Weathering the storm: The UK’s role in the world today

Bronwen Maddox

Very warm welcome. I’m Bronwen Maddox, Director of Chatham House, and I’m delighted to be welcoming you today to this discussion on another very dramatic title, even pessimistic, on Weathering the Storm: The UK’s Role in the World Today. This is part of our UK in the World Programme, which John Kampfner has been leading. And I’m delighted to have here today David Miliband, who is President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, dealing with refugees in, I think, 40 countries, bringing them back and dealing with, also, resettlement in American cities. And as you will know, was also Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010, which seems, in some ways, a long time ago, in some ways not. We can pick on many of those things.

He’s going to talk to us today, he’s written what I think is a fascinating speech under this title, and I’m going to quiz him a bit, and – but I know there are going to be many questions from you, online, as well. Please do start sending them in and we will take it from there. So, David, thank you very much, a very warm welcome.

David Miliband

Thank you very much, Bronwen, and thank you very much to all of you for coming. It’s nice to be in person, my goodness, thank you. It’s nice to be back at Chatham House and nice to be here under your stewardship, Bronwen, and looking forward to the conversation. I’m pleased to serve on the Advisory Board of the Britain in the World Project and I’m happy to contribute to the discussion today and really look forward to some of the points that you will make.

Here, I want to summarise the argument I’m going to make and the way I see Britain’s role in the world. First, that the global context, which I’m going to talk about a bit, is becoming more dangerous, and a coherent British approach to global engagement needs to be based on an understanding of why the global context is becoming more dangerous. Second, that the UK’s global influence and capability, but also its reputation, has been seriously undermined by political chaos and economic weakness at home since 2016. The problem is not our global businesses, our global culture or our global sport, it’s our politics, and we need to be honest about that.

And thirdly, we need to rebuild, redesign and reprioritise our foreign engagement at the governmental level, and that will take a change of mindset, as well as a change of policy. I – as I started to draft the speech, I remembered that in 2007, when I became Foreign Secretary, I said that the UK had the chance to be a ‘global hub’. We were not a “superpower, but we could be a super connector.” I made the ca – that case, because of our presence in all the groupings and power centres that matter, because of the fertility of ideas in the UK about how to manage an age of interdependence, because of our global cultural intelligence, security and development assets alongside our foreign policy skills, and because of our willingness, nationally, as well as governmentally, to commit those assets to global engagement.

Now, the fundamentals of that case are not present today, and I think we have to be honest about that. The reality and perception of Britain and its role are both seriously diminished. So, the first priority is to stop behaving and talking as if nothing has changed. We do still have global reach and global responsibility. We’re one of the richest countries in the world, we’re privileged in our position on the UN Security Council. We retain some important global assets. But it seems to me we have an absolute imperative to understand the realities of our power and our responsibility as they are today, not as we would like them to be.

Our situation, our national situation, the condition of our interests and of our values, including on hot button issues like migration or trade, or conflict, or development, will get worse, in my view, unless we seriously get our act together. And that challenge of getting our act together is the challenge for our statecraft and it’s what I want to speak about today.

I wanted to start with my take on the global context, ‘cause I think it’s more important and more interesting than is generally discussed. President Biden has said that the world is at a ‘hinge point’. A world richer than ever before has more wars, more refugees, more disasters, more autocrats, more bad actors, and although this may be controversial, I think it’s true, more distrust of the West than ever before.

Now, the US National Security Strategy deserves, in my view, to be read. One can’t always say that about government documents. But it explains the disorder that we face around the world, convincingly, in my mind, as a result of two factors. And it’s quite blunt about them, and I don’t think people have given it the credit it deserves. First, it says that the “Post-Cold War dispensation of an all-powerful America and a dominant West is over.” In other words, the multipolar world is here to stay.

I think it’s important to say, not just because I’m a resident in the US and need to be allowed back in this afternoon, when I get on an aeroplane, that America is still strong, very strong in some ways, and so is the West and the best of its ideas. Just ask the people, men as well as women, chanting for freedom in Iran today. So, those ideas are strong, but geopolitical rivalry is back, and geopolitical obedience is over.

China, for all that – the challenges it faces over COVID, and we may come back to that, does now overtly offer an alternative worldview to the Western ideal. A host of countries, some of them allies of the US, like Saudi Arabia, others more independent, like Ethiopia, will not do as the US wants, and a wide range of countries, including democracies, from India to South Africa, to Indonesia, are preoccupied in their global dealings with what they see as the failed promises of the West.

But here’s what I think is interesting. It’s not just that there is geopolitical competition going on. There’s a second reason that the National Security Strategy of the US highlights for arguing that we’re at a global hinge point. And that second reason is that global problems, notably pandemics, migration and climate change, are crashing into front rooms around the world. The old definition of foreign policy, where global public goods beyond the nuclear sphere were seen as nice to have add-ons, not core business, is, if you take this argument seriously, over. Pandemics, migration, climate change, are the core business of foreign policy, alongside traditional definitions of security, not separate from it.

And here’s the way I would summarise this second challenge. It’s that risks are increasingly global, but resilience is increasingly thought of at the national level, and it’s that gap between global risk and national resilience, sometimes nationalist resilience, that needs to be filled. And if you stop and think, the National Security Strategy doesn’t make this point, but I think it’s important, those two forces that it identifies, geopolitical competition and fragmentation on the one hand, global risk on the other, they interact with each other, they collide with each other and multiply each other. Geopolitical fragmentation means that global risks are not properly addressed. The failure to address global risks exacerbates geopolitical competition and fragmentation. So, what I’m putting to you is that there’s this vicious circle that you can see. That’s why I think it’s a dangerous context. So much for that.

Let me turn to Britain and the specifics. What I want to suggest to you is that there are four questions that any serious discussion about Britain’s role in the world needs to address and answer, about where we start from, honestly, about what we want, what we stand for, about who we stand with, in other words, who are our allies, and about what we can afford. And too much discussion, in my view, does not take those questions seriously. It’s a debate that, in my view, needs to go across all the political parties, but it also needs to go well beyond the political parties, which is one reason I was keen, or happy, to join the Advisory Group of the Britain in the World Project here.

