Britain’s Europe policy has always sought to erode the potential cooperation of other nations. But it did not help London shed its erstwhile foreign policy prowess. The berth the UK occupies in the current global configuration can be described as a North Atlantic Singapore.
The world has two nations with an over 500-year-long history of independent political decision-making in high-stakes situations: Russia and Britain. Nobody else can boast a track record that impressive. But this fact alone makes for a fierce rivalry.
The fact universally acknowledged and understood is that good old Blighty is apparently on the ropes, at least, foreign policy-wise. Not just that, it is fast turning into a new Singapore, one pummeled by the choppy waters of the North Atlantic. But once the US emerged and shaped up as a global political force, the departure of Brits from the international stage was merely a matter of time.
Importantly, nobody will bemoan this fading into political oblivion. After all, throughout its history Britain has been wreaking havoc on other states almost without fail. It turned the French against the Germans, betrayed some small-time opportunists from Eastern Europe and plundered the colonies like there was no tomorrow. It was trying hard to undermine Europe’s integration between 1972 and 2020. Following Brexit, it carried on with its destructive drive largely shored up by the US and by representing DC’s interests and becoming a self-avowed envoy of its protectors from across the pond.
As the great historian E. H. Carr pointed out ironically, and his observation still rings true, a violent storm in the English Channel has Europe cut off. The solipsism that is highly emblematic of perhaps every single islandish culture appears to be particularly prominent in Britain as the nation is lucky to have been neighbours with the European civilisation that the British could always thrive off. Except they have always been fearful of it. There are several reasons for that.
One is that deep down they have always been aware of their cultural backwardness compared to the actual successors to Ancient Greece and Rome. Secondly, they fully comprehended that a united mainland Europe would relegate their island to a mere add-on without any political leverage.
Hence Britain’s Europe policy targeting the erosion of potential cooperation that could connect countries like Germany, France and Russia. These days British politicians are by far the most vocal part of the choir calling for a militarised Germany. There is no one more eager to throw the German economy under the bus of the Russia–Germany standoff. The alliance of these two countries has always been a nightmare for British diplomacy more than it has for their French counterparts.
An alarmingly recurrent pattern shows that once there was hope of an enduring peace between Russia, Germany and France, the British factor would invariably kick into play so that a fruitful alliance could never materialise. Even in the political science department Britain could only conjure up the grim Hobbesian Leviathan theory claiming that fundamentally there would never be any justice between the public and the state.
The top-shelf thinkers of mainland Europe were coming up with concepts of a state rooted in the solidarity of people’s interest. For Britain, that would be utterly unthinkable, for its political tradition rests on social divisions and rifts. And the same is true of its foreign policy. The Brits’ sole goal has always been stoking feuds between everybody else. Cooperation, if fundamentally self-seeking and gain-based, has historically been a foreign concept to them.
But these days the UK is running out of juice. It is now depleting what has remained of its imperial power of yesteryear, and its prevalent style of foreign policy-making is punctuated with a shrill squawk due to a lack of real leverage.
These past few years have seen several Number Ten rejigs and Cabinet reshuffles. Worse still, each new player on this kaleidoscopic scene is both intellectually and politically feebler than their predecessor. Previously it could have been attributable to high-profile politicians being unwilling to commit to anything in times of hardship. But today many have a sneaking suspicion that the UK has just run out of such statesmen and there is no one to choose from in the active political roster.
In actuality, though, Britain’s worst enemy is their American counterparts. It is just that the global political scene does not need two concurrent English-speaking powers with a similar political and economic heritage predicated on an unchallengeable oligarchic rule. As long as DC was run by the bungling Dems, London fared fairly well. British politicians were capitalising on the Ukraine conflict and scaremongering the public about Russia while using however limited capabilities to prop up the Ukrainian government. But crucially, for all of its troubles, the UK was trying to broker the US–EU relations, with Brits increasingly self-identifying as Europeans.
But things have now changed dramatically. The sitting US administration does not need any middlemen. On his trip to Washington, the bumbling Sir Keir Starmer kept a low profile. When quizzed about Britain’s ability to stand up to Russia without the US support, the British PM mumbled something incoherent. Even as recently as three to four decades ago the Number Ten occupant would have resolutely gone: ‘We sure will, even if that means dying as heroes.’ Starmer’s response amid a tense diplomatic pickle did not just show some feigned humility in the face of a tough American leader. It also pointed to a shift in the foreign policy mindset. Previously, that foreign policy still exhibited trace amounts of independence.
Today the UK boasts no resources to emulate their traditional smugness. Even President Macron had a much better performance in the Oval Office. For all of his leadership flaws, he is running a nuclear-weapon state. The British leaders, in turn, keep invoking the targeting capabilities of their nuclear-armed submarines, even though the rest of the world has a fair share of misgivings about it. Experts say that ten years from now London may lose any means to operate their own nukes. That is where the UK will be faced with a choice of either completely submitting to the US or aligning with the superior French.