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The author is Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum
A call has gone out for ideas for the UK to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the 1776 Declaration of Independence next year. Following US President Donald Trump’s successful state visit to Britain this year, but with an ever-widening ideological rift between Europe and the US, the need for a common Atlanticist spirit seems more urgent than ever. It’s been just a few weeks since the Pentagon’s new national security strategy cheerfully warned of “civilizational extinction” on the continent.
Prima facie, commemoration of 1776-2026 is a tough sell for the Anglo-American community. The Declaration – a list of the terrible things King George III did to the colonists – ends by declaring that the Thirteen Colonies “shall be freed from all allegiance to the British Crown, and all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be completely dissolved”.
What inspired Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and the Founding Fathers in the first place was John Locke’s commitment to constitutionalism and liberalism (unless you were black). In common with 18th-century British radicals, they saw the king as deliberately undermining the Magna Carta liberties of British subjects. Contempt of Parliament, arbitrary rule and excessive taxation were a permanent betrayal of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and its careful balance of powers. Therefore, the rule of law rather than the will of kings should be the touchstone of the new American republic, with strong checks and balances to prevent executive overreach.
By contrast, in DC today, the ideals of 1776 seem out of favor; Performance of the music of Lin-Manuel Miranda hamilton It’s a distant memory in the Obama White House.
Instead there is a policy of concentrating power within the presidency as well as the deployment of state sanction against political opponents. Trump enjoys posting memes of himself wearing a tiara, while the Oval Office boasts more gold leaf than the throne room of Buckingham Palace. Sensing the atmosphere, anti-Trump protesters united under the 1776 banner: “No king. No tyrant.”
What inspired the revolutionaries was also a dislike of the Hanoverian court: a confluence of job-seeking, bribery and colonial self-enrichment. The newly independent Thirteen Colonies were to be a republic of virtue, freed from family patronage and friends holding office. It is not hard to guess what the pioneers of 1776 would have thought about the proximity of the Trump family enterprise to official diplomatic and government business.
The basis of the constitutional break was a commitment to a rational culture of free thought, religious freedom, and inquiry. For example, in the 1790s, chemist Joseph Priestley fled reactionary mobs in Birmingham for the religious and intellectual freedom promised by America. Yet, now, with references to man-made carbon emissions removed from official US data and anti-vaccine ideologies prominent on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda as health secretary, the scientific rigor of Benjamin Franklin is conspicuously absent.
But we have to deal with the world as it is, not like our Hanoverian predecessors – scoffing at the legitimate and clear judgment of the American people in pursuing their political destiny. So, who can we work with?
Commerce has always been important to Atlantic relations. Just before the Revolution, an “empire of goods” had developed linking Britain and the Eastern Seaboard with a shared colonial culture. A solid US trade deal has finally been reached, with additional growth in tech, finance, pharmaceuticals and film clearly possible (if tariffs don’t resurface). We can add to this the rich relationships that continue between our legal professions, the architecture industry, the armed forces and universities.
Then there is literary culture. In his Windsor Castle speech, Trump unexpectedly expressed his admiration for “Shakespeare and Dickens and Tolkien and Lewis, Orwell and Kipling.” British actors, directors and writers are all brilliant ambassadors of Anglo-American cultural understanding; Will tour both the National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company next year small village And Hamnett All across America.
If not devised in time for 1776, one of our greatest gifts to the world is rules-based ball sports; In 2026 the US, along with Canada and Mexico, will host soccer’s World Cup – a great opportunity to increase interest in soccer, and the UK Premier League in the US.
But, ironically, the one event next year that could really ruin the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence is the visit of King Charles III. What will poor Tom Paine think?
