The UK “going it’s own way” will always result in it becoming dependent on America again, see the EU’s efforts for the past 3 decades. China isn’t imperialist, it wouldn’t be “replacing one imperialist system for another” it would be replacing one imperialist system for a non-imperialist one
In reality, he would need to pivot the economy away from America and to China, which is difficult due to geography (although arctic trade routes will alleviate this over time). The United imperialist bourgeoisie of UK are very strong and in firm control, they would need to be replaced by a non-imperialist National Bourgeoisie in some kind of bourgeois revolution first I think.
Remember, UK is even more backwards than the US in some ways. Their aristocratic revanchism was never defeated and set in deep, they still have a monarchy.
what you are describing is the songbun system in Korea, where the Japanese/American collaborators and counter-revolutionaries form a "lower class" because they are punished and kept outside of government positions and important roles. They have to earn their way out of it by displaying loyalty and self-criticism.
This is why it's important to continue the SMO until all goals are completed. An early half-assed truce would just allow the nazi mercenary corp that has built up to be moved around. This corp of troops needs to be liquidated, anything short of that will result in these troops being deployed as footsoldiers of fascism worldwide like freikorps
The hope of the USSR and the soviet revolution allowed Americans and the West to believe in a utopian future too, what was essentially FALGSC but without any of the progressive imagery. They glommed onto their aesthetic. The Western sci-fi tradition basically stole the imagination of the USSR for their own worldbuilding and ideas, but stripped it of any revolutionary content and made it just about technology and "ethics" in some vague sense. These books and movies, produced in 1920-1960, portrayed a united humanity exploring space and robotics in humanitarian quests.
They deluded themselves that they could do the same thing as the USSR, progress and unite humanity, just without the icky communism part.
Then the grimy dystopian futures started taking over our collective imaginations during the Cold War, as we started distancing ourselves mentally from the world the USSR wanted and imagining a world where capital won completely instead. It's no coincidence that as the USSR weakened and withdrew and turned revisionist and eventually collapsed, the bright collective future the world imagined collapsed with it.
They won’t invade, just do airstrikes and domestic color revolution shit like they do in Lebanon.