We have, in my view, and I say we, as a Brit, we have, in my view, suffered from a time of comforting, but ill-informed delusions in the last decade. Delusions about our relative power, influence and position, delusions that have cost us dear, both strategically and tactically. Andrew Marr, in his new independent role, where he can say what he really thinks, says that “We lack a national story” and that “We need a new national story.” I don’t think that national story should be mired in talk about decline, but nor can it be founded on delusion.

Recent governments, plural, have responded well to the Ukraine crisis and they would argue they also anticipated some aspects of the Ukraine crisis. Our intelligence was right, our armed forces have added value, but it’s hard to think of other areas where we’ve earned real credit. For example, it would be wrong to characterise the Glasgow Climate Conference of Parties last November as a disaster, but it was far from the success of Paris six years earlier, and we do ourselves no favours by pretending otherwise.

In other areas of historic strength, like humanitarian aid and diplomacy, frankly, Britain has gone AWOL. For example, I was in Ethiopia three weeks ago. In 2016/17 Britain played a key role, convening as well as funding, in staving off famine in East Africa. Today we’re absent and people notice that. Our influence abroad, based on pragmatism, legality, procedure, stability, responsibility, commitment, has in my view, been badly tarnished by our own choices, and this is partly Brexit related. I’m thinking of the blithe assertions that we “held all the cards,” the inability to find what Brexit means, which continues to this day, the threats to break international law over the still unfinished business of the Northern Ireland Protocol. The continued threats to legislate domestically to override treaty commitments to the European Convention on Human Rights, despite these commitments being baked into other international agreements, including the Trade and Co-operation Agreement with the EU and the Good Friday Agreement, which underpins peace in Northern Ireland.

But it’s not just Brexit. This dalliance with breaking international law has extended to thinking about, under the previous Prime Minister, the citing of our Embassy in Israel in defiance of Resolution 242 of the United Nations Security Council. It’s included the slashing of the aid budget and I don’t need to mention it, I think, the unfunded tax cuts that triggered the market gyrations of last month, as if somehow, Britain was not subject to international rules and norms.

Of course, I think it’s also important I recognise there’s a longer perspective that you could add to this list of errors, including Iraq and the war in Iraq, I get that. But my argument is that Britain in the World has to be amount a mindset as well as a policy, and the hubris that we’ve seen about our negotiating strength in Brexit negotiations, our ability to defy the maths of budget and trade deficits, the willingness, alleged, of Commonwealth countries to defer to British leadership in that institution, or the unlimited bounty of negotiating our own trade deals, that hubris is the wrong mindset.

We need, instead, some honesty. And I recommended to the Chatham House project this, that we do a British version of the European Council on Foreign Relations, what they call their “Europe Power Atlas,” which takes seven dimensions of power from the military to the technology and asks hard questions about where Europe stands. We need to do the same ourselves, I think, for the UK, and I gather that’s being done as part of the study, which I think is excellent.

It’s been said that the Truss Government made Britain a laughingstock. In my experience in the US, it was worse. We were regarded with sadness and pity, as well as laughter, and so, my take is that we need to re-ground ourselves, stop shouting ‘Great Britain,’ as the advertising posters do, and start building it, or rebuilding it.

Second, the framing of our foreign policy interests, what we stand for, and here I depart a little from the US National Security Strategy, and I want to explain why. At the heart of the National Security Strategy, or at the beginning of it, really, the Biden administration asserts that “The struggle between democracy and autocracy is the global issue of the moment.”

Now, the fact that only 20% of the global population live in countries that Freedom House, which is the most respected think tank when it comes to assessing global democratic health, says that only 20% of the global population live in countries that it calls ‘fully free’, half the percentage of 15 years ago, should be chilling. But a framing of democracy versus autocracy does not speak to international affairs in a way that I think is optimal. Nor does it speak to concerns outside the West about the mistakes of democratic countries, or the weaknesses of them. Nor does it speak to countries that are not fully functioning democracies that we need to work to – work with. Nor does it put autocracies on the spot. I would go so far as to suggest that the democracy versus autocracy framing is going to play into precisely the distrust of the West of democratic countries, that I mentioned upfront in my talk.

I think there is a better alternative and that is to stand against impunity in international relations and put ourselves on the side of accountability. In my view, rules versus impunity is the real debate of international affairs in the decade, not democracy versus autocracy, which is primarily a domestic policy agenda. And if you – actually, it’s interesting, if you go back to the post-Second World War period, the argument for the so-called rules-based international order was, in part, that rules at the international level wouldn’t bring democracy to international relations, they would strengthen democracy at home. So, I’m drawing the distinction here that at the international level, it’s impunity versus accountability that’s the real issue.

Impunity is the abuse of power and is the opposite of accountability, and that abuse today is taking place in the abuse of international law, in the denial of aid to communities in need, because humanitarian aid is a legal right for those in need of it, the undermining of human rights and the attacks on political freedoms and, also, on the exploitation of the planet, which I see as an act of impunity against future generations. I’m involved in the Advisory Board of a soon to be released project next month in – or not yet, in December, in January 2023, of a project called the “Atlas of Impunity.” It’s going to rank every country in the world on five indicators of impunity: conflict, human rights, governance, economic exploitation, and environmental degradation.

It’s revealing, this atlas, both that such an index can provide a comprehensive lens on every country in the world, for about 40 countries, only – there’s less than 60% of the statistical indicators. It’s based on about 70 statistical indicators. But for 160 countries, there’s the full indica – suite of indicators. But, also, I think it’s significant that such an axis can show where there’s a real battle ahead to curb the forces of impunity.

In my view, the battle for impuni – for accountability and against impunity puts Britain on the right side of the biggest and most difficult political arguments in foreign policy today. From the defence of international law in Ukraine, to support for human rights in Iran, to North-South co-operation on climate change.

Of course, the Chinese leadership is hedging on the global system. They want the best of the existing global order, and they want options to get round it. In my view, we need to make every effort to ensure that the rules-based order is the global system, we need to live by it ourselves, and we need to make it strong enough as a magnet to bring in others. And because the rules of the international order commit to justice as well as process, these are existing rules, we should make this the basis of our partnership with countries around the world who don’t want to side with China and Russia, but see the West consumed by hypocrisy and self-doubt and wonder if they have any choice about the future. From food security to climate finance, to peacebuilding, we need to get back on the pitch.

Third: alliances. In the US, one hears a lot about the G7 being described as a – as the “Steering Committee of the Free World,” and certainly, the G7 has found a new lease of life post the invasion of Ukraine. But I want to stress geography, because this is where we have huge ground to make up. In my view, repairing our EU relationship is vital to the economic repair job that needs to be done at home, but it also matters geopolitically. Although the world is a global village, geography still matters in politics, as well as economics, and the strength of our partnership with friends in all continents will, in my view, be strengthened by concerted engagement with our own continent.

It’s good, in my view, that the last Prime Minister went to the first meeting of the European Political Committee, this is the institution that was created by, or invented by, President Macron. But it’s not enough to attend a meeting. We – I think the Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister, referred to this last night. But it’s not enough to attend a meeting. We need the right stance and that stance, to my mind, must embrace, not just accept the fact, that our European neighbours are more like us than any other countries in the world, they’re more important to us economically than any other countries in the world, and that they are more aligned with our geopolitical interests than any other continent in the world.

The idea that our security depends as much on the Indo-Pacific as it does on the European-Eastern front, or that we can be a player in that theatre to the same extent as we are a player in Europe, is, in my view, misguided. It’s as misguided as the idea that Britain is going to be a global regulatory superpower rivalling the EU, the US or China. It’s just not going to happen.

In a world where blocs matter, and that is the world that exists today, we need to recognise our interests and act accordingly. This does not mean reopening, or renegotiating, or relitigating the 2016 referendum. Brexit is a fact, I always feared it would be a net negative, but it did not need to be as bad as this, and foreign policy, geopolitics and global problems offers a prime area, in my view, where we should be forging common ground with other Europeans.

In the last Integrated Defence Review, which was published three years ago, there was a pretence that the EU didn’t exist. We need that mindset to change. We should be all-in on the European political community for a very simple reason. It offers us the chance to combine our strengths with those of allies. Ditto, we should be all-in on European energy security. We should be co-operating with the EU on security and defence and offering to help bridge EU and NATO. We should be shoulder-to-shoulder with the EU on climate.

The current government have highlighted a common European approach to migration. Fine, that should include minimum standards for refugees and asylum seekers, in my view. In a speech last week, Michael Heseltine said, “We need a Minister for enhancing relations with Europe.” That actually makes sense. At the moment, if you go to the Foreign Office website, there is a Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific and a Parliamentary Undersecretary for Europe. That just doesn’t make sense.

So, that leads to the fourth and final part of the equation, right sizing what we can afford. Maybe I don’t need to say it, but I will. It’s a good thing that not everything costs money, because we haven’t got enough of it to go round. So, we can start with things that don’t cost money. We cannot advocate for the rule of law for others if we do not follow it ourselves. We will not get to sign trade deals with India if we do not let Indians come and study and visit. We cannot expect fully effective European co-operation on migration, including in respect of Channel crossings, if we do not co-operate with the rest of Europe on sorting out the Northern Ireland Protocol.

So, we need to stop snookering ourselves internationally by what we do domestically, but we need to do more and that means thinking about what we can afford, because budgets can’t be spent twice. Our defence, diplomacy, development, intelligence and climate budgets are investments, in my view, in our own security, our own influence and our own strength, but they’re competing for cash with health, education, transport. Our defence budget is about £42 billion last year, the aid budget about £11 billion, the cut aid budget, the intelligence budget three billion and the much reduced diplomacy budget about one billion. Just for comparison, the Chinese defence budget is over $200 billion, and the American defence budget is over $700 billion.

My suggestion would be to prioritise the smaller budgets, on the grounds that this is where the marginal million pounds can go furthest in advancing our interests. Of course, given the job I do, I am passionate about the substance and the soft power that comes from our aid budget. But I want to make a different point, we could double our intelligence and diplomacy budgets for the same cost as a 10% increase in our defence budget and I would bet we would get more for that doubling than for the extra 10%.

Since we are no longer in a position to be a superpower, or a super connector, we can be a super charger on key issues, as long as we’re focused. And if we follow this approach, we can debate the priorities. Some people will argue that the priorities should be geographic. For example, East Africa, which I recently mentioned, where Britain is a missing player on problems of regional and global significance. Others will say we should focus sectorally. I would like to see Britain address the climate conflict interface, where new thinking is desperately needed.

Others will say we could be an institu – we could have an institutional focus. The international financial institutions, for example, desperately need new thinking and we sit on critical governing bodies. We need these institutions to have an ambitious agenda if the world is to manage the challenges of the decades ahead. But at the moment, the British voice is mute. And others will say the priorities can be defined by population groups.

I was here yesterday for the “Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative,” and there’s a case that thinking about women and girls in the world who are aged ten to 30 are the next changemakers in the world, and you could have a focus on that. In all cases, my argument is we should be guided by the imperatives of speaking with humility, not hubris, of acting with others, not alone, of pursuing a rules-based order against the law of the jungle and above all, ensuring that our domestic actions are in sync with, rather than in opposition to, our foreign policy aspirations.

Let me just finish, Bronwen, on the following point. One of the problems with the way sovereignty has been defined in the Brexit debate is that it has peddled the illusion that there’s a world where our destiny only depends on our own decisions. That world does not exist, in my view. The truth is that our future depends on the interaction of our decisions with the decisions of others. Respect, wisdom, trust, credibility and imagination are not actually expensive, but they’ve been sorely lacking, as we’ve cycled through five Prime Ministers and six Foreign Secretaries, since 2016. We can start by bringing them back, but they need substantive articulation and focus. That, in my view, is the next task. Thank you very much, indeed.

