"What we [British] Atlanticists want is not a merger, but a free trade area. We'd like an organic, not a governmental union; ties between citizens, businesses and civic associations, not a combination of state structures. And we aim for it to embrace, not just Britain and the US, but the community of free English-speaking democracies - the Anglosphere. In fact, by coincidence, Iain Murray and James C Bennet explain how it would work in today's Wall Street Journal."

-- Daniel Hannan, London Telegraph

The idea of an English-speaking union has been around since the days of Alfred Milner, Cecil Rhodes and Andrew Carnegie. It may make more sense now than it did a century ago, considering the rapid rise of other ethnic and religious blocs.

"Let men say what they will, I say that as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely is it one morning to rise, to shine upon, to greet again the reunited state, "The British-American Union."

-- Andrew Carnegie, "Triumphant Democracy", 1893, p. 549

"British 'imperialists' of the modern school (of which I am one...) when speaking of the British Empire think...of a group of States, independent of one another in local affairs, although bound together in defense of their common interests and the development of a common civilization."

-- Lord Alfred Milner, New York Times, 1916-06-11

For background, see "Brotherhood of Darkness" in our article section.