Mississauga Free Press, Tuesday, October 13, 1970

United Kingdom Free Area Maintains Trade Ties

Increasingly Friendless and Isolated,

Free Britain Survives on Isle of Man.

Prime Minister Randolph Churchill

PATRICK KEATING
Canadian News Agency
Douglas
THE United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland is a
polite fiction. It is a place with
which the rest of the world wishes
to trade, but no longer one to
which it is prepared to accord
diplomatic recognition. Once the
United States started making
overtures to Red Britain and
other Soviet satellite states like
France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, it
would become increasingly untenable to support what was little
more than the Isle of Man and a
few tiny islands in the Solway
Firth, or, as the Churchill government in Douglas calls it, the Free
Area.
With the advent of detente in the
1960s, the government of Free
Britain in Douglas began to feel
increasingly friendless, first abandoned by its former allies in the
Commonwealth, then deprived of
its seat at the United Nations, and,
the last nail in the coffin, the US
decision to establish ties with the

United Kingdom Free Area, surrounded by enemies.

Union of British Socialist Republics. Ever since Joseph Kennedys
decision to keep the US out of the
Second World War, there had long
been a feeling among the leaders of
Free Britain that the Americans,
influenced by a vocal Irish lobby,
could not be trusted.

Nixon in Britain
By the time of President Nixons
historic visit to London in 1962,
the writing was on the wall for
those representing Free Britain in
Washington. Her Britannic Majestys Ambassador, Sir James
Mylchreest, became increasingly
sidelined, snubbed at embassy
cocktail parties, if he were invited
at all, given the brush-off by the
State Department and shouted
down by militant university
students when he came to give lectures, who saw the so-called
United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland on the Isle
of Man as a bastion of reactionary
capitalism.
By contrast, Londons man in
Washington, George Blake, be-

came a familiar face in the US

media and at official receptions,
even when he was still officially
Head of the Liaison Office or de
facto ambassador. By 1969,
Comrade Blake, now de jure
ambassador, was occupying the
residence at 3100 Massachusetts
Avenue, over which the blue, red
and gold flag of the UBSR now
fluttered, while Sir James, who
now called himself Mr Mylchreest, became Director of the
cryptically named Anglo-Celtic
North America Office, operating
from less opulent premises.

Pariah Status
As a native Manxman, one of the
few to reach high office on an
island colonised by come-overs,
this pariah status was even more
poignant for Mylchreest. Rather
than representing a defunct political entity, he had always seen
himself as representing an actual
place, the Isle of Man, or, as it was
known in the suppressed Manx
tongue, Ellan Vannin. Following
its retreat to Douglas, the provi-

Mississauga Free Press, Tuesday, October 13, 1970

sional British government annexed
the Island, despite its separate
status as a Crown Dependncy, and
home to Tynwald, the oldest parliament in continuous existence.

White Terror
The Manx suffered greatly under
the White Terror, the brutal
crackdown on political dissent,
which was aimed as much at the
nascent independence movement
as many of the British refugees
suspected of being spies for the
communist regime in London. The
leaders of the Manx League for
Reemancipation were routinely
detained without trial, not only on
account of their separatist agenda,
but also their supposedly procommunist one. Even Mylchreest
was detained and interrogated,
once being told that killing you at
this moment is as easy a crushing
an ant to death.
The Imperial Parliament, banished
from the Palace of Westminster,
and Britain itself, has struggled to
find space in Douglas. Its MPs
meet in the Gaiety Theatre, while
their Lordships gather in the Castle
Mona Hotel. As elections can only
be held in the Free Area, they
represent constituencies that most
of them have not seen in decades,
so are as old as many peers. When
they die, their seats usually remain
unfilled as it is impossible to hold
by-elections in Communist-controlled territory. However, with martial law still in place, most laws are
made by Order-in-Council.

Potemkin Village
Tynwald, though now toothless,
survives, to preserve the illusion
that the Isle of Man is just one part
of the Free Area among many, the
others being the islets of Hestan,
Rough and Little Ross, from where
anti-Communist propaganda is
blared out from loudspeakers to the
oppressed of Kircudbright. The
nominally autonomous government of the Scottish British Socialist Republic in Edinburgh blares

insults back, suggesting that the

good folk of the town get little
peace. However, it is widely rumoured that there are none, and that
Kircudbright is now a Potemkin
village.
As if the presence of the Free
British government did not make
the Isle of Man top-heavy enough
with politicians, there is the even
more superfluous Parliament of
Northern Ireland, whose Unionist
MPs and Senators still assemble in
the coastal town of Peel, looking
defiantly north-west towards Stormont, now ruled from Dublin by a
Fianna Fil government. However,
they can take some comfort that
their constituents, though now
under Rome Rule, are at least not
living under the godless Communist-controlled regime in London.

Scant Commonwealth
Support
The installation of a Soviet puppet
government in London divided the
Commonwealth and Empire. India
under Subhas Chandra Bose took
full advantage of the change of
regime to declare independence
unilaterally. He recognised the
Union of British Socialist Republics in 1946, receiving a rapturous
reception at the Workers Party
Congress.
The former dominions of the
Commonwealth had offered their
Mother Country scant support in
the Second World War, choosing to
remain neutral, and now seeing the
Americans and Irish as their true
kith and kin.
Canada, always divided between
English and French speakers, had
also been divided been Scottish
Presbyterians and Irish Catholics,
the latter of whom sided with the
Union Republicaine of Jean-Luc de
MacMahon. In Australia, now
under the Syndicalist Labor government of Father Gerard Sheridan,
Anglophobia had been rampant
ever since Gallipoli, which had
become part of the national mythology of the newly-declared republic. New Zealand too, under Prime

