The one constant in British foreign policy has been to support America in its more outrageous acts. From killing Gaddafi's adopted daughter to the air raids on a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, Britain has supported the US. Like a kid at the back of the crowd in a playground fight, jumping up and down shouting "Hit him! Go on, kill him!", Britain has been America's crapmate who gains kudos by hanging out with the bully.

Successive British political leaders have decided that this "special relationship" is in fact more important than the "special relationship" they should have with the people who democratically elected them. They have consistently ignored democratic accountability in order to do America's bidding, and the pile of documents that dropped through my letterbox last week proves this point once again.

The papers, gratifyingly marked "secret" (they were handed over by the Ministry of Defence for a court case that eventually collapsed), are about the legal terms and "conditions for the use of the [UK] bases by the United States Air Force". Written by British senior civil servants and high-ranking military personnel in the 1950s and 1960s, they reveal that there has never been a "formal agreement" for the US military presence in Britain. Cynics might conclude that the secret deal, struck with a nod and a wink, was done in order to avoid any form of parliamentary or democratic scrutiny, and they would be right. In a despatch to the British ambassador in Washington in 1949, Ernest Bevin, then foreign secretary, said: "There has never been a decision taken by the Cabinet regarding the permanent location of American bombers in this country; neither had we ever reported the question to Parliament."

In classic establishment style, the deal was done in a series of letters that became known as the "ambassadors' agreement" and where, although I haven't seen a copy of it, you can be fairly sure there was no mention of Ferrero Rocher chocolate. The letters were written by Lord De L'Isle and Dudley, the air commander in charge of the air force, and the American ambassador of the time, Winthrop W Aldrich. It is not hard to imagine the pair corresponding to each other from leather armchairs in discreet surroundings, belching politely before lighting cigars, far from the prying, plebeian eyes of the people for whom they purportedly worked.

With a minimum of fuss, a major issue was quietly hidden away. Why? Because of our "special relationship"! If any other country wanted to have military bases on this scale in Britain, there would be a full public debate and major uproar. If, say, the French wanted to station bombers in Norfolk, parliament would be awash with the spittle of rabid members. The Tory front bench would spontaneously combust in protest, and the rest of us would be picketing patisseries and torching Citroens before the Sun had time to declare that eating garlic was treasonable.

The "ambassadors' agreement" is more than an issue of constitutional rights and open government. It is the reason why RAF Menwith Hill and Fylingdales exist, and why they are about to become part of George W Bush's National Missile Defence system (NMD). Menwith is the US spy base near Harrogate in Yorkshire, and is part of the Echelon eavesdropping network. Recently, two new radomes were built to house the space-based infra-red system, which will be the NMD's early warning system.

Fears that NMD could provoke a new arms race have already been borne out. In response to it, Russia and China have started talks on the joint development of new weapons systems capable of piercing the NMD shield. All of which leaves us at the dawn of a new cold war nuclear arms race that Blair will have to accommodate because of our "special relationship". So, in fashionable postmodern media-speak, the state of play is this: brown is the new black, TV chefs are the new rock'n'roll, China is the new enemy, Bush is the new nostalgia (straight out of the Ronald Reagan retro-zeitgeist box) and Britain is the old poodle.

Until now, China had, to the best of my knowledge, no major plans to bomb Britain. President Jiang Zemin would surely have been flattered by Britain's adoption of China's policing methods on his last visit. But with the involvement of Menwith Hill and Fylingdales in NMD, Britain suddenly becomes a target for any attack that might be launched by our "new enemies". Not that China need bother with missiles. If it wants to create panic, chaos and destruction in Britain, it merely has to export dodgy livestock. It's a lot cheaper and works just as well. The members of the Commons foreign affairs select committee took this point further when they wrote: "Other methods of attack such as biological or chemical weapons can be delivered much more easily, at a minute fraction of the cost and with a real possibility of concealing the aggressor."

There is no reason why China should launch a missile attack on America, unless I have underestimated how irritating Richard Gere's support for the Dalai Lama really is. Bush, though, is an opportunist; and, in times of economic downturn, the one thing guaranteed to get America feeling good about itself is old-fashioned, patriotic military might. The only other reason to fall in love with this half-baked money pit of a project could be that Bush believes George Lucas's work to be a documentary, and occasionally asks staff if Princess Leia ever settled down and had kids.

The real question is whether Blair will honour the "ambassadors' agreement".

There will be an "Independence from America Day" demonstration at RAF Menwith Hill on 4 July

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