In the age of Global Britain, we must not be squeamish about our national interest
Britain is defined by its island status, but in precisely the opposite way to that commonly supposed by Europhiles. Insular geography does not make for insular psychology. On the contrary, island nations are unusually dependent on global commerce. Their security rests on open sea lanes and, by extension, on a rules-based international order. Not having to worry about border disputes with neighbours, they are free to raise their eyes to more distant horizons.
As we leave the EU, we need to start thinking seriously about geostrategy. For most of the past half a century, we have tended to subsume our foreign policy interests into broader Western interests. During the Cold War, we were America’s adjutant, the country that reminded more hesitant European allies of their Nato responsibilities. From the Nineties, as the EU began to develop its own foreign policy, we increasingly thought in terms of European rather than British initiatives.
There were moments when we did our own thing, the Falklands War being the outstanding example. But British international relations generally operated within Nato and EU parameters, and for understandable reasons. The Second World War had left us bankrupt and exhausted. We had little choice but to let the United States assume our role, doing our best to hang on to our influence as (in Harold Macmillan’s phrase) “Greeks to their Romans”. In the four decades before 1989, defending Western Europe from Soviet expansionism was a direct and immediate British interest. In the sweep of history, though, those were exceptional decades. The peculiar circumstances of the Cold War, and then our anomalous membership of the EU, left us thinking like a continental rather than a maritime nation. We neglected those countries which, though close to us in every other sense, were distant physically.
That neglect is now at an end. This week, Britain announced the formal opening of its trade talks with Australia and New Zealand. Their prime ministers released videos that fizzed with excitement. “My friend Boris Johnson and I will not settle for anything less than an ambitious and high-quality deal that benefits both our nations,” beamed Australia’s Scott Morrison, promising to get the deal concluded by the beginning of next year. The tone could hardly contrast more sharply with the sulkiness we hear from Eurocrats.
Freed from the constraints of EU membership, Britain is springing back to the Anglosphere. When, to pluck a recent example, China threatened to snuff out the independence of Hong Kong, a joint condemnation was issued by the American, Australian, British and Canadian governments. The EU was invited to join, but declined.
Britain should, of course, aim to have the closest possible friendship with Europe. But friendship is a twoway street. As long as the EU (if not its constituent nations) insists on treating Britain as some kind of secessionist province, our relationship is bound to be awkward.
Charles de Gaulle observed astutely that Britain could never be a properly European country, because it felt the pull of the ocean – “le grand
large”, as he always called it, “the open main”. Such a country will, in general, want a strong navy rather than a large army. It will want to remove trade barriers. It will want to support small, independent states.
“The sympathy of England with the freedom and independence of nationalities is of ancient origin,” said Randolph Churchill in 1886, “and has become the traditional direction of our foreign policy.” He was right. Just as Britain had sponsored national movements in Italy, Greece, the Low Countries and South America, so it was to go on, after Lord Randolph’s time, to join two terrible wars, not because it had been attacked, but because the sovereignty of a smaller state had been violated.
Britain’s inclination to free trade will align it naturally with Australia,
New Zealand, Singapore and other Commonwealth allies. Protectionist tendencies are on the rise in Beijing, Brussels and even Washington. It will fall to us, as we resume our vote and our voice at the World Trade Organisation, to drive the process which, more than any other, raises nations from the lowest barbarism to the highest opulence. The first step, though, is unashamedly recognising that there are such things as British national interests. The folding of the Department for International Development (Dfid) into the Foreign Office is an important step.
Like all ministries, Dfid had its “blob” – its nexus of officials, quangocrats, charity bosses and lobbyists who like to pursue their own policy, regardless of the wishes of elected ministers. It is worth standing back and asking why states give aid at all, rather than leaving the whole business to voluntary groups. The answer, surely, is that development assistance is a tool of foreign policy. Other countries acknowledge this much more readily than our aid professionals do.
What goes for trade and aid goes for everything else. We should identify and promote our specific interests, even when they differ from those of friendly nations. We should do so with hard and soft power, from the RAF to the British Council. In a world where others integrate propaganda, cybersecurity, espionage and, where necessary, actual force, we cannot stand squeamishly above the fray.
It has become a commonplace to say that Britain has delusions of grandeur, that it refuses to come to terms with its diminished status. If anything, the reverse is true. We are, by any measure, one of the world’s top five powers. We have the best legal and financial services, the most professional Armed Forces. We are one of eight nuclear states and one of five permanent UN Security Council members. We are home to the global language and the world’s capital city. No comparable nation moans about its decline.
The disorder on our streets these past few weeks, the attacks on statues, the claims that Britain had an especially shameful past, serve to demoralise and demotivate. A nation that lacks self-belief is lost.
“Remember what nation it is whereof ye are,” Milton told the MPs of his own day. We are the country that developed and exported the sublime idea that laws should not be passed nor taxes raised except by elected representatives. We taught the world the rule of law. We were not just early in ending slavery; we were unique in pouring resources into stamping it out globally. We defeated the Nazi and Soviet tyrannies and liberated hundreds of millions of people. Ours is a stirring and ancient song; and it is not yet sung.
We should pursue our aims with hard and soft power, from the RAF to the British Council