A terminal crisis is looming for Boris Johnson’s doctrine of ‘cakeism’ | Vince Cable

Britain’s involvement in Aukus – the new security partnership of the US, Australia and the UK, underpinned by a fleet of Australian nuclear submarines to patrol the Indo-Pacific oceans – has provoked rage, ridicule and incredulity.

It also revives memories of British involvement in previous measures to contain or punish China by despatching gunboats; memories which may have faded here but not in China. Palmerston sent the Navy to punish China for its behaviour in seizing consignments of opium from the East India company, leading to the “Opium Wars”. In 1949, the frigate HMS Amethyst was sent up the Yangtze River to protect the British embassy in Nanjing. It ran aground and eventually escaped after suffering heavy casualties from shelling by the Communist army.

On this occasion Britain is a junior party to an agreement, the practical effect of which is to displace an Australian order for conventional French submarines with an order for US nuclear submarines (with Britain being allocated part of the contract).