Squandering trust is no route to a ‘Global Britain’

Great powers have a habit of doing as they please. Middle-ranking and smaller states seek, where they can, to fend off stronger rivals and adversaries by sheltering behind alliances, coalitions of the like-minded and multilateral rules.

A long-promised foreign, diplomatic and intelligence strategy soon to be unveiled by Boris Johnson’s government must start from this simple premise. The UK’s security and prosperity rest in large part on the preservation of an international system rooted in the rule of law and respectful of liberal democratic values.

As a significant power with far-flung global interests and too few gunboats to enforce its will alone, Britain is in the game of persuading others to play by the rules. Multilateral institutions, alliances and treaties have replaced armed diplomacy. A seat on the UN Security Council and membership of the G7 and Nato are parts of the scaffolding.

Post-Brexit, these arrangements are more important than ever. China’s challenge to the west and Russia’s revanchism have ushered in an era of great power competition. The UK has withdrawn from the foreign policy and defence arrangements of the EU. Outside Europe’s club, it needs to find other ways to gather up support for its interests. 

Hey presto, ministers say that what Johnson styles as “Global Britain” can now assume the role of a convener of new international coalitions. It will start by setting up a club of democracies and then, as host in Glasgow of this year’s big climate change conference, broker a deal to save the planet.

The obvious snag is that international networks rest on mutual trust. Nations, like individuals, abide by the rules to the extent that others also act in good faith. Unreliable partners do not get to act as conveners.

Which renders all the more inexplicable Johnson’s efforts to renege on the Brexit agreement he signed with the EU. The government’s move to delay implementation of agreed new checks on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland recalls a threat last year to repudiate the customs arrangements designed to avoid a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 

There are genuine difficulties with the implementation of the new rules, and a case for the EU to be flexible. But the UK’s response fits a pattern. As Sir Jonathan Jones, until last September the head of the government’s own legal service, puts it: “This government has an ambiguous attitude to the law. It wants the full force of the law to apply to everyone else . . . but not necessarily itself.”

Such things are noticed. Witness the remarks of Brendan Boyle, a congressional ally of US president Joe Biden. This was the second time, Boyle told BBC television’s Newsnight, “that this UK government has signed up to an international agreement and then immediately decided to go back on what it agreed to”. The move carried “all sorts of ramifications”. One of which could be a serious falling out with Washington. Biden has signalled he expects Johnson fully to uphold the Irish protocol.

The prime minister did not arrive in Downing Street with a great reservoir of trust among the UK’s friends and allies. When Sylvie Bermann, a former French ambassador in London, recently called him an “inveterate liar”, she was echoing a sentiment commonplace in European capitals. Johnson’s mendacity is baked into his political career.

This is the prism through which the world will view his promised global strategy. Allies — and particularly the US — are unlikely to be impressed.

True, the plans include some eye-catching proposals for new military technologies in the spheres of cyber, drones and space. These are largely chaff. Whitehall insiders say that overall, the document offers a fluent narrative largely detached from real strategic purpose.

The aspirations, including a military presence in the Indo-Pacific region and leadership of the proposed democratic club, float free of an overall structure. The high-tech investment comes at the expense of deep cuts in core military capabilities such as army manpower, frigates, submarines and fighter aircraft needed for the UK’s Nato obligations. Borrowed US aircraft will make up the numbers on the navy’s carriers.

The collision between vaulting ambition and economic reality is a familiar British story. But the UK has been well respected as a reliable ally. Johnson is squandering that reputation.

A global foreign and defence policy must start in its European neighbourhood. The country is not going to win friends afar by casually breaking trust closer to home. 

philip.stephens@ft.com

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