By IRNA,
London : The British government needs to be more realistic and less deferential in its relations with the US, according to a new parliamentary report published Sunday.
“The perception that the British government was a subservient ‘poodle’ to the US administration leading up to the period of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath is widespread both among the British public and overseas,” the Foreign Affairs Committee said.
“This perception, whatever its relation to reality, is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the UK,” the all-party committee of MPs said.
Chair of the committee Mike Gapes MP called for the UK to adopt a “more hard-headed political approach towards our relationship with the US with a realistic sense of our own limits and our national interests.”
“Certainly the UK must continue to position itself closely alongside the US but there is a need to be less deferential and more willing to say no where our interests diverge,” Gapes said.
The MPs agreed that the links between the two countries was “profound and valuable” but warned that it was wrong to speak any longer of the UK’s boasted “special relationship” with the US.
“We must be realistic and accept that globalisation, structural changes and shifts in geopolitical power will inevitably affect the UK-US relationship,” Gapes said.
“It is likely that the extent of political influence which the UK has exercised on US decision-making as a consequence of its military commitments is likely to diminish,” he said.
“Over the longer-term the UK is unlikely to be able to influence the US to the extent it has in the past,” the chairman lamented after the committee examined relations between the two countries since 2001.
“The use of the phrase ‘the special relationship’ in its historical sense, to describe the totality of the ever-evolving UK-US relationship, is potentially misleading, and we recommend that its use should be avoided,” he concluded.