Britain’s post-Brexit global agenda will be complex,
multifaceted and resource-intensive. To be successful internationally, the UK must focus on being a reliable team player.
Pursuing an ambitious global agenda outside the EU while preventing slippage in the UK’s international influence is a very tall order. It will be difficult to retreat from existing international commitments even as the UK invests in new ones. It means doubling down on current institutional memberships while engaging in more informal arrangements. It means the government carving out and protecting space for its new international role, even as it tries to deliver on its extensive domestic levelling-up agenda, sustain domestic political cohesion, and avoid a break-up of the UK. The danger is that this will lead to overload, and that the vision of a post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ will not live up to its hype.
It is essential, therefore, that the Johnson government does not indulge now in the over-optimism that characterized its initial outlook for a new relationship with the EU. Here, as in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has gained a reputation for over-promising and under-delivering. If this becomes the impression for ‘Global Britain’ also, it will do long-lasting damage to the UK’s international influence.
Under-delivering has not yet been the case on the government’s foreign policy, because it has been relatively cautious. The proactive approach it has taken on confronting human rights abuses by authoritarian governments has been laudable. Its stance supports the country’s, and its allies’, long-term interests. Britain’s capacity for leadership on the more ambitious climate agenda will be clear after its presidency of the G7 and hosting of COP26 in 2021.
At the same time, the risk of hubris implicit in the concept of a ‘Global Britain’ blinds critics to the ways in which leaving the EU may have positive effects on Britain’s role in the world. At the most basic level, the UK can now move faster in reacting to international crises, as it did with the rapid announcement of sanctions on President Lukashenka of Belarus even as the EU grappled with internal divisions. The UK will also have nowhere to hide if it ignores global crises despite being a permanent member of the UN Security Council – it cannot now blame the fact that there is no EU consensus position.
Those who argued for Brexit tend to be nostalgic for an unrecoverable past. But they are right that a strong national narrative and a shared sense of purpose can motivate a country to achieve its goals. The UK’s departure from the EU could enable the country to overcome its persistent divisions over Europe and design a more sustainable vision of its place in the world. One in which the pragmatic approach that Britons were generally known for replaces the sour mix of resentment and detachment that had gradually infected it as an EU member. One in which the UK’s willingness and ability to be a team player replace its quest for individual glory. And one in which being a champion of the rule of law and sustainable economic growth is not undermined by double standards in its own behaviour.
Those who argued for Brexit tend to be nostalgic for an unrecoverable past. But they are right that a strong national narrative and a shared sense of purpose can motivate a country to achieve its goals.
Post-Brexit Britain should tend to the health of those areas of international cooperation that lie clearly at the nexus of its interests, resources and credibility, rather than focus on extracting maximum national advantage from a splintered world. This paper has laid out six objectives that meet these criteria. At a minimum, the UK needs to be a leading member of the group of countries protecting and supporting liberal democracies and standing up for rules-based international collaboration. It can also be a broker helping to connect democratic and non-democratic governments in initiatives to tackle shared global challenges, from climate change to health resilience and equitable growth.
To be successful, UK policymakers will need to ensure Britain is an indispensable and reliable member of any institution to which it belongs, or of whatever team it joins. If the UK is to be more secure, prosperous and influential in the future than it was as an EU member, it needs, above all, to recommit to its European relationships, as much as to its transatlantic alliance. It will also need to deepen its circle of relations with like-minded friends in the Asia-Pacific. And it will need to invest more judiciously in the group of large countries which, while being rivals or holding different outlooks on some of the UK’s global goals, will be essential counterparts on others.
Britain does not need to establish new forums to be productive in this mission; nor does it have to lead initiatives on its own or at all. British politicians and officials can be as effective working behind the scenes, using their unique international networks, experience and convening skills to help broker progress. For this approach to be credible as well as effective, the UK government will need to be selective about which negotiations to try to lead and which to contribute to. It cannot be a broker for all six global priorities simultaneously. But it can make this role its main calling card – provided that its politicians start to rebuild a cross-party understanding of the important contribution the country can make, and take a more consistent and long-term approach to foreign policy, rather than chopping and changing priorities from one premiership or party to the next. There is plenty of room for experimenting with new approaches, providing the overall agenda remains consistent.
The world needs less talk and more action. In this sense, a role for Britain as a valued and creative global broker must be earned, not declared. It will emerge only from the competence of the UK’s diplomacy, from the impact of its international presence, from trust in its word, and from a return to the power of understatement for which the country was so widely respected.