Brexit in a time of insecurity

This is not the world Brexit was made for. 

From the very start, Brexit has depended on one key factor: a generally stable and well-functioning neighbourhood and a cooperative global system. This is the kind of environment in which a middle power could, at least in theory, chart a course between the major powers, connected to all yet committed to none. It could enjoy the benefits of effective security guarantees from one or more major powers while fine-tuning its regulatory and trade policies to maximise the benefits of its kaleidoscope of global relationships. Even if such a vision would not have worked for other reasons (ranging from domestic public opinion to the gravity effect in trade), an effective, liberal, rules-based international order was the sine qua non of the project, the foundations upon which Brexit's every pillar rested. 

In this regard, Brexit was one of the worst cases of geopolitical mistiming in history. Far from the reliable and comfortable environment described above, we now live in a world of fundamental insecurity for which Brexit is totally ill-suited. 

As early as 2016, the clouds were gathering on the horizon for the liberal international system. Not long after the Brexit referendum, Donald Trump was elected as US President - a man with open contempt for international institutions, a transactional and unreliable approach to alliances, and a strong belief that trade wars were the foundation of good policy. That this was coming from the United States, the defender and guarantor of the old order of things, should have set alarm bells ringing. 

In the years since, things have hardly improved. Even though Trump is no longer in office, the truth is that international stability continues to slip out of the hands of democratic powers. Quite aside from the fact that Trump, or someone like him, could very easily return as the next US President, we have seen China and Russia become more assertive and more aggressive. Democracy in Hong Kong has been ravaged and Taiwan faces renewed threats from China, while Ukraine's cities are under siege from Russian soldiers and artillery, after Putin launched a war that shocked European governments and citizens for the sheer brazenness of its aggression. Globally, we see further fault lines. There is a stark contrast between the new unity of the West in responding firmly to the Russian attack and the more detached positions of many non-Western countries. The West may be stronger but it is also more isolated in its defence of freedom and democracy, as other major powers like India, and more minor ones like Israel, have decided to adopt a relatively neutral stance in this new fight against autocracy.

In short, the world is becoming less secure for democratic states and with the changing global tides the UK's post-Brexit position has quickly descended from adaptable to exposed. This is not simply to say that Brexit was always a bad decision (though such a case is easy to make), but rather that this is the worst time to have left a union of similarly minded democratic nations - the worst time to have lost this collective strength.

And this argument stretches beyond the headline-dominating issue of physical insecurity. Russia's attack on Ukraine has created new and serious problems for the supply of basic food products in the world. The two countries are major producers of wheat, sunflower oil and corn, and the war, whether directly or because of sanctions, is limiting the ability to produce and trade these goods, while setting up for poor harvests next year. Already some governments in the Middle East and North Africa are intervening to contain the situation, through rationing, fixing prices and banning exports. Whether these measures will be enough remains to be seen, but if they fall short then rising food prices or food shortages could easily translate into political instability. As we have seen in the previous decade, any political disruptions in these countries will not take long to impact Europe too. 

Alongside current events, more long-term shifts to greater insecurity are also underway as the climate crisis goes from bad to worse. Although political attention, especially in Europe and America, has increased in this area, there is still a major gap between rhetoric and action. Greenhouse gas emissions, which declined during the pandemic, rose rapidly in the recovery period and risk accelerating further as high natural gas prices and interruptions to gas supply push countries to use more coal, at least in the short term. Through the policies of the European Green Deal, it remains somewhat plausible that (with some extra effort), the EU could reach net zero emissions by 2050. But the prospects of a similar outcome in the US, or for net zero by 2060-70 in India and China, are dire. As long as this remains true, and the global temperature keeps rising, the science tells us that this will mean more floods, earthquakes, heatwaves and poor harvests, contributing to (yet more) political instability and a growing number of climate refugees. 

Finally, there will still be an economy to run. Aside from the regular capitalist cycle of boom and bust, local, regional and global economies will likely face a number of new headwinds. Wars, climate disasters and political revolutions are poor conditions for businesses and trade to thrive. Keeping growth up and unemployment down will be more challenging as our potential number of easy trade partners falls and supply chains face being cut more often by unexpected events. Globalisation is not dead, but there will be a change in the balance of risk and reward for offshoring and for trading with distant or undemocratic states. 

This is the new age of global insecurity - autocracies are willing to engage in overt acts of aggression and conventional warfare, natural disasters are rising in intensity and frequency, and supply chains are subject to sudden and unexpected disruptions, all contributing to a fragile economic context. It is a world where alliances are harder to come by but are more important, a world where supply chains will need to be diversified and supplemented by greater domestic production (while balancing against a self-inflicted increase in the cost of living), a world where climate action becomes a national security priority and a world where creaking defence capacities will need to be brought up to scratch. 