Bronwen Maddox

[Pause] David, thank you very much, indeed. And there’s a terrific sweep of things, and you’ve managed, I was saying before you gave this talk, to, in my view, calibrate things just right in terms of the tone of how we should see Britain. It’s very hard within the UK, sometimes, to get away from the tone of either boosterism, on one hand, or a kind of, defensiveness or, then, gloom, at the other end of the spectrum. So, thank you for that.

I wanted to put to you one of the – you’ve casted, also, very much in the – in a sense of decisions that governments should take. While I note your last bit about the, you know, the effectiveness depends on other countries and other people’s decisions, as well. What do you think a British Government ought to do about migration?

David Miliband

Well, I think that there are a couple of – first of all, thank you for what you said about the speech. In respect of migration, there’s a particular interest that I’ve got and then, there’s a more general point. The particular interest is that in respect of refugees and asylum seekers, Britain should be upholding the best of international commitments, rather than seeking to get round them. We take a relatively small proportion of the world’s refugees and of the world’s asylum seekers, but we also process their cases very slowly, which I think is wrong.

And I run a humanitarian organisation, but that doesn’t mean that I believe every single person who applies for asylum is going to get it. There should be a system, it should be run briskly and fairly, and I think the imperative is that Britain is part of an international determination to uphold one part of the post-War settlement, which was that people who are fleeing for their lives deserve sanctuary. And the US has recently said that it’s – the Biden administration has said they’re going to take 125,000 refugees on resettlement route every year. Britain, in recent years, has taken low single digit thousands. The last calculation I did was six or seven per parliamentary constituency. No-one is going to tell me that doubling or trebling that number is going to…

Bronwen Maddox

Sorry, but we’re talking…

David Miliband

…overwhelm…

Bronwen Maddox

The – you know, in the past year or so, talking about net immigration of half a million, much of which represents a deliberate choice to take in people…

David Miliband

Let me come up for comments.

Bronwen Maddox

…from the Ukraine and…

David Miliband

…I said, I’ve got particular…

Bronwen Maddox

…Afghanistan and Hong Kong.

David Miliband

I’ve got a particular interest for people who are fleeing from conflict, so there’s an agenda around that. Secondly, you’ve then got a wider set of migration issues. I mean, the Hong Kong…

Bronwen Maddox

True.

David Miliband

…example is one, Ukraine, obviously Afghanistan. On the wider migration point, it’s evident that there are significant economic reasons why the country needs migrants to be here and it defends that. Now, we can’t, in my view, have a migration policy indepen – that pretends that we’re not part of a European Continent. And it’s vital that we have effective systems that replace those that existed when we were in the European Union.

Now, I don’t – I’m not getting into the numbers with you, but – and I’m happy if you want to ask me a more specific question, but it seems to me you’ve got one agenda about people who are fleeing conflict, another agenda about the social and economic needs of the country.

Bronwen Maddox

It’s good that you’re happy that if I ask you a more specific question, because I wonder how you would, as a British Politician, if you were still that, persuade people to take these numbers in. You’ve said, “Look, we owe it to” – and you’ve answered particularly, in terms of refugees and asylum seekers. And you’ve said it’s also good for the country, it’s good for growth, but it remains one of the big points of unease. I happen to share your views, but it remains one of the big points of unease, one of the – arguably, one of the drivers of Brexit, one of the things that this government and clearly, Labour, to some extent, are very, very uncomfortable with.

David Miliband

Well, let’s accept that it was – that there are concerns about that. The concerns, I think, are about ‘uncontrolled migration’, because that is the spectre that is thrown up. And I think that if you look at the debates, not just in this country, but in other countries, the sense that there is no national or international controls that exist on migration is a significant part of it. I think there’s a second aspect, which is very important, as well, which is whether countries are – whether other countries are bearing their weight. If you look at the debate in Germany or the debate in Sweden, a significant aspect of the resentment was around what other countries were doing.

And so, I think that we should be very – whether you’re in politics or not, it’s important, I think, to be very clear that there are responsibil – legal responsibilities, as well as moral responsibilities, in respect of those who are fleeing for their lives. There are then national interests in respect of an immigration policy and those should be addressed in the context in which there is control over who comes in and that there is an international engagement about who bears the responsibility.

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you for that. I was fascinated by your putting this weight on impunity, as you put it, and said that you thought that that’s where – that the international dimension really sits. And I wondered who you thought countries then ought to be accountable to, or to what, if they’re escaping or evading accountability. Because, you know, in the domestic context, democracies, their governments are accountable to voters…

David Miliband

Well, that’s…

Bronwen Maddox

…we could say. But you know, internationally, if you’re talking about that, who is Britain accountable to for deciding to – not to observe a treaty, other than the other counterparts of that treaty, and…?

David Miliband

Well, we are – first of all, we are accountable to others.

Bronwen Maddox

Yeah.

David Miliband

You’ve anticipated part of where this goes, you’re accountable to others who are abiding by the treaty, and there are sanctions against – not – I don’t mean economic sanctions. There’s commitments that are made and if you don’t meet them, there’s redress for others.

But let me just pick up this question in something that matters a lot to me. Our staff get killed in the places that we work by combatants in battle, sometimes by ‘accident’, sometimes deliberate. We had a really terrible recent case in Ethiopia, we’ve had other cases in Syria. Now, the accountability there for the people who decided to launch the missile from the drone, or in the Syrian case, launch the missile that hit an am – an IRC ambulance from the fighter jet, is pursue – is very hard to pursue. But there’s a very interesting example. In the German court system, they’ve used the universal jurisdiction provisions to try in absentia Syrian Generals, not for our incident, but for other incidents.

So, I think your question about where accountability can be exercised is a very reasonable one. There isn’t one answer to it. Sometimes it’ll be through a legal system, sometimes it will be through other systems. The US announced an executive order yesterday about sanctions on individuals who perpetrate sexual violence in conflict, a Presidential Memorandum. So, I would say we need multiple avenues to pursue those who act with impunity, not – there’s not a singular one.