2
Minister John Douglas Todd, had
no wish to see her sons treated as
imperial cannon fodder again.

Abandoned by China
The Republic of China had mixed
feelings about Britain falling into
Red hands. On the one hand, the
country might have suffered the
same fate had Chiang Kai-shek and
the Kuomintang not agreed to a
ceasefire with Mao Tse-tungs
Communists, who established the
Democratic Peoples Republic of
China in the northeastern corner
of the country, a Stalinist puppet
state. On the other, she had long
resented the presence of the British
and other Western countries in her
territory, having either concessions
in its cities or colonial outposts like
Hong Kong.
With the change of regime in
London, it became even more
unacceptable to Nanking for a
Communist Western country to
have such an outpost.
Following the defeat of Japan, and
the end of its occupation of Hong
Kong, Nanking allowed a nominal
Free British presence in the former
crown colony, which was redefined as a Chinese territory
under British administration. Like
Wei-haiwei before it, Hong Kong
finally became a Special Administrative Region of the Republic of
China in 1957, a source of great
relief to the Free British government in Douglas.
Not long after, China decided to
bow to the inevitable, and end its
recognition of Randolph Churchills government, and its claim to
represent all of Britain. For Lee
Hsiao-ping, the last charg daffaires at the Chinese Embassy in
Douglas, Nankings severing of
diplomatic ties in 1965 was a
source of great personal anguish.
How, Mr Lee was asked, would he
feel if the Kuomintang government, forced to retreat offshore to
Formosa, were then abandoned by
its Western allies?

Mississauga Free Press, Tuesday, October 13, 1970

German Formula
However, Lee remains in his post,
albeit in an unofficial capacity, as
Director of the nominally private
Cathay Friendship Centre. The
Centre is an embassy in all but
name, staffed by personnel from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but
in deference to Londons one
Britain policy in which the Isle of
Man is regarded as a breakaway
region, Mr Lee says, we maintain
the pretence that we are all here on
sabbatical. This arrangement is
what is known as the German
formula.
Since 1962, Berlin has been able to
retain a de facto embassy in
Douglas, operating in the guise of
a private company known as
Teutonic Interchange Limited run
by career diplomats. As long as
Tatung can sell televisions, and
Mercedes-Benz can sell cars, few
on the Island notice or care.
Reaching the Island is more of a
challenge, as there are few international flights to Winston Churchill Airport in Ronaldsway. Most
visitors have to fly to Dublin, from
where they catch connecting flights
on British Airways.

This is not to be confused with Red

Britains flag carrier, British Civil
Aviation Administration or BCAA,
which operates a fleet of Sovietbuilt Ilyushins and Tupolevs.

Avoiding
Confrontation
So as to avoid confronting BCAA,
BA flies not into Dublin Airport,
but Dublin Weston Airport, in
Leixlip, County Kildare, making
transiting even more inconvenient.
This may have to change, and BA
has already established a subsidiary known as Albion Atlantic
Airlines, in order to fly to New
York, or rather, Newark; its aircraft
are painted in a special livery with
no Union Flag.
Similarly, to maintain landing
rights into London, Lufthansas
flights to the Isle of Man are operated by a subsidiary company,
known as Interflug.
China Airlines also once operated
flights to Douglas under the guise
of Cathay European, with a
changeover in Luxembourg, but
this was to prove unprofitable, and
the Republic of Chinas national
carrier now flies to Dublin instead.

All to Make
Life Difficult
London does all it can to make life
difficult for what the press officer
of the British Embassy in Ottawa,
Seumas Corbyn, denounces as the
revanchist-revisionist splittist Randolph Churchill clique on the Isle
of Man.
The staff of the Free British Centre in the capital face regular
harrassment, with picketing of
their office in Rockcliffe Park by
Corbyn and other Embassy staff,
who, unlike their counterparts at
the unofficial Centre, enjoy full
diplomatic immunity.
However, in a more conciliatory
tone, an editorial in the official
Workers Party daily New Britain
has called for reunification under a
policy of One Country, Two
Systems. Under this novel solution, the Isle of Man would be able
to retain its capitalist system, its
political institutions and even its
armed forces, but in return, would
no longer claim to represent the
whole of Britain. For its part, the
Mainland Relations Office in
Douglas has rejected the autonomy
proposal as a Communist trap.

Queen May Never See Her Kingdom Again

STEPHEN HOWARD
NATIONAL PRESS SYNDICATE
Ottawa
I CANNOT forget, said Elizabeth
II in her speech to Parliament last
month, that I was crowned Queen
of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland,
before adding poignantly, but I
cannot help but fear that I may
never see my kingdom again.
It was in 1953, four years after the
monarchy was abolished by the
Soviet-installed Central Peoples
Government in Britain, that the the
Coronation took place in Christ
Church Cathedral in Ottawa, where

the then Princess had lived with

her sister Margaret during the War.
The Crown Jewels, which had remained in Britain, were seized from
the Tower of London by the Communist regime. However, moves to
return the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor
jewel to India have stalled in the
wake of President Subhas Chandra
Boses demands for reparations.

Three Viceroys
Despite her title, and her lament
that she may never set foot in
Britain as sovereign, or be allowed
to return at all, the Queen and the
Royal Family all seem happily

settled in Rideau Hall. Consequently, in her absence from the

United Kingdom Free Area, the
Queen has had to appoint a
Governor-General, the Duke of
Gloucester, who represents her in
her capacity as Queen of the
United Kingdom.
However there are two other viceregal figures in the Isle of Man.
One of these is the LieutenantGovernor of the Island itself, Lord
Mountbatten, who represents Her
Majesty as Lord of Mann, a title
which was revested in the Crown
in 1765. The other is the Governor
of Northern Ireland, who resides in
Peel, and summons its Parliament.