Why did the UK really participate in Iraq?

[Some people are wondering](http://www.mpacuk.org/mpac/data/df61f0c2/df61f0c2.jsp) why it was that the UK really got involved in the US’s invasion of Iraq. After all, we have here what passes for a centre-left government, and the last time the US was embarking on a foolish overseas mission with (some) international help, the UK managed to keep out of it. And this was during the Cold War, during which arguably we needed America much more than we do now.


Thinking back over it, it seems that Tory Bliar was always going to go in with Bush, regardless of how tenuous the evidence for it was. WMDs? There are none. Al-Qa’ida? No link whatsoever (ideologically opposed and completely different). The excuse? He’s a bad guy, tortured a lot of people, invaded a petty state next door, the world’s a better place with him in jail. Much of this could also be said of other dictators, like Mugabe and the appalling petty king Mswati of Swaziland, he of however many wives (he gets a new one every year), not all of them willing (in a country with well over 30% HIV infection rate).

I believe the real reason is economics. And I’m not talking about cheap oil, either. France and Germany didn’t get involved because they are perfectly able to tell Bush to get stuffed, and the UK is not. The industry I personally know a bit about is the truck building industry, which has always consisted of companies cobbling together other companies’ bits. Foden and ERF in particular, used Cummins engines, Meritor axles and Eaton gearboxes, the same as so many big American trucks.

Our biggest truck maker was British Leyland, which also owned the Scammell heavy truck operation. In the 1990s Leyland was bought out by DAF, a Dutch manufacturer, which has now been bought out by Paccar, which also owns Kenworth and Peterbilt – and Foden. All DAF heavy trucks are made in the Netherlands.

As for the others, ERF was bought out by MAN, who then discovered a big hole in the finances and closed the plant, moving production to Germany. Seddon Atkinson was always owned by an international truck company which also owned the Spanish builder Pegaso. It was bought out in the 1990s by an Italian-German company, Iveco, which also bought the British Ford operation, and Ford still part owns this, but the trucks are all called Iveco.

Compare this to the situation on the Continent: Daimler-Chrysler, based in Germany, owns the American Freightliner truck builder. Renault bought Mack, and Volvo bought White’s. So a big chunk of the US truck market is (or was – I heard that Ford has a stake in Volvo) controlled from Europe, while most of the UK’s is controlled from the US, as well as Europe.

I’m not sure what other sectors mirror this situation. Of course, General Motors owns Vauxhall, and also the Bedford truck company (which it shut down! But what might happen if the UK did tell the US it was on its own, and a nationalistic major shareholder in one of these companies kicked up a fuss, and the company then decided they needed to shed a few jobs, so who better to dump than a few of the ungrateful Brits?

Actually, I’m at a loss to think of a single British company which leads the world in anything. The computer industry here is controlled mostly by American and Far Eastern companies – think HP/Compaq, Dell, Samsung. We do have ARM, which is the leading supplier of microprocessors for handheld computers and mobile phones, but its chips are mostly made by Intel, but the only desktop computer based on the technology failed (the Archimedes) and if you want an [ARM desktop computer](http://www.castle-technology.co.uk/castle/ordering/computers.html) now, it’ll cost you considerably more than any normal PC – in fact, more than a 64-bit PC. And while they obviously sell enough of these to make the operation viable, I’ve never heard of any proportion they have of total computer sales.

As for why this is, well the UK has a long tradition of prouducing “just good enough” goods rather than quality – compare historical Austin with VWs, never mind Mercs or Volvos, and you’ll see what I mean. Europe also has a history of supporting its national industries, while British politicians called ours “lame ducks” and sold them off. Even some British military industries are foreign-owned. Papers sometimes talk of “rip-off Britain” when it comes to prices compared to the Continent, but quality-wise, this is Bargain Basement Britain.

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