Britain will never be great again until we stop flogging our top companies to the US | Will Hutton
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Tech selloffs not only cost tax revenue and jobs, but are turning the UK into a vassal state. There is much to admire about the US. The great French social observer Alexis de Tocqueville, nearly 200 years ago, lauded its commitment to civic virtue, individual self-improvement and hard work – legacies of its puritan founders.
![[Will Hutton]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/09/Will-Hutton,-R.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Those traits are still evident today, but alongside them a darker one has emerged. The US, the hegemon of the 20th century still committed to democracy, has changed. It has transmuted into an imperial power careless of democracy but ever readier to exact economic tribute from its vassal states.
No country has become more of a US vassal than the UK. This evolution is exposed in an eye-opening book, Vassal State: How America Runs Britain. Donald Trump’s impending inauguration, accompanied by threats of tariffs and the downgrading of its commitment to Nato unless its client states bend even more to its will, has shaken western capitals. But, as author Angus Hanton carefully documents, this is not something new; the US has been putting America first for decades. Trump is only turning up the dial on a longstanding phenomenon. Changing this demands more than appointing the sinuous Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to the US: it is about recognising the extent of what is happening, then fighting fire with fire. It is time to put Britain first.
Hanton writes that 25% of British GDP is made up of sales of 1,256 US multinationals operating in Britain. It includes everyday sectors – breakfast cereals, soft drinks, car manufacture, taxis, food delivery, online shopping, travel, coffee, social media, entertainment (Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola, Ford, Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon, Expedia, Starbucks, X, Netflix) – and knowledge-intensive sectors ranging from data (Apple, Meta/Facebook, Google, Microsoft) to finance (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock). As he reels off the statistics and extent of the exploitative dominance, your head spins.