The age of insecurity leaves little space for a middle power nimbly weaving its way through a web of variable partnerships - not if it also wishes to be a paragon of democracy and a torchbearer of liberty, to pick some terms that would not be out of place coming from our Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary. Unless we wish to jettison our values, we need to choose who our real friends are and build deep ties with them to shore up our place in the world. 

What does this mean in practice? Building a new strategy of national security for an insecure world will mean cleaving closer to our neighbours as we distance ourselves from the global autocrats. 

We will need more cooperation on foreign policy to ensure that our actions have the maximum impact. For all the trumpeting of an 'independent sanctions policy', we know it would have done little against Russia if the EU hadn't done the same or more. 

Defence will also likely need a greater European angle - not a European army in any sense, but a pooling of resources, interoperable equipment and more joint exercises. Without these practical acts of military integration, our defence spending (inherently limited by the amount we, rightly, spend on social policies) will come with significant duplication and waste that we can ill afford. 

Action on climate change will need to continue at maximum pace, not only to tackle the negative impacts on our environment but also to cut our reliance on fossil fuel dictatorships around the world. For now, though we have ambitious targets, we lag behind many of our peers in public investments into new clean industries like hydrogen and batteries, especially since the EU earmarked a minimum of 37% of its post-pandemic Recovery Fund to be spent on green investments. Meanwhile, many climate policies are often more effective when done jointly - for example, the emissions trading system, where the UK decided to create a separate, inevitably smaller copy of the EU policy post-Brexit. 

In other areas, such as food security, we will need a wholesale change in attitude. It is widely popular to bemoan the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, yet the priority given to domestic production is more relevant now than it has been for some time. In a recent speech, French President Emmanuel Macron thanked France's farmers for feeding France and feeding Europe during the pandemic and committed to ensuring that environmental policies would not mean producing less food in Europe - a stark contrast to our own policy of exposing British agriculture to substandard competition from abroad, without thought to the consequences of a greater reliance on imports. 

And as for the economy, everyone knows that we have a large, rich, open market right on our doorstep that we could join. A greater insurance policy against global upheavals would be hard to ask for.

These are just the biggest points of insecurity today but Britain's current geopolitical position in Europe also entails many everyday costs. Cut out of the EU's political processes, we miss the possibility to influence the direction of policy in our neighbourhood and to work on coordinating joint responses. When agriculture ministers speak about policies for food security, when energy ministers discuss new intiatives to guarantee high levels of gas storage, when leaders gather alongside the US President to map out the next steps in responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine - where is the benefit to Britain in being stuck on the outside?

So, if Brexit is ill-suited to an insecure world, what is the conclusion to all this? Does it automatically mean rejoining the EU? It could be argued that at least some of these deficiencies described above can be tackled from outside the EU, but this approach will always be harder for two reasons. 

One, while EU programmes and policies may sometimes be open to non-members, they rarely afford the same kind of decision-making rights that members hold. This will make these options less politically attractive (while not making them any less necessary for our security). 

Two, there is a reflex in Brexit ideology to always seek new justification and, in so doing, to attack the EU. Without going too deeply into this point, Brexit is not agnostic on our relationship with the EU, it is not an empty vessel into which anyone can pour a certain mix of close integration and arm's length relations. To date, there is little evidence that Brexit, as it exists in reality, is going to be compatible with the kind of cooperation and integration we need with our European neighbours.  

If our security relies on reintegrating with our neighbours in at least some areas, then the conclusion is that Brexit will need to be reviewed. Whether this means going all the way to rejoining the EU is a separate argument, but it is without question that it will mean reexamining the value we give to European unity as a principle, the trade-off between policy coordination and unilateral action and our understanding of how a middle power enjoys true sovereignty in an insecure world. 

Put simply, the emotionally-charged notion of the UK striking out in a supposed adventure of national liberation and policy experimentation is an idea that has become anachronistic as soon as it has been applied. Our global environment - where supply chains are liable to sudden disruption, the changing climate is putting more people in danger, economic crisis lurks round the corner, and conventional war has come to our doorstep - is demanding more pragmatism and more cooperation. Now is not the time to be one ship in a stormy sea, now is the time to join forces and to build our reserves, bringing our strengths together with those of others to make us all more secure and more resilient. 

Brexit was not made for an insecure world, but Europe can be.