As you may have heard, UK Prime Minister David Cameron dealt with something of an embarrassment when the UK Parliament voted down his Syria policy this week. There are a number of reasons why this likely happened, but an editorial in the Guardian notes that the latest NSA surveillance revelations may have had something to do with it:
There is no evidence that British public opinion has turned isolationist. There is plenty of evidence that it is fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice, with the humiliating excesses of US national security policy (not least its abuses of human rights and surveillance), with the unequal burden-sharing among allies and, above all, with the failures of policy.
Yes, there are a variety of issues buried in there, but key among them is the “excesses” of the US’ “national security policy” complete with excess surveillance. We’ve been pointing out for a while that these revelations could have wider impact and reverberate much further than US officials seem willing to admit, but this may be a small sign of that in action.