Bronwen Maddox

Hmmm. Where do you put Iraq in this? You mentioned it in one sentence and I’m not going to give it disproportionate weight in this, but it is one point. When people look at the UK’s record, they say, “Well, what about that?” And President Putin, indeed, says, you know, precisely, “Well, what about that?” in terms of acting internationally within the law.

David Miliband

Well, I think it was an error, but not an act of impunity. So, I don’t think it was an illegal act, I think it was an error.

Bronwen Maddox

Yes, let’s take it as an error, then, and perhaps build on that to say – I mean, you talked a bit about Britain’s strength in defence and in intelligence, which is something that comes up repeatedly, comes up in our work in our project here, as one of the more solid cornerstones, if you like, of Britain’s reputation in the world at the moment. But over these, that does hang the question of Afghanistan and Iraq, either as something that is damaged, two experiences that have damaged Britain’s standing, or as revelations, if you’re perhaps a bit more generous, revolutions of the lack of influence that Britain have over American policy. And I’m thinking particularly of the Afghan exit there. And so, in this perspective that you’re offering us, where do you put these two wars that did not go to plan, if I can use British understatement?

David Miliband

Well, they’re an important part of the post-Cold War story, I think, and they should be addressed with humility and with openness and with transparency. Now, I have an interesting perspective on, you know, you’ve mentioned Afghanistan. There are 3,000 IRC employees in Afghanistan. They will tell you that the opportunities and freedoms that they’ve be – that they’ve gained in the last 20 years are something that they want to work to preserve. So, I think it’s a story with texture and with many aspects, but there are clearly – I mean, I argued in office that “No military strategy, no development strategy, no aid strategy, could work without a political settlement that could hold the country together.” And that – well, it – that was a lonely furrow to plough at the time, because people are saying, “No, you’ve got to win the military battle first and then, you’ve got to do the politics.” I don’t think it works like that. So, I think you’ve got to learn the right lessons, as well as telling the right story.

So, I think the best thing is to be open and engaging. I served on something called the Afghan Study Group, which was established by the US Congress and run under the US Institute of Peace, which foreshadowed many – it was published in February of last year, so it foreshadowed many of the debates that have happened since the fall of the Ghani Government. I think that we should be open and we should engage with it.

Bronwen Maddox

Hmmm. No, and as you said, engage with, you know, the things that went wrong. What would you say to British Politicians now, who are trying to make, as you put it, the case for being a global magnet for the many things attractive about the UK? On the other hand, it is an undeniably very difficult time to run many democracies, but particularly the UK. The country does not have the money to afford many of the things that voters and governments would like.

David Miliband

Yeah, I mean, I think that, obviously, the home front is the pre-eminent issue in the front of people’s minds and it’s very hard to be strong internationally if you’re weak domestically, if you’re weak economically or if you’re chaotic politically. And so, I think the rebuilding does have to start at home. I don’t think there’s any option there. However, I’m nervous, or I’m sceptical of the argument that you can just ignore the international dimension. So many of the things that are important to the future of the country have an international dimension, not just a domestic dimension. That the idea that you can take a holiday from foreign policy for the decade and then, come back in 2030 and re-engage, I don’t think holds. And that’s why I think we’ve got to be able to calibrate an international stance that is becoming for the ambitions we have domestically, but also for the responsibilities that we have internationally.

Bronwen Maddox

Hmmm, thank you for that. We won’t come back to some of those points, but I wonder if we can turn to questions now, ‘cause I think there are going to be lots. If we could the lights – yes, there are loads and loads and loads. I’m going to start, though, with two online and they’re marvellously succinct and probably anticipate a point that others are going to ask. One from Dina Mufti, who said, “Appreciate for this question to be asked on my behalf. How has Brexit impacted the UK economically? Is there a case for the UK re-joining the EU?” And along with that, from Robert Elkeles, “It is apparent that Brexit is a disaster for the UK. Why will our Politicians not admit this and talk about it?”

David Miliband

Well, Brexit is not working economically, as well as not working – sorry, do you want me to answer that, or do you want to take more? Sorry.

Bronwen Maddox

No, no, David, no you can answer that. You can answer those, as they go together, and taking them as one.

David Miliband

Brexit is not working economically, just as I argued, it’s not been helpful geopolitically. It’s not working economically because it’s not been ‘done’, because any business will tell you that there’s an enormous amount still to be worked through. There’s – a microcosm of the bigger issue is the story of the European Charter mark, the Kitemark that applies to goods, the CE Kitemark, which the current government has repeatedly, or the successive current governments, have repeatedly said they’re going to abolish and replace with a British Kitemark, but have then repeatedly postponed the date when that’s happened. They’ve just announced it’s going to be postponed until 2023, ‘cause they haven’t got an alternative to it.

And so, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look at what the Office of Budget Responsibility or anyone else says, 15% reduction in trade intensity, at least a 4% reduction in national income, in a very competitive world. And so, I would urge people to look at what the US are doing. Just in – one example of the future of the global economy is going to be partly about decarbonisation. Look at what the US is putting behind the low carbon effort they’re making through the Inflation Reduction Act. People think it’s a $369 billion act, that’s only the price on the tin. Actually, it’s driven by the number of businesses who make the investments that trigger the investment incentives. There are credible estimates it’s going to be worth at least twice the $369 billion.

The EU is responding, as well. It’s very worried that there’s a protectionist element, the incentives for production in the US. Britain’s not in that conversation at the moment. So, I think it’s – I think that the evidence is that Brexit is not done and there are problems that need to be fixed pretty urgent, and I don’t know whether the Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister, has the wiggle room in his own party to fix them, but it’s essential for the future, that they are.

Bronwen Maddox

Thanks very much. Yeah, okay, let me take two at a time, one over here.

