The fourth of July may be synonymous with freedom in the United States, but around the world it has a very different meaning. In Britain it marks the anniversary of Starmer’s election victory, but he’ll probably be hoping to put this disastrous year behind him, says Eliot Wilson

The United States of America was established on 2 July 1776. The Second Continental Congress, meeting in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, agreed a motion tabled by Richard Lee of Virginia, and resolved:

“That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved [sic].”

John Adams, the Massachusetts delegate who seconded the motion, wrote to his wife that 2 July “will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival”. But the Declaration of Independence, the new nation’s 1,331-word manifesto, was only approved and sent to the printers on Thursday 4 July: that date, somehow, became America’s commemoration.

Adams was the first Vice-President of the United States........

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