Well that explains it! in that case. All this while, I was wondering why would the British ( virtually the USA's 51st state) be opposing a US policy to attack Russia. .... well maybe what the British delegate here was trying to do here was just an eyewash and just preventing the EU from forming its own army ... so that they are independent of the US and so that the EU will ALWAYS be dependent on US and be forced to forward their policies
UK is like an appendage to the EU. It serves the purpose of dragging the EU down every time it tries to get up and learn to stand on its own feet. It is like tying a brick to your leg and then trying to run.
The UK does contribute a lot to the EU GDP, and a lot of trade is handled through London. However, there is a catch. If you look at manufacturing, UK is nowhere close to other western European countries.
That is the catch. The UK has a very extensive banking and finance sector. A lot of the revenue generated is just by playing with numbers. Much of the GDP figures that UK contributes are simply pen-pushing and paper-pushing.
Yet another thing that keeps London relevant is Bank of England.
It is the bank "of England," but the people of England have very little control over it. In practice, it functions like a private bank. It is a counterpart of the Bank of International Settlements. Basically, they have vaults, where they store gold bars, and these gold bars act as collateral for all the money that is tossed around, and works in very intimate collaboration with the Federal Reserve of the US, and you probably know that the Federal Reserve is also a private bank, and the US Dollar is a currency issued by the Federal Reserve, and hence is a currency that is issued, essentially by a private company.
The US government borrows dollars from this bank. How does it do that? The US Treasury sells bonds (Treasury bonds, or government bonds) to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve in turn "prints" money (much of the printing is done electronically, i.e., the virtual money is created and they live in computer servers) and gives to the Treasury, who then uses that money to pay the bills the government accumulates, while they collect revenue via tax and other proceeds, and returns some dollars back to the Federal Reserve, which does not pay back the
loan's principal, but does pay back the
loan's interest. This is the
tip of the iceberg, and of the conundrum that "debt is money and money is debt" concept, which right now is on the decline.
Similarly, the Bank of England plays a similar role in the UK. Both the banks are backed by financiers, who you will rarely hear about. These banks wield considerable influence over the US and UK governments, due to the fact that these governments of so called "wealthy" countries owe an exorbitant amount of money to these banks and their financiers. Politicians, therefore, would rarely go against these banks in a major way.
Now, you might say, what if the government chooses to take over these banks? That will not happen, because, these banks have most likely hedged against the possibility by trading with Treasury bonds or government bonds, and any attempt at nationalization of these bonds will result in the international financial markets being flooded with Treasury bonds, which will bring down the credibility of the respective government that attempts a nationalization. This, in turn will result in loss of trade, and there will be
financial collapse in the country whose government attempts a nationalization.
This is the reason why the US and UK work closely together.
It is unclear whether the UK is the 51st state of the US, or the US is still a financial colony of the UK.
Similarly, the Swiss Banks have remained largely safe throughout the two World Wars. That is also another financial hub that is of interest to financiers. Even if one financier might finance one belligerent and another finance the opposing belligerent, they both can have a common interest in Switzerland, and its safety.