OUT ON A LIMB: Why US critics are wrong to claim Britain should have stayed out of the Second World War.
The legacy of war is increasingly disputed in Britain too, however absurd that might sound, despite expressions of pride in our “finest hour” and cheerful evocation of “the Dunkirk spirit”. For decades, some historians have been busily chipping away at what they consider an indulgent myth. From the Left, attempts have been made to debunk national unity, foregrounding issues such as desertion, black marketeering, government incompetence and snobbery towards working-class evacuees.
From the radical Right came efforts to belittle Britain’s victory as the cause of post-war complacency, economic decline, welfarism and delusions of grandeur. At least one Right-wing historian criticised Churchill for refusing a deal with Adolf Hitler to preserve Britain’s empire, wealth and great-power status. More recently, Remainer historians blamed “nostalgia” for the war for Brexit. Promoters of “decolonisation” want to demolish any sense of Britain as pursuing a brave and necessary struggle. They condemn Churchill as an imperialist villain, and one voluble activist has accused the British Empire of being worse than the Nazis.
Now, celebrities on the American Right have taken up some of these themes in the name of isolationism and amoral realpolitik. Tucker Carlson, an American political commentator who spoke to Jacob Rees-Mogg on his show earlier this month, argued that Britain was foolish to throw itself into a global war when it could have done a deal – as if war is a business transaction to be assessed in terms of profit and loss.
Tucker really can’t be called a “celebrity on the American Right” anymore. Ever since the Nixon era, a man with Very Serious Hair could make a very good living in the Northeast Corridor as a talking head who poses as a Republican, but somehow, can never find an actual Republican to endorse. Since the fall of 2024, Tucker has taken that role about as far as it can go.
