Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.
Of all the techniques in the seducer’s toolbox, one of the creepiest is “negging“. It means the use of personal remarks, sly insults and backhanded compliments to undermine the target’s confidence, which the seducer exploits by offering himself as a kind of consolation prize. Gross.
Funnily enough, negging was what came to mind as I read The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s Approach to International Affairs – a new report published by UCL Policy Lab. It’s a compendium of Britain-belittling clichés that works up to an indecent proposal. Specifically, the authors want to have their wicked way with the Foreign Office (of which more later).
But first, let’s take a look at the gentlemen in question. These aren’t just aren’t the usual think tank riff-raff, but senior ex-civil servants and diplomats, namely Tom Fletcher, Moazzam Malik, and Mark Sedwill.
Their report is worth reading, not because of its dubious analysis, but because of what it says about the Civil Service mentality at the highest levels. For instance, we’re told that that “today, the UK is undoubtedly less politically and economically influential than in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.”
Well, thanks for that stunning revelation, chaps, but we’re aware. It’s 79 years since the war ended, in which time the great majority of our population have been born and bred. We’ve literally had our entire lives to get used to Britain’s post-imperial situation.
For some reason, however, it’s become fashionable for the centrist dad tendency to imagine they’re surrounded by deranged neo-colonialists. Hence the constant lectures that neither Saint George nor the dragon were in fact English – and that our superpower status is long gone.
For their part, Fletcher, Malik, and Sedwill describe Britain as a “mid-sized power”. But is that accurate? As they themselves set out, the United Kingdom is a permanent member of the UN Security council, a nuclear power, the sixth-largest economy in the world, and a member of the G7. I’d add that we’re also the fourth-largest exporter, the eighth-largest manufacturer, the second-largest financiet, and a country that comes close to the top of most indices of “soft” power.
Obviously, we’re not in the same league as the USA or the PRC, but nor are we just another Belgium or Sweden. We’re a top ten nation and will most likely stay that way for the rest of this century.
But not content with rating their country as “mid”, the authors also describe post-Brexit Britain as “offshore” – which make us sound like a dodgy tax haven.
Fletcher et al would no doubt insist they’re using the word in reference to our status outside of the big three “continental” economies i.e. China, the United States, and the European Union. However, that’s to ignore an obvious sleight-of-hand. The equivalence between Brussels on the one hand, and Beijing and Washington DC on the other, is spurious.
For all of its stalled and dysfunctional attempts to create a superstate, the EU is in fact 27 national economies with competing interests. In that respect, the UK isn’t so very different. Certainly, we’re less “offshore” than EU member states like the Republic of Ireland or Luxembourg.
The authors have a half a point when they say that “there is potentially much to learn from countries like Norway, Canada, Switzerland and Japan who are able to use their size and independence to leverage significant influence on the international stage.”
But this is exactly what the UK has been doing since Brexit: joining the CPTPP trade agreement, hosting the COP26 climate negotiations, leading the way on defending “European values” in Ukraine, racing ahead of the EU on the development and distribution of Covid vaccines, and helping to found the increasingly important AUKUS partnership to deter Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific.
When they’re not negging, Fletcher et al are nagging. “Discrepancies between domestic and international conduct on issues like climate change” open us up to “accusations of hypocrisy”, they warn. You’d never guess from this narrative that the UK has decarbonised faster than any other major economy.
But the criticism is never-ending. We’re told off for projecting an “image of ‘greatness’ to the world that today seems anachronistic.” Instead, we must show “humility and respect” and be prepared to “follow and support”. Furthermore, we “cannot simply brush aside concerns around the UK’s historical legacy.”
But we absolutely can; the idea that the living are responsible for the actions of their long-dead forebears is lunacy. And even if it wasn’t, there’s no reason why Britain should engage in a policy of unilateral self-flagellation.
Of course, this report isn’t about about even-handedness, but highlighting our special awfulness as a country. Thus, in Lord Sedwill’s foreword, there’s the claim that “for the past decade, we have been wrestling with our national identity, to the bewilderment of our allies and the glee of our adversaries.”
Really? I was under the impression that just about every country has been “wrestling” with the relentless pressures of globalisation.
Just look at the politicians and parties propelled to the forefront of these internal struggles: Donald Trump in America, the Le Pen family in France, the AfD in Germany, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Giorgia Meloni in Italy. That’s to say nothing of Narendra Modi in India, Xi Jinping in China, or Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Their British equivalents? Er, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. When it comes to the excesses of identity politics, I’d say we’ve got off lightly.
But, for a moment, let’s assume that the Fletcher, Malik, and Sedwill analysis is valid. How do they propose to rescue us from our state of national disgrace?
Their big idea is modernising the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). For reasons not adequately explained, they’d start by renaming it. Presumably, they don’t like the F-word because it divides the world into British and non-British parts (even though this reflects the basic reality). They say they don’t like the C-word because it used to stand for “Colonial” although, of course, it’s been “Commonwealth” for decades. (There’s no specific objection to the D.)
Overall, they’d like a rebrand to “Department of International Affairs” or, get this, “Global Affairs UK”.
That last one sounds like a quango, which is rather what they want to turn the Foreign Office into. In a partial concession to democracy, they say the department should be “guided by agreed core objectives and long-term mandates (potentially through a legislative process).” After that though, they want the decisions to be made by officials not unlike themselves.
As well as the name, they want to modernise the premises. Apparently, the glorious Foreign Office building on King Charles Street is “somewhat elitist and rooted in past.” Descending into self-parody, they also suggest that “fewer colonial era pictures on the walls” might be a good idea.
But why stop there? The entirety of the central Civil Service could be moved to an industrial estate in Bedford — and the rest of Whitehall flogged-off to hoteliers. Think of the savings!
Unfortunately, the authors’ predilection for modesty does not extend to budgetary matters.
On page ten of their report they provide a helpful graph showing the evolution of international spend as a percentage of GNI; this includes the budgets for the Foreign Office, International Development, International Trade, and some other bits and bobs. Largely driven by overseas aid spending, this peaked in 2020 at about 0.75 per cent in 2020 before being cut back to around 0.5 per cent.
The authors, however, have a different figure in mind: “potentially 1% of GNI” – which they coyly describe as a “more flexible spending commitment”.
So at a time of extreme pressure on public spending, not to mention the taxpayer, Fletcher, Malik, and Sedwill propose a budgetary increase of some £10 billion a year that would be lavished on a rebranded, semi-independent body called “Global Affairs UK”, run by people who disdain our traditions and want to put our mid-sized, offshore country firmly in its place.
What a fantastic deal! Where do we sign?
But, of course, this is an offer aimed at Labour not ourselves. Such are the rewards of squandering power. Next time, if there is one, we must be ready for a deeply unconservative establishment. After all, they’ve shown us who they are.
The post Peter Franklin: What the foreign policy establishment really thinks of Britain appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Peter Franklin
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