Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

The End Of Global Britain

Mark Malloch-Brown 3rd July 2018

Mark Malloch-Brown

Mark Malloch-Brown

Nowadays, Britain’s words and actions on the world stage are so at odds with its values that one must wonder what has happened to the country. Since the June 2016 Brexit referendum, British foreign policy seems to have all but collapsed – and even to have disowned its past and its governing ideas.

Worse, this has coincided with the emergence of US President Donald Trump’s erratic administration, which is pursuing goals that are completely detached from those of Britain – and of Europe generally. Trump’s abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, combined with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increasing belligerence and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s growing ambitions, indicates that the world is entering an ever-more confrontational and dangerous phase.

Trump’s evident lack of personal chemistry with British Prime Minister Theresa May – and the Anglophobia of his new national security adviser, John Bolton – ensured that this was never going to be the best of times for the United Kingdom. But it also doesn’t help that generations of British foreign-policy hands have regarded themselves as ancient Greeks to America’s Rome. To a Brit like myself, this analogy always seemed too confident. Having lived in America, I suspected that US leaders did not heed the advice of British diplomats nearly as much as those diplomats liked to think.

Still, if ever there was a moment for Britain to sprinkle some of its characteristic calm and resolve over world affairs, that moment is now. And yet, the UK appears to have checked out. Since World War II, Britain’s close relationships with continental Europe and the US have served as the two anchors of its foreign policy. But now, both lines have essentially been severed.

At the same time, the British government’s all-consuming preoccupation with untying the Gordian knot of Brexit has blinded it to what is happening in the rest of the world. And its blinkered view seems certain to persist. Negotiating the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union is likely to take years, and the outcome will inevitably have implications for the country’s unity, given the intractable issue of the Northern Irish border. Even if that issue can be sorted out, a campaign in Scotland to link it to the EU rather than to London will continue to command the attention of the government and civil service for the foreseeable future.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

At any rate, the promise of a “global Britain” freed from the chains of the EU was never more than idle talk and sloganeering. At the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, business and political leaders from Commonwealth countries around the world heard plenty of Brexiteer bluster, but little concrete talk of future trade deals.

A country like India could potentially be a major UK trade partner after Brexit. The problem is that Indians see Britain and Europe as one market. To them, Britain’s quest to adopt its own rules and standards amounts to a frivolous inconvenience. Before expanding trade and investment with Britain, India will most likely pursue a deeper relationship with the EU. Indeed, India never saw Britain as a particular champion of its interests inside the EU.

Likewise, most of those outside of the “Leave” camp regard the Brexiteers’ aspiration for Britain to lead the vast “Anglosphere” into a brave new world as a comical delusion. To be sure, the show of US and European support after the nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury, England, might suggest that Britain is still punching above its weight. The coordinated expulsion of Russian spies from the EU and the United States was a victory for British diplomacy; and suspicions that the Russians were exploiting Britain’s increasing isolation seem to have mobilized NATO. But the larger truth is that the Russians are right: Britain is now Western Europe’s weak link.

Thus, it is only a matter of time before Russian President Vladimir Putin probes British weakness again. And, as if the old sin of turning a blind eye to Russian oligarchs laundering money through the UK were not problematic enough, the suicidal act of quitting the EU leaves Britain with fewer tools to combat Russian meddling in its affairs. Britain is losing its influence over EU cybersecurity and energy policies just as cyber warfare and energy geopolitics are becoming key fronts for hostile state and non-state actors.

Worse, at the same time that Britain is giving up its seat at the EU table, it also seems to be giving up its liberal-democratic values. During the Brexit referendum campaign, the Leave camp openly stoked hostility toward outsiders. And the recent “Windrush” scandal over the government’s poor treatment of Caribbean-born legal residents has reprised the illiberal legacy of May’s previous tenure at the Home Office.

But equally insidious has been the government’s embrace of “Britain First” mercantilism, under which arms sales to Saudi Arabia are not a matter for caution, but rather an opportunity for profit. When the UK joins the Trump administration in putting trade and investment before human rights and good governance, it is journalists, opposition politicians, and human-rights activists around the world who bear the costs. By retreating from liberal norms, the May government has become, like the Trump administration, an enabler of authoritarian behaviours around the world.

The collapse of British foreign policy has come at a time of deepening uncertainty. The global re-balancing between the US and China is a generational challenge that will outlast Trump and even Xi, who is now unbound by term limits. In an increasingly off-kilter world, the duty will fall to Europe to serve as ballast. But a Europe without Britain’s traditional leadership, judgment, and diplomacy will be a lesser Europe. And Britain, by its own hand, risks being reduced to a footnote.

Republication forbidden. Copyright: Project Syndicate 2018 The End of Global Britain


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Mark Malloch-Brown

Mark Malloch-Brown, a former UN Deputy Secretary-General and British cabinet minister, is Chair of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, and of Best for Britain, an organization fighting to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union.

You are here: Home / Politics / The End Of Global Britain

Most Popular Posts

Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic

Most Recent Posts

transition,deindustrialisation,degradation,environment Europe’s industry and the ecological transitionCharlotte Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin
central and eastern Europe,unions,recognition Social dialogue in central and eastern EuropeMartin Myant
women soldiers,Ukraine Ukraine war: attitudes changing to women soldiersJennifer Mathers and Anna Kvit
military secrets,World Trade Organization,WTO,NATO,intellectual-property rights Military secrets and the World Trade OrganizationUgo Pagano
energy transition,Europe,wind and solar Europe’s energy transition starts to speed upDave Jones

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube