Boris’s mission is to keep us safe... and save the Union
THIS afternoon, the Prime Minister will make one of the most important Commons statements of his time in office. It’s not about Covid; it’s not about crime.And it’s only indirectly about the economy. It’s a rethinking of both our defence and foreign policy. In other words, it’s about the most fundamental task of any government – keeping the country safe – as well as our place in the world and how, after Brexit, we intend to conduct ourselves.
After months – years, really – of wrangling, internal debate and thinking, the Government is publishing the so-called Integrated Review. Much of the attention in advance has been on the cuts to the size of the army that the review is planning. But the scope is huge, and although we don’t have the full details, we already have a strong idea of the thrust. Not least because Boris Johnson has set out much of the thinking, in an excellent, thoughtful and detailed speech that he gave last month to the annual Munich Security Conference.
The key to our foreign policy, Mr Johnson stressed, will be international cooperation. This will be on a far wider plane than simply the EU, as used to be the foundation of our policy. Our global role, with a seat on the UN Security Council, gives us a key position in working on planning for future pandemic risks, and our chairmanship of the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow this November gives a focus on global warming.
AS A member of NATO we embody the transatlantic alliance – or what he called “the EuroAtlantic area”. As members of the EU, our foreign policy was largely dictated by having to accommodate the views of other EU members. If we disagreed, we effectively had to grin and bear it. But “in leaving the EU,” as the Prime Minister put it in his Munich speech, “we restored sovereign control over vital levers of foreign policy”.
We can now plot our own course over China. So while Germany has just pushed through a huge EU-China investment deal, we are free to take a more robust stand on Chinese repression in Hong Kong and human rights abuses towards the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Where we were once relying on China to build our infrastructure, we have now – at last – wised up and realised the threat China poses.
And even where the EU wants to act, we are now able to move far more quickly, such as in the imposition of sanctions on Belarus, where the state is systematically clamping down on its citizens. But unless we are safe as a nation, all good intentions on foreign policy are meaningless. Or, as the Prime Minister put it: “The success of Global Britain depends on the security of our homeland and the stability of the EuroAtlantic area.” Security starts with prosperity and at the weekend Mr Johnson said that the Integrated Review will ensure the UK is on the cutting edge of innovation, making us “match fit” for competition.
The two go hand in hand. Investment in infrastructure, innovation and skills helps us build the economy.
BUT if that investment is targeted at defence and technology industries there is a double benefit. It’s also a way of strengthening the Union – and a bulwark against Russian interference designed to push Scottish independence to destabilise the Westminster government.
Plans for defence spending include shipbuilding in Scotland and armoured vehicles in Wales, as well as for satellites to be constructed in Northern Ireland – and lithium to be mined in Cornwall. It’s all a boost to the Express’s Unite The Kingdom campaign, as is a plan to increase the number of Foreign Office staff in East Kilbride by 500. In addition, there is to be a new cyber corridor in the north of England, where the headquarters of the National Cyber Force (NCF) will be built.
The Integrated Review makes no bones about the greatest threat to our safety: Russia. But the threat is far greater than isolated assassinations, and on a much wider scale. Don’t forget how Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, seven years on, it is entrenched there. Russia’s wider aim is to destabilise the West, and in the modern world that still means militarily, but increasingly it is through disinformation and interference in domestic affairs – and cyber attacks. That is, above all, why we need the Integrated Review – to shape our foreign and defence policy accordingly for the 21st century.
History teaches us that you can never plan for everything. But that’s no reason not to try to plan for what you can predict, which is why today’s report is so vital to our future.
‘It will shape both our foreign and defence policy for the 21st century’