Kim Sengupta

Hi, Kim Sengupta from The Independent. There will be a new government here, probably, in two years’ time, judging by the opinion polls, unless there is a huge change in public opinion. Would it not make sense for the EU to wait for that and a Starmer Government, who will have more wiggle room than Rishi Sunak has, and would not be so beholden to the ERG or the DUP? And they can I ask you, following your interview with Andy Marr last night, about your own intentions about domestic politics? And I think you said, when you were asked by Andy, whether you intend to stand for the Commons, it hadn’t been decided yet. What does that mean?

David Miliband

My interview was about my speech today, actually, rather than about my own career, and what I said to him is, I always say the same thing, which is that “I make my professional decisions on the basis of where I think they’re going to make the most impact, consistent with my commitments to my own family.” And so, it was, boringly, the same answer that I always give.

On the waiting for government. Look, I think the EU want a strong relationship with the UK, and they should get on with it, and anyone who’s a Brit should be saying to the current government, in my view, “Get serious, get on with it.” So, I don’t think the EU are in the – they’re not in a waiting game. They can see it’s not working and – but they want to fix it.

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you for that and thank you, Caroline Johns, for asking the same question about your own intentions, saying, “Can you give a Chatham House a scoop today?” Answer, no. Thank you. Alright, the two – one in the front and then, I’m going to go back on the aisle, there.

Salman Shaikh

Thank you. Salman Shaikh, Founder of The Shaikh Group, Chatham House member. Good to see you here, David. On this issue of accountability, I want to ask you about international institutions today, are they fit for purpose? And, of course, here, I talked about the UN Security Council in particular, where whether it’s error or wilful, you have a Security Council member in Russia that has been bombing with impunity Syrian breadlines, as well as now apartment blocks in Ukraine.

Bronwen Maddox

Okay, thank you, and can we take one on the aisle, back there, thank you. I will come over here.

Jonathan Senger

Hi, Jonathan Senger, Chatham House member. Actually, following up on the last one, this reframing of the, sort of, competition between democracies and autocracies into accountability versus impunity, what is the arena of that competition when it comes to the state engagement? Are we talking about trying to convince China to follow rules, for example, or Iran, or other autocracies? Are we trying to devise a new rules-based system that countries may choose to align with, instead of aligning with China? So, a bit more on, like, how that works on a state-by-state level.

Bronwen Maddox

Great questions, thanks, accountability of the UN Security Council on Russia and more into this…

David Miliband

Well…

Bronwen Maddox

…impunity.

David Miliband

I mean, look, all of the international institutions, be they political or economic, are desperate need for updating, but the vested interests make it very hard to do so. Salman, you know 15 years ago, we – well, there was an agenda for reform of the UN Security Council, expanding membership, changing terms, etc., but it’s very hard to see that going anywhere.

I think that there’s a couple of things I would point to in respect of the case that you raised of the – I mean, the – we went through this at the IRC with the bombing of Aleppo and now, in Ukraine, we’re seeing the same. Two things: one, there’s a French proposal that the veto in the Security Council should be surrendered in cases of mass atrocity. And it’s a proposal that’s supported by 100 members of the General Assembly, and I’m going to come back to that General Assembly point in a moment. We argued, as IRC, when we published our Emergency Watchlist last December, and we’ll do so again in two weeks’ time, in support of that proposal.

Now, Britain has not used its veto since 1989 in the Security Council, but of course, there’s the use of the veto and there’s the threat to use the veto, or the knowledge that the veto could be used, that circumscribes diplomacy, even when the veto isn’t actually used. I think it will be – I think that’s a very good proposal and I think it deserves support and, of course, none of the other members of the Security Council are yet committed to that proposal, but I think it’s a good one.

And I think that the point about mass atrocities, important, was – of course, what you often hear is, “Well, who defines a mass atrocity?” Well, that’s also something that deserves its own independent assessment. Was one of the things that I know from dealings with the UN is that UN officials are subject to pressure around the world, because they operate by the consent of the host government in all the places where they are.

So, there’s one thing is about the use of the veto. The second is I think there’s an important development this year, it was a Lichtenstein proposal, I think, which is that, “Whenever the veto is used, the issue is referred to the General Assembly.” And I think the General Assembly finding its voice is a positive aspect to that. We’re thinking at the moment about our – this year’s Watchlist and what to do about cases where there’s the denial of aid access, ‘cause at the moment, that’s happening in the dark, effectively, in a number of places. And so, I think thinking about the role of the General Assembly in the UN system is also a fruitful area. I’m not saying abandon UN Security Council Reform and wider things, and obviously, there’s a whole set of other institutions.

In respect of the question that was asked about the rules-based system, my view on this is that we don’t need new rules, actually. The rules were set out very, very clearly after the Second World War. Interestingly enough, I don’t know if he’s a Chatham House member, but Rana Mitter at Oxford has written an extraordinary book about how – the pre-1949 Chinese Government, what role they had in the debates about setting up the post-Second World War order and, also, some fascinating material from under the Xi Jinping Presidency, of claiming credit for some of the creation of the post-Second World War order.

It’s often described as a Western creation. That’s actually not true, it was designed by democracies and dictatorships, capitalist countries and communist countries. So, I don’t think we need new rules. I think we need to uphold the rules that exist, and that’s the basis, I think, for any kind of effective international system.

Now, built into the – built into that post-Second World War system was obviously the rights of states, which was a 300-year-old commitment, but for the first time in international law, the rights of citizens were written into international law. And that tension runs through the documentation, but it also has run through the debates since then. There was no golden age. Lawrie Freedman always tells me that “Whenever you talk about impunity, don’t leave the implicit impression that somehow there was a golden age pre-1990. The Cold War was full of abuses of international rights, as well.” But my very strong view is that upholding the current rules is a far more fruitful way of going forward than trying to invent new ones.

Bronwen Maddox

And that includes – to answer the question, trying to persuade China and Iran and others to follow this?

David Miliband

Yes, I don’t think we should be naïve about it. So, “How can we persuade China?” I think that there’s a danger of us sound – of sounding naïve about it. But live up to them ourselves and remember that China has been a beneficiary of the rule – I would argue we’ve been beneficiaries of the rules-based system, but China’s been a beneficiary of the rules-based system, as well. And I think it’s – the strategic goal for a world that faces the kind of global risks that I’ve described, is to have one system, not multiple systems.

