Brexit and foreign policy: DIVORCE? by Ian Bond
Since Britain voted on June 23rd to leave the European Union, British ministers have been telling their international colleagues that the UK is not turning its back on them. As the then prime minister, David Cameron, said at the NATO summit in Warsaw on July 9th, “while Britain may be leaving the European Union, we are not withdrawing from the world”. To underline his point, Cameron promised 650 British troops for NATO’s new deterrent forces in Poland and the Baltic states. The new prime minister, Theresa May, has promised “to forge a bold, new, positive role” for the UK in the world. That will be hard. Negotiations on the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU and its future relationship with the Union will take years and tie up many government departments, including the Foreign Office and the new Brexit and International Trade departments. Meanwhile, as Christian Odendahl and John Springford wrote recently in ‘Long day’s journey into economic night’, economic developments since the vote suggest that Britain will face a recession and a prolonged period of weak economic growth. Add to that the possibility of Scottish independence, and it seems very unlikely that the UK will be able to carry on punching above its weight internationally. Many people who voted for Leave may even see a reduced British role abroad as a good thing after failed interventions in Iraq and elsewhere.
Image © FCO
Even temporary isolationism would be a bad choice for Britain, however. It needs to stay
engaged with the rest of the world for three main reasons:
to ensure that it gets the best possible
economic deal out of the EU, and retains as much access as it can to EU law enforcement and foreign policy co-operation;
to show potential foreign investors that it is a serious country where they should put their money;
to remain part of a common Western effort to defend the liberal international order, and avoid being exploited by others who perceive Brexit as a chance to weaken that order.
Britain’s diplomatic service has shrunk in recent years, with embassies in Europe suffering most. Many UK-based policy officers have been replaced by local staff. As long as much of the