No colony of MINE will have an orange dipshit for a president! Now get back to work sending us furs and exotic goods so we can get back to taxing you into oblivion without representation in parliament (and then pretend this is not the reason why you have gone through this rebellious phase!)
Pretend? Scarcely, it is just factual my dear bean. The cost of defending the NA colonies from native & European forces had been born by the British treasury, with the cost of defending NA only increasing with the addition of Canada to the British Empire. With the settlers and colonists ignoring the proclamation to halt Westward expansion and allow for consolidation of Imperial territory, it was plainly obvious to lawmakers in the UK that the cost of guarding the American frontier would drastically increase as the American frontier itself increased. Unable to profit from the native fur trade owing to the natives going to war to try and defend their lands, unwilling to pay for an ever-growing frontier of settlers, it would only make sense to tax the untaxed for whom the taxes will benefit.
The major issue was the lack of representation.
Many times, ambassadors to England had pleaded that the US colonies be given representation in the houses of lords and commons, which meant that titles needed to be conferred so that lords could sit. This would have cause a tremendous power imbalance, and the parliament was staunchly against it, despite the fact that without it, the colonies basically had to do whatever parliament told them, without any recourse.
Representation in the Houses of Lords & Commons wouldn't have resulted in any power imbalance at all, which was one of the principle obstacles to adequately implementing the demand for representation. Owing to the vast travel times, yet to be made small by the invention of the steamship or aeroplane, any colonial MPs or Lords would have been heavily dependent upon Westminster advisors and far removed from the constituencies they were supposed to represent - shifting the argument from virtual representation to "actual" representation, or perhaps better described today as local representation. The male population of American colonists by and large voted for their own local assemblies and polities; by contrast the British isles constituencies were pre-reform, a historic zombie of political lines that made sense centuries ago, but no longer. As a result you saw cities with no representation, but also saw abandoned parishes with MPs. Enfranchisement was also not universal, with only a tenth to a sixth of English men being able to vote.
After a number of abuses from parliament, enough angst had been stoked that the revolution had sufficient momentum.
The clincher was the parliament's entrenched position on "NO!" to any form of representation from the colonies. This is why the answer, in kind, was "NO!" *FROM* the colonies.
This ignores the MPs who were sympathetic to the colonies' cause, and indeed to actual representation as an ideal itself, or the experiences of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the failure of Imperial Federation. It ultimately came down to a question of sovereignty, which both the American and British intellectuals agreed upon. The colonists argued there was a distinction between regulation of commerce and a regulation of tax levies, there was a distinction between local legislation & state legislation. This created an inherent contradiction any time colonists would have to decide which British legislation did apply to the colonies, and which did not. For if they accepted some legislation, then they accepted the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. If parliament was sovereign, then why did some legislation not also apply? There were three ways proposed to resolve this contradiction; the first being to form an Imperial parliament, with the principle obstacle being geography. The second was to clearly clarify the limits of sovereignty, establishing that the only things the polities of the colonies and the isles had in common was the crown - in an identical manner in which Canada gained its independence. The third was to go to war; which did eventually occur.
IMO this contradiction would have resulted in the thirteen colonies gaining independence irregardless. In another timeline where the British treasury wasn't drained by war with the Spanish & French, no taxes were levied on the thirteen colonies, this contradiction would have had to have been solved at some point anyways. I assume the greatest difference would be a Queen on the dollar & maybe union with Canada. At best - a unified foreign policy. Yet you can see in later failed attempts to form an Imperial Federation that even with aeroplanes and steamships, it just wasn't possible to form a unified global state that also satisfied the contradiction. I'm reminded of Sir David Kelly, a British diplomat, lamenting about how in all matters of foreign affairs the British have to take into account the interests of Sydney & Ottawa in a way that you wouldn't see with the Russians & Vladivostok. The moment interests diverge the contradiction is exposed
A more contemporary example would be in how the European Union is also yet to resolve this contradiction, despite having virtual representation of each nation's constituents. The moment there is a financial crisis or political crisis and nations have divergent interests, the project falters and infighting commences