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you, and I just want to bring in a question on China. Has anyone else got a question on China? Here, and they’re all on other things. Alright, at the back there and I’m going to take one online here.

Padraig Harris-Korsky

I’m Padraig Harris-Korsky, Chatham House member. Yeah, I have a question on our relationship with China, and I guess it’s at what level should we be engaging with them? Because on the one hand, the more collaboration, the more trade you have with your geopolitical rivals, the more likely, theoretically, they are to become like us. But we’ve also seen that that doesn’t always work out that way, so where is the – well, how do we strike a balance between strengthening our rivals and engaging with them and perhaps preventing the chance of conflict?

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you very much for that, and I’m going to weave into that from Celia Mazzard De Pablo. “Mr Miliband, do you share Mr Sunak’s views about China?” Thank you.

David Miliband

I’ll express my own, because the Prime Minister said yesterday he wants to be ‘robustly pragmatic’, as opposed to what kind of pragmatism? I mean, there is – sort of, floppily pragmatic, I suppose, is the alternative of robustly pragmatic. But the way I would, sort of, describe it is as follows. First, I don’t think that it’s a fair description of the post-1990 approach that there was a – if we trade with China, they’ll become like us. I think there were some statements made that were – that get trotted out. But I think that we should – that shouldn’t be the basis of our trading relationship. We should trade if we think it’s in our interest to do so.

Now, secondly, there are areas where trade is completely beneficial to both sides and there are trade – there’s trade where it becomes more dangerous and difficult, notably in the military domain. And what I see across the West, actually, the European Union did this, now the Americans have adopted it, I think it would’ve been helpful if the Prime Minister had said it last night, there are areas where the relationship between the West and China has – that there are red lines on both sides and it’s important for those red lines to be clear. There are areas where there is competition, and that competition can be fair or it can be unfair, and then, there are areas where there is necessary co-operation and climate would be an example, health pandemics would be an example. So, I served on something called the International Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response. There’s no future safeguard against pandemics that doesn’t involve engagement with China.

Now, my concern, over the last couple of years, has been that that third area of co-operation is going to be close to zero. Actually, coming out of the last G20 meeting, the commitment, and John Kerry deserves a lot of credit for this, the determination to – of the Americans now to engineer a conversation with China about the climate issue, I think is positive. And so, I find that three-part distinction. There are areas of potential confrontation, where red lines are important. There are areas of competition and then, there are areas of co-operation. I think that’s the way to try and sort out a multifaceted relationship with China that recognises its own distinctive place in the global system.

Bronwen Maddox

Thanks for that. I’m now going to – and thank you for being so patient this side of the room. Right, in the middle, towards the back.

Sean Curtin

[Pause] Sean Curtin, member of Chatham House. Thank you, David, for giving us a sort of, roadmap to improve relations with the EU and the wider world. But don’t you think that a lot of the energy, which we could use for this, will actually be turned internally to deal with the consequences of Brexit, and I’m thinking here about Scottish independence and the status of Northern Ireland? You mentioned the Northern Ireland Protocol. I would point out the majority of people in Northern Ireland actually are quite happy with the situation as it is at the moment and, of course, Brexit gave us – about 62% of Scots wanted to stay in the EU and 56% of people in Northern Ireland. So, the problem is that we’re going to have to look – deal with those very difficult issues. Thank you.

Bronwen Maddox

Really good question, thank you, and right in the middle, quite near you, yes, yeah.

Christopher Hill

Thanks very much, Christopher Hill, Cambridge University. There have been so many agonising reappraisals of British foreign policy since the 1960s and arguably, they haven’t made much difference to the hubris you were talking about. One of them, the Berrill Report, said that we should identify with what it called ‘analogue states’, of which the most obvious is France. What, in your view, are the significant differences of interest between ourselves and France?

David Miliband

And just let me answer the second question first. I did the – every year there’s an Anglo-French [inaudible – 58:30] and one year it takes place in – it’s not an intergovernmental thing, it’s a civil society, you know, meeting, and one year it takes place in Versailles, another year it takes place in the UK. And in 2009, Bernard Kouchner, who was the French Foreign Minister, and I, we gave each other’s speeches. So, I gave the French report on the last year, and he gave the British report on the last year. And the reason for making that point is that the similarities of our interest are much greater than the differences in our interest. I see that at the UN and I see the potential here, as well.

So, my – I don’t want to be glib about it, but two countries that love to rib each other actually do so because they’ve got so much in common. And so, I’m sure that doesn’t do justice to Ken Berrill’s original report or to your learning on the subject. I think that, ironically, Britain has always had more in common with French designs for Europe than it has with German designs for Europe. Germans have been always more federal in their conception of Europe. Mitterrand originally proposed this concentric circles model that the European comm – political community partly represents. And so, I feel that while there are – there can be differences in some aspects of global policy, I think that the overriding interests are similar, rather than separate.

Just in Sean’s original question, I mean, one reason I would say, and again, I don’t want to be flippant about it, but the majority of Northern Ireland electors and parties are content with the Northern Ireland Protocol because they’re in the single market. So, it ra – I, sort of, feel it rather makes my point about the need for us to organise relations with the European single market in a way that is mutually beneficial, and the 15% reduction in trade intensity doesn’t make sense. Just to be clear, I’ve not actually been advocating that we re-join the single market. I think that you can achieve alignment that focuses on the trade issues, this is partly what the discussion with Andrew Marr yesterday was about, and then you can deal with the migration issues separately.

And in respect of the situation in Scotland, I mean, the Scots should, and will, speak for themselves on that. Myself, I don’t understand how people who are passionately against Brexit can passionately advocate Scegxit. I think that it doesn’t add up, and I think that the opinion polling I’ve seen rather speaks to concerns in the Scottish population about that issue.

