Mitt Romney; Britain is a tiny island that makes stuff nobody wants

[mateo45]

Dunno if related to Romney's frequent Brit-bashing, but apparently the relationship between England and the Mormon Church has a long history of being a bit "problematic". In the mid-1800s there was a huge migration to the U.S. of British mormons, who never got on that well anyway with either the Calvinist, Methodist and Baptist-based Scots or else the Irish Catholics, at home or abroad. And those animosities & suspicions are still seen today especially among American Southern Baptists (mostly of Scots-Irish descent).

Also the migration wave of Brit. mormons was sizable enough, that they eventually even (unsuccessfully) challenged Brigham Young's authority in Utah, where these new mormon Britons apparently felt stifled by local church domination over every aspect of their lives... spiritual and temporal.

"Imperial Zion: The British Occupation"

BTW, British culture seems to have a natural distrust anyway, of anything even vaguely resembling a "cult", and the occasional films on the state-sponsored BBC, like this documentary for example, probably don't help things:


BBC documentary - 'The Mormon Candidate' (Romney, LDS church). Also shunned or "post mormons" speak. - YouTube

[mufc1878]

I'm surprised a wealthy person like Romney would say that considering the British make the best luxury traditional footwear and suiting on the planet (saville row tailors > brioni/kiton IMO and british shoemakers are much better than the italians as well), british ales, Rolls Royce (cars and aircraft engine division), Holland & Holland luxury shotguns, pharma, etc.

[Yeledaf]

This whole puppet show reminds me of a passage from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier:

"Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation — an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time you step into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream. The alternative is to throw the Empire overboard and reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes. That is the very last thing that any left-winger wants. Yet the left-winger continues to feel that he has no moral responsibility for imperialism. He is perfectly ready to accept the products of Empire and to save his soul by sneering at the people who hold the Empire together."


All kinds of resonance there -- especially the ongoing hypocrisy of the Left, with their simultaneous criticism of capitalism while they bask in its blessings.

And this was written, what? 75 years ago?