End of ‘big’ era is a huge opportunity for Britain

As giants in business and diplomacy buckle, few countries have better DNA for rising to the challenge

Brexit is not the storm; it is the journey through the storm. Our island may be convulsing from the slow-drip torture of leaving the EU, but it is also shuddering through a global tempest. In particular, across the world, “big”, which has been the basic formula for accumulating power since the industrial revolution, is in decline. And despite the premonitions of my most optimistic fellow Brexiteers, just over the horizon is a mercurial era of “freefall” rather than a golden era of free trade.

But here’s the twist: such chaos throws up phenomenal opportunities for smaller, dynamic, independent nations. It could even spark a British resurgence, which in its own way captures the wind-whipping selfconfidence and astute ambition of the gold-rushing, swashbuckling 1840s – an era one can’t help associating with the term “global Britain”.

Everywhere the withering winds of change are blasting holes in “big

power”. As G7 heavyweights travel to Biarritz this weekend to rake glumly over the mildewed corpse of multilateralism, it couldn’t be more clear that “big diplomacy” is dead. So is “big military” – which makes it rather fitting that Iran is top of Saturday’s agenda. As the world’s heftiest armies nervously stroke historic scars from the asymmetric battlefield, the tinpot state is being allowed to revel with impunity in piratic mischief-making.

Away from the drama of the global stage, “big business” is also quietly spluttering. On Monday one of the planet’s most powerful business groups, which includes Amazon and JP Morgan – firms tetchy about a possible consumer boycott over “corporate greed” – discreetly abandoned the principle that companies are there to serve shareholders, which has for decades defined capitalism. Now corporations will focus on “improving society”.

The assertion that “big” is on the ebb may seem strange in a world of prowling Asian tigers and shadowy tech behemoths. And if the Remainer mindset is anything to go by, the Weberian idea that modern, civilised power is derived from large institutions is deeply entrenched. Such an attitude, originally germed in the expansive, straight-rulered minds of Enlightenment thinkers, flourished in the civil service-swollen age of imperialism.

Perhaps big was also genuinely better in more recent decades, giddily fuelled by mass consumerism and grimly framed by the world wars. But as giants such as China and the US (and various leading multinationals) buckle under the gravitational pull of the 21st century – weighed down by surging populism, middle-class desires and the dense complexities of globalism – the rules of the game have clearly changed.

This throws up a huge chance for Britain, if it can only tap into its true energetic and opportunistic zeitgeist, currently suffocating under the depressed flab of bourgeois-branded socialism and metropolitan Mcmanagerialism. Few countries have more suitable DNA for rising to the challenges of the present day than ours, inherited from miners, factory owners, rag-and-scavengers, speculators and buccaneers. Britain is defined by its stiff upper lip, but it was built on lock-jawed determination.

First, as “big diplomacy” falters, we must become a trailblazer for minilateralism. The focus should be on security and free trade. Why not lead on a defence technology deal with select allies from India to Israel? Or help broker the pan-african free trade zone that has proved elusive for decades, constricting the growth of British firms across the fastest-growing continent?

Secondly, as the US comes to resemble Ouroboros, the mythical snake that eats its own tail, bankrupting itself with a vast army and spending 10,000 times more than its inferior opponents, Britain must revolutionise its military. In defiance of the EU’S bizarre Tolstoyan wet dream of a huge anti-russian land army, we should become the leader in counter-cyberterrorism, intelligence gathering and clandestine missions.

Thirdly, the bland response of “big business” to the increasingly ethically conscious tastes of the global middle class is a potentially massive moment for savvy British entrepreneurs. What better time to tap rising demand for craft beer in China, or fight for a slice of the rocketing sustainable beauty market in Brazil? Does Mexican taco firm Gruma’s talent for adapting to local tastes – swapping cornflour for wheat in India, and marketing its bread as ideal for stuffing with Peking duck in China – offer food for thought for niche British companies that punch below their weight abroad? Could our top building materials firms glean something from Nigeria’s leading company, which, perhaps surprisingly for an oil nation, produces cement to ship across Africa and Asia?

The ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu said: “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” As we finally prepare to leave the EU after three years of hysterical bungling, those who remain committed to Brexit should know. The next task will be to prove that lesson to the world.