Bronwen Maddox

Thanks for that. We could have a whole session, and indeed, quite a bit of the project is about how Britain reforges relations with the EU, and we could debate endlessly that one about whether the EU will allow Britain to separate single market closeness from migration issues. But let’s squeeze in two more, in the middle there and then, I’m…

William Horsley

William Horsley, University of Sheffield. Mr Miliband, I wonder what issues are raised in your mind for Britain by the fact that so many former Commonwealth countries, like South Africa and India, were unwilling to vote for the General Assembly Resolution, which you mentioned. And the suggestion is that they see double standards from Britain, and in the West in general, in international behaviour, cross-border behaviour and the uploading of the rule of law and so on.

By the way, the Commonwealth, the Jamaican and the Caribbean Commonwealth, is talking about reparations as a high agenda item. Britain is trying to put the issue of governance, the rule of law, and indeed, media freedom, onto the agenda. The Law Ministers have passed something in that direction, has to go to the Heads of Government. And there’s an issue here about accountability on all sides. So, how do you think the current British Government should handle this entangled web of expectations of Britain and the, indeed, perhaps, the lack of consistency on our own part?

If I might just…

Bronwen Maddox

So, okay, then.

William Horsley

…tag on one thing. Had you not left out one item talking about Europe’s role in this? Because if Germany, Italy, France and the others had been less Russia friendly over the last 20 years, and a bit more – Britain had, had a larger role, we would we be in the current situation where Putin was tempted to cross that border?

Bronwen Maddox

Marvellous, many-sided question, thank you, and I’m going to take in a bit – in the back, in the yellow. I’m so sorry to all the others. There’s been a lot of hands up, quite justifiably.

Rashmin Sagoo

Rashmin Sagoo, Director of the International Law Programme here at Chatham House. Thank you for your many references to the importance of upholding rules-based international order. I just wondered, how could we better engage with the British public on the importance of the UK’s leadership in upholding international law, so that when – even threats to breach international law get the public outcry that they deserve?

David Miliband

Good questions. Just on William Horsley’s point, I mean, I – to be fair to my remarks, I actually made the point that you made, which is that India and South Africa, and Indonesia is obviously not – a slightly different category, but they are annoyed by what they see as double standards. And there is a – but my reply is, there’s an awful lot of whataboutery when it comes to the Russian issue.

Now, I actually think there’s something very interesting going on, which is if you compare the UN resolution that you referred to, where 141 countries in the UN voted to condemn the invasion, but of the 50 that didn’t, they represent about half of the world’s population, I think 55%, and they included countries like India and South Africa. Interesting thing going on. Come the G20 Summit earlier this month, there’s been an act – a pretty significant move. That text is much more forward, and the pain of the war is becoming more evident globally, not just in the Ukraine.

I think on the – look, it’s a separate conversation about Russia, but that, yes, you’re right to point out the dependen – the argument that was made that Russia was as dependent on Europe for buying its energy as Europe was for – on Russia for supplying it. That’s a good argument that you made, but the Russian – the other Europeans would also say to us, “Look, the UK has got its own fair share of responsibility and not cracking down hard enough on a whole range of Russian money, etc., that’s in London.” So, there’s – if it gets into a blame game, we’re all going to lose.

There’s pretty significant lessons. I think back to 2008, and I think – well, one of the fir – the first thing I had to do in the Foreign Office was decide what to do about the refusal of the Russian Government to co-operate in the prosecution of those who murdered Litvinenko. And we took an unprecedented step at the time of kicking out eight Russian Diplomats, but I don’t – I didn’t believe at the time that Russia could become as great a threat to global order as it then subsequently did become. And I regret not taking more literally, as well as seriously, the 2007 speech that President Putin made to the Munich Security Conference that flagged pretty clearly some intentions in that regard. I think there was a degree of complacency, if you like, that saw Russia as a declining global power and therefore, didn’t take seriously enough its ability to be such a destabilising influence globally, which hasn’t – as Salman indicated, has not just been in Europe, it’s also been in the Middle East.

I mean, the last question is a great question. I think that the first thing I would say is that when newspaper headlines celebrate the ripping up of the rule of law, not to be cowed by that. I think that’s very, very important. I think secondly, the explanation of the gains that we make from living by a rules-based system is very, very important as well and is not done well enough. And you often hear peo – I referred this to the question that was asked about China. I mean, people often say, “Well, China’s got so much out of the rules-based order since,” well, “since 1990, really, since joining the WTO.” We’ve got a lot out of it, as well. So, I think that that’s an important part of it.

I also think, thirdly, and this may be something that you and Chatham House can think about, the Council on Foreign Relations, I don’t know if they’re your sister body in…

Bronwen Maddox

Actually, they’re not quite sister, but founded at the same time, in the wake of the First World War, in the spirit of never again to bring rigour to foreign affairs. So, since you ask, yes…

David Miliband

Yeah.

Bronwen Maddox

…that is a…

David Miliband

They’ve…

Bronwen Maddox

…historic relationship.

David Miliband

And this is going to sound, sort of, rather Sunday sermonish, but they have really tried to take seriously what public education means about foreign affairs. And they’ve got a programme that tries to get material into the hands of mosques and churches and synagogues every week. They’ve got a programme in high schools. And as I say, it can sound a bit, sort of, do goody, but actually, it’s good to do good and actually, that agenda of civic and public education is incredibly important. I think especially in the modern age, where it’s so easy to get material out, high quality engagement feels to me really, really important.

And so, the work – I don’t know much about your project here, but it feels to me that there’s an important civic society responsibility, as well as responsibilities on Politicians. But maybe it’s because I’m no longer a Politician, but I think that the – Abraham Lincoln said that “The toughest job in the world is to be a citizen,” and I think there’s responsibilities on those of us who are not Politicians, as well as there’s responsibilities on those who are.

Bronwen Maddox

Thank you for that. Well, the International Law Programme here, which dates back to the years we’re talking about, and in fact, has a distinguished history of addressing many of these questions.

We are, sadly, going to have to stop now and I’m so sorry, there’s – there’ve been terrific questions and I’m sure the others that would follow would be, as well. But thank you for those, thank you for those online, which were great, and thank you all for coming, and please join me in thanking David Miliband.