BRITS ABROAD - THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA?

Much has been made of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union both domestically and abroad. How will trade work? How about security? Or migration? All of these questions and many more have been analysed in great detail by laymen, journalists, diplomats and ministers. They are looking bigger though provides us with more food for thought. Specific questions surrounding certain parts of any deal are essential, but no one is going to tell their grandchildren about them. Instead, how

will Britain be seen by its peers overseas?

BY SAM FOLWER

It’s this question which will dictate whether or not this country can advance to become the ‘Global Britain’ the Prime Minister has promised; where it will stand on the world stage and how large a role it can expect to have in international affairs? As ambitious, this question is to answer, and there is a clear path. We’ll consider how Britain is currently seen as it moves away from the EU and how it was positioned before joining the European Economic Community in 1973. From this, we can have a better idea of whether Britain is set for a bold voyage of discovery or is more likely to remain very much in the EU’s sphere.

We can get valuable insight and evaluation of Britain’s attempts to project itself abroad pre-1973 thanks to a report written by historian Max Beloff for the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs. The 1965 piece entitled The Projection of Britain Abroad primarily focused on how Britain could use cultural and informational assets to assert itself overseas, as well as the challenges it faced in doing that. ‘Cultural and informational assets’ generally referred to exports of British arts, education, scholars, scientific advances and industrial goods. For Beloff, this was no cerebral question as in his view of all of the world’s powers ‘none is so dependent [...] on maintaining friendly relations with other countries’ as Britain, and a crucial aspect of maintaining these relations was through conscious optimistic projection. Using this study as a baseline, we can judge more fairly how Britain’s efforts to assert itself globally have continued and changed in the intervening 55 years but also examine where these efforts are likely to be focused as Britain leaves the EU.

One point of comparison that can be made between the 1965 report and today is Britain’s apparent need to place itself globally in a set of nations. Sixty years ago this came as Britain shifted attention away from Europe, beginning to focus money and time in funding aid projects as well as art and lecture tours in areas where post-war Britain had a lower profile such as portions of Asia and Africa.

Now Britain very much stands at a similar crossroads; with a Brexit deal still unwritten the proximity of the country’s relationship with the EU is uncertain. Therefore Britain could end up very much still in orbit for the EU, shift to focus on the Atlantic relationship with the US or strike out from both of these pillars and instead create a new set of relationships with nations across the globe but probably prominently featuring Commonwealth states. Each of these three options has its pitfalls and drawbacks. As already mentioned, the lack of a Brexit deal with the EU leaves open both British dependency on the union or a complete abandonment of it. The reasonable middle ground between the two extremes, some sort of trade and political deal with the EU, leaves room open for a tightening of relations with the US. This would both offer the possibility of an enlarged trading partner to make up for any lost EU commerce and a continuation of the ‘special relationship’ of related strategic issues.

Furthermore, a Biden presidency would be expected to mark a return to American commercial, political and diplomatic norms as compared with the actions of President Trump, allowing the UK to continue to use its well-thumbed playbook of acting as a second-string to the US. But President-elect Biden, unlike his predecessor, is no fan of Brexit so should there be a rift between Britain and the EU come January it appears likely that the US will be opening its arms to offer easy support. In the event of a no- deal Brexit and an unsympathetic America, several government ministers have pointed to ‘Global Britain’. This would see the nation striking individual trade deals with other countries or using World Trade Organisation rules. One area of support that has been floated to help Britain initially has been the Commonwealth of Nations, a community of 54 states of which the vast majority are former British colonies – widely regarded to be a collection of nations broadly supportive of Britain due to their shared history and values. In particular, the likelihood of tightening CANZUK (the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) ties has been emphasised as the potential source of new trade deals which would springboard Britain to new deals elsewhere as well. However, it appears unlikely that Britain being able to trade with the combined population of 65 million will replace the 450 million in the EU.

Beloff wrote his piece in the midst of a turning point in global communication technology. The radio, which had been used for domestic broadcasting for several decades, was beginning to reach its potential to reach a global audience. Alongside this, the television set was becoming a staple of British homes and the first international live broadcast would come just two years after Beloff wrote his report. The development of radio and TV and the significant input of the BBC in both broadcast types offered up the opportunity for Britain to host a global news media organisation, one which would be recognisably British whilst delivering news globally. This has since come to pass, and then some as the BBC World Service as well as numerous BBC regional and language sub-units have increased television and radio globally to become a dominant broadcaster.

Outside of Britain, 430 million people listen to the BBC every week, reaching record audiences for the BBC World Service and BBC World News, with broadcasts being made in 42 languages. But when the BBC delivers news and cultural services globally, it is also representing Britain as well as itself – providing an impression of a nation being very much like its media organisation: objective, measured and focused on quality. BBC culture is also very much taken up overseas, 12.2% of the BBC’s expenditure on producing television programmes was covered by money made from selling BBC content outside the UK. Exactly as Beloff considered decades ago, the BBC is the vanguard of British soft power abroad. It at once provides valuable and appreciated services but also well represents its home country. In a post-Brexit Britain, this asset is unlikely to untapped.

Despite current government wrangling with the BBC over political bias in its UK content it would be a remarkable oversight not to see the potential of the broadcaster to create goodwill towards Britain abroad and help facilitate the tightening of old relationships on which the country may soon rely.

The greatest point of criticism posed in the 1965 report is that...Britain was not making enough of its scientific and academic potential. In general, many scholars in British universities were considered too insular and Anglo-centric, engaging only a little with foreign research or events and even then it was more with the US than with European neighbours. Beloff considered this a vast waste of British academic talent..., much of which he felt was decaying in ageing institutions and offices when it should be shared with a global student and research community. Gradually Beloff got his wish as Britain engaged much more closely with European universities and institutes as well as pushing its research to international prominence. 2021’s QS world rankings show how much this research has blossomed, with the UK having four universities in the global top 10 (only one less than the US). But one of Beloff’s warning still rings true. Anyone could take this academic crown if Britain got complacent. His example of the US’ potential to hoover up students no longer attracted to Britain remains possible with the high competition that accompanies shared academic literature, first-languages and learning environment. After any form of Brexit, deal or not, the UK must work to attract international students and intellectuals; this is not only to ensure that the soft influence of having British research at the forefront of decision-making but also to provide a base for industrial and scientific development domestically, as without homegrown skilled workers it is much harder to attract the much-desired foreign investment.

Britain stands at a crossroads now as it did at the time of Beloff’s report. Some of the issues it faces are the same: needing to find a new role, the unreliability of US relations and intense global competition. All of these must be dealt with tactfully and relatively quickly to ensure a softer Brexit transition. But much of what Britain is yet to face is new: technology has changed how we communicate and understand other countries as well as shifting alliances creating the possibility of Britain being left without a natural bloc of trading allies. These issues are, in a way more serious as there is no roadmap of experience to use. What is very clear though is that Britain needs to manufacture positive image now more than ever because it is not merely good enough to maintain old relations as the situation for trade and geopolitical influence spells the need for new ones too. Fortunately, the UK appears to have an arsenal to deal with this, mainly through a combination of the influential BBC and academic output alongside more traditional ways of exercising power such as through the armed forces and diplomacy. Whether or not a ‘Global Britain’ is achievable in the near future remain s up for debate, but clearly, the UK has no excuse not to try.