Former Thatcher Adviser Rips Obama for Using BP Spill Against UK

From his first days in the White House, Barack Obama has been criticized for his seeming indifference to the “special relationship [1]” between the United States and the United Kingdom. Even in the wake of a visit [2] from Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron on July 21, critics maintain that the president is still somewhat hostile to our most steadfast ally.

Lord Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, believes the hostility is still prevalent. In an appearance on CNBC’s July 26 “Squawk Box,” Monckton took the president to task for exploiting the BP oil spill as a way of bashing Britain.

“Well Joe, I do think there are one or two indications that President Obama is not very friendly disposed towards the United Kingdom,” Monckton said. “One of his first acts on entering office and going into the White House was to have the bust of Churchill removed. Now, the story is that his grandfather was badly treated by the British in Kenya when they ruled it. I don't know the history. I haven't looked at that. But there does seem to be a deliberate hostility in the way that President Obama went around referring to it as British Petroleum all the time and almost using the disaster as a way of hitting back at the Brits.”

But according Monckton, who is also the deputy leader of the U.K. Independence Party [3], the strategy is backfiring.

“That, I think, has played very badly on this side of the water,” he said. “And indeed for my friends on your side of the water, it also played badly because they too, think he worked have concentrated on getting the spill sorted out and then deal with who got what wrong. And I think his attacks on the United Kingdom – using this and other things as an excuse – are unfortunate because we would like to maintain a strong, special relationship with the United States.”

Monckton also explained the administration was attempting to take advantage of this crisis to promote its global warming agenda, specifically cap-and-trade legislation that would put a price on carbon emissions.

“Well, certainly, I think the using the oil spill as an excuse to attack fossil fuels is, again, something unfortunate,” Monckton said. “After all, a lot of American jobs are already being lost because of the campaign against carbon, which, as best we can make it out in the United Kingdom Independence Party is an entirely misplaced campaign. Our own policy is that our own climate change bill should be set aside and no more spending should be made on this issue until a royal commission has fairly heard both sides of the case and has reported. Because it's becoming clear that the weather simply hasn't been warming up over the last 60 years as fast as the formula in the IPCC reports would lead us to believe. The problem is perhaps only one-third as bad as they say it is and that means it’s no problem at all.”

But the chances of a cap-and-trade bill making it out of the Senate have waned. Recent polling data [4] shows more Americans believe in haunted houses than anthropogenic global warming and trends like this have hurt the chances of a global warming bill passing.

“The danger we're getting into here,” Monckton continued, “is that Obama and other forces are using this oil spill as an excuse to say, ‘Well, there you are, then, hydrocarbons are not only bad for pelicans, they're also bad for the planet and so let's close them down.’ However, I noticed that in the Senate they are no longer succeeding with a cut-down version of a cap-and-trade bill. They realize they simply don't have the votes. And the reason why they don't have the votes is that the American people have come to understand that it's a large coalescence of vested interests worldwide that has been pursuing this global warming scare. But fewer and fewer ordinary people any longer believe in and as best as I can make out.”

Like this article? Sign up [5] for “The Balance Sheet,” BMI’s weekly e-mail newsletter.