The Brexiteer foreign policy blind spot
How to put this? Most Brexiteers are clearly not International Relations graduates. Hunting through Wikipedia entries, a disproportionate amount seem to have studied history (Redwood, Hannan, Carswell, Rees-Mogg). Johnson studied Classics. Gove did English. While others did not go to university (Farage, Banks, IDS) and so by default also do not possess specialist, in-depth knowledge of international politics. Leadsome possibly comes closest among big-name Brexiteers, particularly those in Parliament, having studied Political Science at Warwick. Though Leadsome is generally not regarded as an intellectual titan of Brexit so even this has limits.
The dearth of expertise among Brexiteers regarding international relations is alarming given that this topic should be amongst the most prominent if the UK is to undertake a massive endeavour in realigning its foreign policy. Yet this absence is largely unsurprising.
Brexiteers in government still fail to produce details on what is actually going to be done to 'make Brexit a success', yet where we do see details it is nearly always with regards to trade policy. Issues like projection of military power, aid, diplomatic alliances, the UK's role in shaping international institutions, climate change, these are not just lacking in detail, they are essentially absent. Indeed, reading free-market fundamentalist Brexiteers like Hannan, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the plan is simply that free trade will solve all problems arising in international affairs.
This one-dimensional approach plagues the pro-Brexit argument. Their answers never develop much further than 'we'll continue our global leadership role' and 'the UK will have greater influence on the world stage after Brexit'. Really?
Let's take global military power. Across Europe countries cut back on their military expenditure in the wake of the financial crisis. Military spending in Europe is not the sacred cow that it is in the US. Now they are starting to build back up, both as finances ease and as military tensions in the world increase. The reality, however, is that individual European states are less and less able to project power all over the world. France and the UK are the two countries who still try to maintain this capability, but both are dwarfed by the US and China. Countries with similar levels of spending, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, are more concerned with being regional powers and do not try to establish a global reach.
To make up for their individual shortfalls, European states are trying to coordinate military action. Overall, this has yet to be tremendous success and steps in this direction are still tentative. However, there is at least a sense that they are aware that this is no longer the 19th Century and that to have any global military presence, they will need to have a collective presence. Where is this realism in the UK? An acceptance that we cannot sustain a global military reach and so have to scale back to focus on our local region (where European cooperation would be even more essential)? I have yet to hear any such modesty from Brexiteers pining for 'global Britain'. On the other hand, there is no insistence that we have to greatly increase military spending either. Rather, Brexiteers completely dodge the issue and implicitly suggest that the UK can have a completely independent military, have regional power levels of military spending and enjoy world power levels of projection, influence, leadership and power.
Moreover, this mismatch between Brexiteer's ambitions and what the actions they actually propose is not just a problem in isolation. All elements of foreign policy tie together. When forging trade relations, countries will be looking at what else we have to offer. Not just our goods and services, but a friend with military capacity, with influence in global institutions. As we leave the EU, if there is no ramping up of foreign policy as a whole, then we will become less valuable as a partner, particularly in comparison to an ever more integrated and coordinated EU.
Brexiteers have a tendency to frame trade relationships as purely a matter of economics; how we much we sell, how much we buy and vice versa. Only very rarely is this actually true and could only apply to the most basic of free trade agreements. Much more often, trade relationships are one part of advancing the political relationship between the two countries. Brexiteers see FTAs as units in themselves, rather than as sub-units of our international relations.
Again, to come back to military affairs, many of the US' close alliances are based on the fact that the US has been engaged in a long-term commitment to using its global military power to provide protection. Alongside its massive cultural exports, this is a large part of what makes the US a global power. Its economic weight is very important, but it would be a mistake to believe that this feature could ever stand alone in defining the US' position in the world. To look at it another way, China also has great economic weight and could soon take over as the world's largest economy, but in many respects it still acts and has the status of a regional power, because it lacks cultural exports, it lacks military projection, it lacks decisive influence in some international institutions. And China knows this, it has active policies in place to address all those issues and to pursue its desired status of an undisputed world power.
Even if by some miracle, Brexiteers expectations for Brexit negotiations all came true and we suddenly gained a flurry of new trade deals with the rest of the world, 'global Britain' would be barely closer to being a reality. Why? Because trade is only one part of foreign policy and Brexiteers simply do not have any plans for any other part. Their foreign policy outlook is disjointed and confused. Britain would be constrained to being a regional power and without being able to rely on the backing of one of the most powerful unions in international relations, the EU, then the UK will likely find its power and influence reduced.
Brexiteers proclaim that Europe is becoming less and less important. They are not wrong, they just seem to forget that to the rest of the world that includes Britain. As the world's power dynamics continue to change around us, Brexiteers need to reflect on the words of Danish Finance Minister, Kristian Jensen: "There are two kinds of European nations. There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realized they are small nations."
