the Prime Minister, who wanted to believe it and wanted the public to believe it. The government and the Bank of England promptly denied there was any plan for a trade alliance between Britain and the other countries of the Transatlantic Trade Agreement.

A further leak claimed that the Chancellor had held discussions with officials at the Federal Reserve and a consortium of US bankers. It was plain the matter had been under discussion for months. Perhaps since Petherbridge's bought government had been elected. Or even before, when he met the President to discuss the forthcoming British election and its funding from US sources. These strategies are like Jaws, barely rippling the water but getting closer and closer until suddenly – there he is with all his teeth pointing at you.

The EU struck with astonishing speed. They dragged up a maritime report produced in 2010, a report no one had paid attention to at the time, probably because it was against everyone's interests. The report said that the English Channel and North Sea between Britain and Holland were the most congested waterways in the world, and were now so overcrowded as to constitute a grave danger to shipping. There was particular concern about the oil tankers coming from Rotterdam and the likelihood of serious collisions and consequent ecological disaster. In June the EU imposed a shipping ban on traffic between Britain and the Continent. This meant the end of a quarter of the trade between Britain and Europe. Medicines and medical supplies were unaffected. Fruit and vegetables were allowed in, no doubt as a sop to French, Italian and Spanish farmers. But there were shortages, the worst and most immediate being oil. The US tried to compensate but the cost of the oil tankered from the States was prohibitive and the quantities insufficient.

Their worst nightmare was that Britain, still half in the EU because of previous binding agreements and also tied in with the US, would become a conduit into Europe for cheap goods. And then – the most frightening part of the nightmare – Britain would agree to link sterling with the dollar, creating a hybrid dollar/pound to compete with the euro, already under attack, in the fight with the Chinese yuan.

The sanctions were just a way of telling Britain to back off, stop flirting with the Yanks, and come home to where it belonged.

There came the drip, drip, drip of planted, pro-American, anti-Europe publicity. The ‘special relationship', the need to have the military
protection of America, the urgency of parting with Europe, bloodsucking, tax-consuming, unaccountable Europe with its petty rules and regulations. For public consumption the Downing Street publicity machine tried to produce an image of Bryan de Crespigny, the French Foreign Minister and his puppet, the EU Minister, Henri Laforge, egging on the EU to spite Britain, for whom the French, since Napoleon, had a long-standing hatred. They went back to the days of the Second World War when the continent of Europe had been under German control and Britain had stood alone under its great wartime leader. But, as the great wartime leader once said, you can't lie to all of the people all of the time. People no longer believed what they were told – anything they were told.

And then, in August 2016, the deed was done. The Transatlantic Trade Agreement was created. Britain joined the existing consortium. The Stock Exchange plunged. It was August – the parliamentarians were on holiday. There were demands, of course, for the recall of Parliament. The Chancellor, the Prime Minister, and, later, the Chairman of the Bank of England, described the treaty as a normal trade treaty made between trading nations; there was no requirement to recall Parliament and, therefore, Parliament was not recalled.

If the EU had acted quickly in June, now it moved faster. It doubled the sanctions. The chicken-and-egg argument goes on to this day. Apologists for the government say the earlier sanctions forced Britain into the Transatlantic Trade Agreement – defence against the arrogant and overbearing states of Europe. The opposition claims the EU is protecting itself against a sinister US – UK alliance. Each side, in other words, maintains it's acted only to defend itself against the other. Who will ever know the truth? Is there one big truth behind this whole sorry affair? Gott claims there is – that this had been planned in outline between Alan Petherbridge and the President of the USA in August 2015, and thereafter he and his advisors used every move, whether made by terrorist bombers or the EU, to take Britain in the direction agreed during that summer of 2015 at Camp David.

Meanwhile, whatever the reasons, we began to suffer. Shortages became dearth. After August, petrol rationing was imposed. Manufacturing jobs went. Shops closed. Tourism collapsed. Fuel cards were issued and slowly, as stocks depleted, electricity was also rationed. The price of everything shot up. Price rises and unemployment meant that people who would previously have thought it inconceivable were standing in Salvation Army queues for meals. Another card was issued, allowing people to buy staple foods at low prices. The very old said it reminded them of the war. My husband said people with roots in poorer countries on the whole fared better, because the experience of producing nutritious food from practically nothing was closer.

Capital haemorrhaged from the country, meaning more lost jobs. A once-prosperous country was living now with unemployment, shortages, lack of money, fuel rationing and electricity cuts. Many with roots abroad left for their countries of origin, or of their parents' or grandparents' origins. The population emigrated if they could. Half a million had gone or applied to go to Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The US made special arrangements for skilled British people to go to the States.

