So Alan Johnson has shown the callousness and spinelessness we've come to expect from New Labour politicians dealing with the United States of America in the case of Gary McKinnon.
Yet another British citizen is to be boxed up and shipped across to the United States of America using a piece of legislation that was supposed to be used to help target terrorists but is now used semi-regularly to send any British citizen the US of A wants across the Atlantic. McKinnon, whose mental state is precarious at best, now faces gung ho US prosecutors threatening him with ridiculously long sentences in 'super max' prisons for a crime committed by McKinnon in the UK.
The fact that the legislation that allows this 'fast-track' sacrifice of British citizens is so one-sided seems to be irrelevant to British ministers whose fear of upsetting the USA seems to have reached embarrassing proportions. We are supposed to be an independent country not a colony of the USA. The fact that Obama's US is still going through with this exercise, which is simply one of pointless vengeance. They should be hiring McKinnon to show them how to improve their security not threatening him with prison.
When British politicians talk about our 'special relationship' with the US they seem to do so with pride but I think it is time for them to look again. Our relationship with the US does have historical and linguistic links but since World War One when the British government effectively bankrupted itself we have been the weaker partner in this relationship. Now we seem to have developed an embarrassing need to keep the USA happy. We've become like a man desperately trying to attract to get a woman he has liked for a long time to see him as something more than a friend. We do stupid, undignified and humilating things to keep her happy even though we know it isn't helping.
So we sign up to one sided agreements that enable the USA to demand British citizens be handed over to them without question. Let's see what happens when we try and do the reverse. Let's ask for some poor dope from the USA to be 'fast-tracked' and see what happens.
Our relationship with the USA is now so unhealthy that it would make a fine episode of the Jeremy Kyle show. 'I used to love him but now he treats me like dirt'.
So Alan Johnson has given up but that doesn't mean that we should. Write to your MP and to Mr Louis B Susman, the American Ambassador in the United Kingdom. Tell them that Gary McKinnon should be, at worst, tried here and at best be released and that this 'fast-tracking' process brings shame on both the British government and the US government.
