You may recall that Europe has its own card schemes, but the UK doesn't join them, because of the 'special relationship'.

The UK was forced by the US to abandon TSR2, the best jet in the world, to get a cash bailout from the US, that it needed after all of the years fighting WW2 on its own...it spent all of its money buying material...from the USA. The UK invented lots of key military equipment, Radar, proximity fuses, nuclear bombs, jet engines, and gave them all to the US. It is about time the US paid us back, you leeches