Because of the benefits of the Transatlantic Trade Agreement, and with an educated and docile workforce, the US began to buy in heavily to British firms, or even take them over completely. Gott's firm Citycars was targeted, but he wouldn't budge. Gott had predicted that if the American consortium bidding for Citycars had got hold of it, they would have moved the R and D staff they wanted to the States, then shut down the plant and relocated it in a country with cheaper labour costs.

Europeans were sorry for ordinary people in Britain. That September, Sam and I were staying with my father in Spain, while the Friths, just along the coast, tried to put William together again. ‘You ‘ave been sold,' said someone, a Spaniard next to me at the bar. He was instantly contradicted by one of the expats, whose income had soared because of the level of business – buying, selling and takeovers – on the Stock Exchange. ‘Best thing possible,' said this unrepentant exile in a European country. ‘Free trade – fellowship of the English-speaking world – get rid of all the rules and regulations.' I knew it was a rummage sale and once it was over the ex-pat's yield would drop but I wasn't about to start a row in a hotel my father ran. I just said to the Spaniard that I thought the EU would kick us out. ‘Damn good thing, too,' said the expat.

In September the European Parliament met, voted and declared that the price of restoring normal trade relations with Britain was for Britain to get out of the treaty with the US and subscribe, heavily, to the European Dream. Half of Britain's armed services must be put under European control in the new European Defence Force. And Britain must join the euro. Petherbridge defied them. The two World Wars were invoked as usual. ‘We stood alone then,' Petherbridge declared, ‘and we will do so again. We will never surrender.'

A lot of dollars were pumped into the system. Bought-up firms expanded and in blighted areas new branches of US firms – car factories, food processors, small engineering works – opened up. The British government was funding big new projects – the contracts and ownership went to US firms but the jobs to the Brits.

The Thames Gateway project, a new city planned to run east from London to the coast, much revised, cancelled, downsized, upsized, planned again and restarted, would now be built, once the Thames Estuary barrage was constructed. They would build 300,000 houses and bring in 40,000
jobs. New giant National Health clinics and mega-hospitals would bring more work. Shallow, localized, instant prosperity, which wouldn't last, Gott predicted. Taxpayers' money being sucked into US firms. But Gott was a wealthy man. He could afford to take the long view.

The grass roots of the Labour Party saw the new jobs – even the detested airbases were a source of employment – but still voted Carl Chatterton out in September and installed the anti-American Mark Moreno. He began a vigorous assault on the government. He questioned the legality of the new US bases. He challenged the sell-up of British firms. He was launching a bill proposing that Britain should comply with the EU's demands. He even went to Edward Gott and proposed that if Gott would supply details about the sources of the funding for the last election, he would impeach Alan Petherbridge, the Prime Minister. Gott told him he would collaborate on this, but not now. It was, he said, too soon. ‘
Soon,
' Moreno exploded. ‘If anything, it's too late. When do you think
soon
will be over. How long? What more do you need, Gott?'

That winter was very hard. Public finances were so depleted that state benefits had to be cut by one third. Domestic use of electricity was rationed to keep factories, offices and hospitals open. No aspect of everyday life was unaffected. You have to imagine households where one partner is unemployed, that have electricity only four hours a day, so that laundry, bathing and cooking have to be squeezed into that time, that have only basic foodstuffs and where all forms of entertainment relying on electricity have gone by 8 p.m. Cars could only be used when absolutely essential.

People were bemused at first as they struggled to cope with life starved of electricity, petrol and, very often, money. They had no real feelings about joining a US-headed trade agreement any more than they had ever been enthusiastic about joining Europe. But forced to choose, this time they picked Europe. The siege had demonstrated the extent to which Britain and the Continent of Europe were now interdependent. And it certainly looked like the quickest way to get their old lives back – paint the house, drive the children to school, find a job, warm up the house.

Public order was hard to maintain. Strong measures were taken – there were the stop-and-searches involving police violence (the Auxiliaries became more out of control.) There were summary arrests, and unaccountable disappearances.

The Scots and Welsh demanded in their Parliaments that Britain should get out of the Transatlantic Trade Agreement and start negotiations with the EU. There was an attack on the base at Holy Loch and it was defended, with the help of a police force committed to public order. A man was shot. There was no apology. The US base on the East Kilbride estate outside Glasgow was stormed by young men – another was killed. Again,
there was no apology. There were attacks on US servicemen and US personnel were obliged to stay on their bases, or at least go out in large groups. It was plain that Petherbridge had lost any control over his masters, if he had ever had any – if he had ever expected to have any.

But he intended to keep control over his own country and put in force the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004, which gave the government almost dictatorial powers. By autumn, Petherbridge was certainly the most unpopular man in the country. The public ached to topple him – but the only way of doing so, short of revolution, would come with the next general election, three years away.