April 19th this year will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts, the first battle of the American Revolutionary War.

The birth of America

On the morning of April 19, 1775, around seventy of Lexington’s town militia faced down eight hundred British troops on their way to the town of Concord, where they planned to confiscate a quantity of firearms which they expected to be used for rebellion.

In the ensuing musket fire, eight colonists died, and the American Revolution began. Some six years later, British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his troops to American and French forces at Yorktown, and the United States of America was born.

Serious discontent with British rule had been at the root of The Boston Tea Party, the American political and mercantile protest which took place on December 16, 1773. Colonists believed that the passing in the British Parliament of the Tea Act in May of that year violated their rights as Englishmen. ‘No taxation without representation’ had been the Englishman’s birthright since Magna Carta.

No taxation without representation’ had been the Englishman’s birthright since Magna Carta.

The belief that the government should not tax the people without their being represented in government developed in the English Civil War more than a century earlier, following the refusal of an English Parliamentary leader John Hampden to pay Ship Tax money. Hampden opposed King Charles I over Ship money, a key factor in events which later led to the English Civil Wars. The American colonists, mainly English by birth or ancestry, felt disenfranchised, with no say over important aspects of their lives, ruled by a remote power they had no direct or indirect control over. Sound familiar?

Descent into totalitarianism

Just over five years ago, I was one of Nigel Farage’s two hundred or so Parliamentary Candidates standing for election in the City of York. At the time, I believed that in the Brexit party, now Reform, ‘Change Politics For Good’ was a genuine and realistic possibility for the Party. Once Nigel Farage inexplicably stood down all the candidates in Conservative-held seats, we knew it was all over.

A few months later along came the Covid-19 madness and by the time of the last General Election, party politics in Britain seemed so much less relevant. Labour and the Conservatives were in ‘Coast Guy’ Neil Oliver’s words, just “two cheeks of the same arse.” Then, with a huge Labour win came the most blatant example in modern British political history of a governing party breaking their pre-election promises to an extent that the word liar seems inadequate to describe. A six-month descent into totalitarianism since their appointment has seen foolish, but genuinely outraged people jailed for a social media post, following the tragic murders of innocent girls in Southport. Convicted criminals were given early release to ease prison space, whilst no similar speedy conviction and sentencing followed the assault by two Rochdale Pakistani brothers on armed Police at Manchester Airport.

Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.

‘Orwellian’ is perhaps an overused term, but it does seem to accurately describe the state-directed policing of thought and prayer, draconian sentencing for improper use of social media, and the re-writing of history to reflect current political ideology. It was just five years after the ending of World War two that Orwell wrote these prophetic words:

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

(George Orwell 1984, published in 1949)

Brothers in arms

This week however, there may be cause for hope. The political status quo in Britain may be about to change for the good, and the man responsible for that is the tech billionaire and restorer of a free speech platform, once Twitter, now X – Elon Musk.

I have often considered how the American Revolution involved the shedding of English blood by fellow Englishmen, that it was an avoidable tragedy of brother fighting brother.

As a Christian, I have often considered how the American Revolution involved the shedding of English blood by fellow Englishmen, that it was an avoidable tragedy of brother fighting brother. Though France joined the American colonists in their fight against the mother country, over two centuries later, we still have, beyond just our language, so much in common with a nation separated from us by 3,000 miles of ocean, a kind of brotherhood we do not share with our closest European neighbour just 20 miles from our Dover shores.

Despite their hard-won independence, it was to Britain’s aid that the Americans came when in January 1942, some 4,000 combat soldiers of the US Army’s 34th ‘Red Bull’ infantry division safely landed in Belfast, Northern Ireland after running the gauntlet of German U-boats across the North Atlantic. So began an historic military and industrial endeavour by the United States, without which mother Britain may well have become a vassal state of the Third Reich.

Liberating Britain

Today, our brothers over the Atlantic are looking on with pity and with a degree of shock at what is happening to Britain, the nation which gave the world its primary language, its many gifts to the world, including a system of democratic government, a pioneer of free speech, of law and order, a nation known for fairness, wisdom, strength and gentility.

It is hard to imagine that President Trump is not fully aware of what Musk is doing.

The widespread, organised, gang-rape of young girls below the age of consent by Pakistani men, and the abject failure by those in power to deal with it, and instead wherever possible conceal it, seems to have broken the last straw. The world’s wealthiest man has taken it upon himself to get seriously involved. It is hard to imagine that President Trump is not fully aware of what Musk is doing. Is Trump trying to topple Starmer using the rape-gang issue, which is seen as Starmer’s Achilles heel?

Last October, Starmer said that Labour party staff going to the US to campaign for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris were volunteers "doing it in their spare time" and staying with other volunteers. P.M. Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and Deputy P.M. Angela Rayner, who once described Trump as “an absolute buffoon who has no place in the White House”, have much to fear from a new Trump administration.

Amongst Monday’s tweets from Elon Musk was a poll: ‘America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.’ Of the 45 million voters, 58% said yes. A popular tweet from one American responder was: “I say we 1776 Britain from their tyrannical government and then kindly send them the bill, so we aren’t paying for another war. I’m sure that’s one bill they’ll happily pay back.”

Shining the global spotlight

Loose-cannon Musk has also politely called for King Charles to dissolve Parliament after Labour rejected calls for a ‘grooming-gang’ enquiry and described the scandal as “state sponsored evil”, accusing Keir Starmer of failing victims during his time as CPS chief. Like others, I reject the phrase ‘grooming-gangs’. Grooming is something my beard and moustache are subjected to as are my two dogs. This was mass, organised, barbaric child-rape.

I watched my screen in horror as Robinson revealed what had happened in my own West Yorkshire hometown and the cover-up by the very council I used to pay my council tax to – Kirklees.

Nigel Farage has also come under fire with Musk claiming that he "doesn't have what it takes" to lead the Reform party. Farage suggested this was due to a disagreement over Musk's support for imprisoned Tommy Robinson. I am one of the 153 million viewers of Tommy Robinson’s film ‘Silenced’ hosted on Musk’s X platform, and I believe Robinson to be a political prisoner of the British State. I watched my screen in horror as Robinson revealed what had happened in my own West Yorkshire hometown and the cover-up by the very council I used to pay my council tax to – Kirklees.

If the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, himself an anglophile, wants to change the destiny of a brother nation, some of whose people are clearly in distress, it may be that his new colleague, Space X founder Elon Musk, has just ignited the first rocket under the Labour government putting the global spotlight on the present dire state of Britain.

Who knows where it will land?

Nick Szkiler is the chair of Issachar Ministries.