This drew ire from Brexiteers when it was reported. And that's the problem. Angry denial was the only response they had.
(Small aside, I'm not claiming no one has ever discussed holistic post-Brexit foreign policy, but rather than prominent Brexiteers and Brexit campaigners virtually never discuss it. The discussion that does happen is mostly the result of independent think tanks.)
The dearth of expertise among Brexiteers regarding international relations is alarming given that this topic should be amongst the most prominent if the UK is to undertake a massive endeavour in realigning its foreign policy. Yet this absence is largely unsurprising.
Brexiteers in government still fail to produce details on what is actually going to be done to 'make Brexit a success', yet where we do see details it is nearly always with regards to trade policy. Issues like projection of military power, aid, diplomatic alliances, the UK's role in shaping international institutions, climate change, these are not just lacking in detail, they are essentially absent. Indeed, reading free-market fundamentalist Brexiteers like Hannan, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the plan is simply that free trade will solve all problems arising in international affairs.
This one-dimensional approach plagues the pro-Brexit argument. Their answers never develop much further than 'we'll continue our global leadership role' and 'the UK will have greater influence on the world stage after Brexit'. Really?
Let's take global military power. Across Europe countries cut back on their military expenditure in the wake of the financial crisis. Military spending in Europe is not the sacred cow that it is in the US. Now they are starting to build back up, both as finances ease and as military tensions in the world increase. The reality, however, is that individual European states are less and less able to project power all over the world. France and the UK are the two countries who still try to maintain this capability, but both are dwarfed by the US and China. Countries with similar levels of spending, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, are more concerned with being regional powers and do not try to establish a global reach.
To make up for their individual shortfalls, European states are trying to coordinate military action. Overall, this has yet to be tremendous success and steps in this direction are still tentative. However, there is at least a sense that they are aware that this is no longer the 19th Century and that to have any global military presence, they will need to have a collective presence. Where is this realism in the UK? An acceptance that we cannot sustain a global military reach and so have to scale back to focus on our local region (where European cooperation would be even more essential)? I have yet to hear any such modesty from Brexiteers pining for 'global Britain'. On the other hand, there is no insistence that we have to greatly increase military spending either. Rather, Brexiteers completely dodge the issue and implicitly suggest that the UK can have a completely independent military, have regional power levels of military spending and enjoy world power levels of projection, influence, leadership and power.
Moreover, this mismatch between Brexiteer's ambitions and what the actions they actually propose is not just a problem in isolation. All elements of foreign policy tie together. When forging trade relations, countries will be looking at what else we have to offer. Not just our goods and services, but a friend with military capacity, with influence in global institutions. As we leave the EU, if there is no ramping up of foreign policy as a whole, then we will become less valuable as a partner, particularly in comparison to an ever more integrated and coordinated EU.
Brexiteers have a tendency to frame trade relationships as purely a matter of economics; how we much we sell, how much we buy and vice versa. Only very rarely is this actually true and could only apply to the most basic of free trade agreements. Much more often, trade relationships are one part of advancing the political relationship between the two countries. Brexiteers see FTAs as units in themselves, rather than as sub-units of our international relations.
Again, to come back to military affairs, many of the US' close alliances are based on the fact that the US has been engaged in a long-term commitment to using its global military power to provide protection. Alongside its massive cultural exports, this is a large part of what makes the US a global power. Its economic weight is very important, but it would be a mistake to believe that this feature could ever stand alone in defining the US' position in the world. To look at it another way, China also has great economic weight and could soon take over as the world's largest economy, but in many respects it still acts and has the status of a regional power, because it lacks cultural exports, it lacks military projection, it lacks decisive influence in some international institutions. And China knows this, it has active policies in place to address all those issues and to pursue its desired status of an undisputed world power.
Even if by some miracle, Brexiteers expectations for Brexit negotiations all came true and we suddenly gained a flurry of new trade deals with the rest of the world, 'global Britain' would be barely closer to being a reality. Why? Because trade is only one part of foreign policy and Brexiteers simply do not have any plans for any other part. Their foreign policy outlook is disjointed and confused. Britain would be constrained to being a regional power and without being able to rely on the backing of one of the most powerful unions in international relations, the EU, then the UK will likely find its power and influence reduced.
Brexiteers proclaim that Europe is becoming less and less important. They are not wrong, they just seem to forget that to the rest of the world that includes Britain. As the world's power dynamics continue to change around us, Brexiteers need to reflect on the words of Danish Finance Minister, Kristian Jensen: "There are two kinds of European nations. There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realized they are small nations."
This drew ire from Brexiteers when it was reported. And that's the problem. Angry denial was the only response they had.
(Small aside, I'm not claiming no one has ever discussed holistic post-Brexit foreign policy, but rather than prominent Brexiteers and Brexit campaigners virtually never discuss it. The discussion that does happen is mostly the result of independent think tanks.)
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