Outside the EU, Britain’s international policies will still require trade-offs between the desire for political autonomy and the realities of global interdependence.
On 31 December 2020, Britain left the limbo of its transitional status within the EU’s single market and customs union and began to exist again as an autonomous state – or as autonomous as it is possible to be in today’s world as a medium-sized, relatively wealthy and well-resourced country. What are the principal international risks to the UK’s prosperity and security over the coming years, and what opportunities could the country pursue in its new guise? What are its relative strengths and weaknesses in the global and regional contexts? What international goals should current and future governments realistically set? And how can they make a positive contribution on the global stage, given limited resources? This paper seeks to answer these questions.
It starts by noting that the speed of global change in the past 10 years has been disorientating: a disruptive US administration has called into question the international institutional structures that the UK had helped to build; China has emerged as the world’s second-most-powerful state – resolutely authoritarian but enmeshed in the global economy; the legacy of failed foreign incursions and weak governance led to the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which then fell almost as quickly, leaving much of the Middle East and North Africa region at its most unstable in generations; African states teeter between dynamic growth and collapse; the COVID-19 pandemic has stalled what was a hyperglobalizing world economy and deepened inequality; and mass access to instant information and disinformation has driven political awakening and polarization across the world. We are also witnessing the beginning of the end of work as people knew it, as the technology revolution courses through all corners of economic life; and the first devastating impacts on humanity and biodiversity of decades of growing carbon emissions and global warming.
What a time for Britain to strike out on its own. For some, these profound changes are precisely the reason why the UK needed to leave the EU and regain greater sovereignty over its future, rather than remain tied to what they see as a slow-moving, undemocratic institution with rigid regulatory commitments. For others, these changes are precisely the reason why the UK needed to remain embedded in the EU, an institution whose economic size and clout gave the UK a stronger voice and greater protection than it could ever achieve on its own.
With Brexit now in the rear-view mirror, this paper puts forward a simple argument. The UK has the potential to be globally influential in this turbulent world. But only if its leaders and people set aside the idea of Britain as the plucky player that can pick and choose its own alternative future. Instead, they need to invest in the bilateral relationships and institutional partnerships that will help deliver a positive future for the country as well as for others.
Successfully reimagining the UK’s role will clearly require difficult choices and trade-offs. But if the current government and its successors can connect a positive sense of shared national purpose with the country’s still significant economic, diplomatic and security resources, then Britain could serve as an example for the many other countries which face similarly difficult choices between notions of national identity and the pressures of globalization, between demands for national political autonomy and the realities of global interdependence.
On paper, the UK may have more sovereign power than before, including over its immigration, environmental, digital and trade policies. In practice, its continued interdependence with European and global markets will severely limit its sovereign options. The country will no more be able to protect itself from global challenges, whether pandemics, terrorism or climate change, than it could as a member of the EU. The UK will no longer be directly subject to EU decisions and laws. But it will be just as dependent on its European neighbours for its economic health and security in 2026, for example, as it was in 2016 or, for that matter, a decade earlier.
The UK has the potential to be globally influential in this turbulent world. But only if its leaders and people set aside the idea of Britain as the plucky player that can pick and choose its own alternative future.
Moreover, the idea that the UK can now pursue a more independent foreign policy ignores the country’s constrained circumstances at the start of the 21st century. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the national finances will take many years to recover, with knock-on effects for the UK’s capacity for international influence. This will only increase the need to work with others. The country also faces an image problem. The UK embarks on its journey at a moment when its competence is being called into question as a result of the government’s handling of the pandemic. Its ideas for ‘Global Britain’ were already a tough sell when so many of its partners did not understand the logic of Brexit in the first place. The government’s use of the term ‘Global Britain’ implies that leaving the EU has freed Britain to become more internationally engaged than before. And yet, Brexit was an act of disengagement with its closest neighbours. And there is another point of ambiguity. The notion of ‘Global Britain’ may have a convenient alliteration with ‘Great Britain’, but in the minds of many, Britain became ‘Great’ by building a world-spanning empire whose injustices and inequities are now rightly being re-examined. The government will need to be judicious in how it now goes about communicating its global agenda, especially among its Commonwealth partners.
The idea that the UK can now pursue a more independent foreign policy ignores the country’s constrained circumstances at the start of the 21st century. This will only increase the need to work with others.
After assessing the international context (Chapter 2), this paper considers the domestic and comparative contexts in which the government must develop and execute its foreign policy, underlining the considerable strengths that the UK will possess but identifying challenges and points of weakness (Chapter 3). The paper then lays out six broad international goals for the UK that offer the best points of connection between its interests, resources and credibility (Chapter 4).
Recognizing that progress in all areas will rely on cooperation and coalition-building, the paper identifies which will be the UK’s most important bilateral relationships, while pointing out the challenges each relationship poses (Chapter 5). The paper also highlights that the UK will need to ensure it is a valued member of institutions that will help it achieve its goals, but that this will require more flexibility and creativity than in the past (Chapter 6). It then underlines the increase in spending that an effective post-Brexit role implies, especially in diplomacy (Chapter 7). The paper draws these points together in its conclusion (Chapter 8) and argues that the UK should invest in becoming a global broker, leveraging its unique assets to link together liberal democracies at a time of strategic insecurity and engage alongside them with other countries that are willing to address shared international challenges constructively.
While the paper explores the roots of current popular ambivalence towards British foreign policy, it does not take up the likelihood or potential impacts of a break-up of the UK on Britain’s future global influence. This would undoubtedly be a serious development, reputationally and materially. But it would not undercut Britain’s core capabilities for brokering consensus among like-minded countries, and between them and other stakeholders, which would remain a worthy ambition for the UK’s future international role.
