Global Britain. That is the slogan that encapsulates the Johnson government’s ambition and vision for Britain’s place in the world after Brexit. This week we got a first glimpse of how the government intends to implement that strategy. On Tuesday, the government published its long-awaited Integrative Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, entitled ‘Global Britain in a competitive age.’ The haphazard and in part contradictory strategy that emerges from the document does not inspire confidence in its potential to achieve the tricky balancing act the UK government is facing between the need to strike new trade deals while not further alienating its historical allies. With the EU launching legal action, over the UK government’s unilateral action on the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) and the USA increasingly weighing in on the issue, the latter goal seems increasingly urgent. Yet, the UK government’s new ‘sovereignty first’ doctrine may increasingly isolate the UK and lead its government to adopt an increasingly nationalist rhetoric to try and maintain domestic support.

The post-Brexit China strategy and its contradictions

The key points of the review that the media and commentators picked up on were the ambiguous attitude towards China and the unexpected announcement of an increase in the number of nuclear warheads.

Regarding the relationship with China the government walks the tight rope between acknowledging China as a threat and treating it as a valued trade and investment partner. All the ambiguity of the UK attitude is summarised in one sentence of the review (p.62): “China and the UK both benefit from bilateral trade and investment, but China also presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.” The Review promises “deeper trade links and more Chinese investment in the UK,” but also that “[w]e will not hesitate to stand up for our values and our interests where they are threatened, or when China acts in breach of existing agreements.” How exactly this circle can be squared, the review does not say.

The Huffington Post published a quote by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, which may shed some light on the government’s priorities. In the excerpt the Foreign Secretary made it clear that the UK would miss out on future trade opportunities and reduce its influence if it only dealt with countries with good human rights records. The UK is of course not the only country that has no hesitation to strike deals with countries whose human rights records are less than perfect (for instance, the EU agreed an investment deal with China late last year). But the bluntness of the foreign secretary’s statement does not suggest that standing up for values will be high on the British government’s priority list.

Yet, human rights issues may not be the only ones standing in the way of the ‘positive economic relationship’ with China that the review promises. Most importantly, the Review also contains a geo-political strategy called the “Indo-Pacific tilt” (p.64), that would see the UK’s foreign policy focus shift towards South East Asia. This strategy is considered at least partly aimed at thwarting Chinese ambitions in the region, creating an obvious incongruity with the aim to build a better economic relationships with China . Moreover, academic observers have pointed out the pressure that the Indo-Pacific tilt will put on the UK’s limited military resources, potentially leading to the UK overstretching its capacities and undermining its security commitments in Europe and the North Atlantic.

In sum, the China strategy set out in the review is in keeping with the Government’s ‘have-your-cake-and-eat-it’ rhetoric portrayed during the Brexit Deal negotiations, which will prove difficult to translate into practical policies.

The China strategy set out in the review immediately faced fierce criticism from within the Tory party. Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Commons defence select committee, argued that China should have been labelled a “geostrategic threat.” Yet, the prime minister insisted that those who wanted “a new cold war with China” were mistaken.” This soft stance on China clashes of course not only with the ‘hawkish’ parts of the Tory party, but also with the Biden administration’s current approach towards China, which creates additional sources of tension with the USA.

Nuclear deterrence policy: More broken promises

The Integrated review’s other much-cited point concerns the UK’s nuclear deterrence policy. With the review, the UK government abandons its commitment made in 2010 to reduce its nuclear warheads from 225 to 180, by the mid-2020s. Instead, the government suggests that the number of warheads should increase by up to 40% to no more than 260. This departure from previous security strategies is telling in at least two respects. Firstly, once again, in a display of the Johnson government’s ‘sovereignty first’ approach, the UK unilaterally and without consulting its allies changed course on a matter of global importance. Secondly, while the review’s justification of the change in policy is somewhat unconvincing (referring to “developing range of technological and doctrinal threats” p.75), the move does illustrate the current government’s perception of the world as an increasingly dangerous and conflictual place in which the UK will need to play a more assertive role in military terms. The unilateral move belies the references to multilateralism in other parts of the review and risk undermining the UK’s standing with his allies. One expert – quoted in the FT –  lamented the move as “a real blow” to the multilateral process of nuclear disarmament and predicted that it will “cost in terms of the UK’s reputation in nuclear diplomacy.”

 The UK’s ambiguous policy towards China, the unilateral departure from longstanding multilateral commitments, and the general incoherence of the strategy that emerges from the review does not bode well for Global Britain’s relationships with its historical allies in Europe and North America. This is particularly worrying in a situation where relationships with even its closet allies have become fraught due to the issues surrounding the NIP.

The US weighing in on the Northern Ireland Protocol: On the path to international isolation?

The past week has indeed seen tensions around the NIP further escalate. The EU has officially initiated legal action over the UK’s unilateral extension of grace periods on certain goods traded between Britain and Northern Ireland. At the same time, at the occasion of a St Patrick’s day meeting with the Irish Taoiseach, US President Jo Biden and US lawmakers have weighed in on the UK’s approach to the implementation of the NIP. US Lawmakers from both parties have adopted a resolution threatening to block a trade deal between the US and the UK if the terms of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) were not respected. Richard Neal – the head of the House of Representatives’ Ways and Means committee, which is in charge of trade agreements – openly expressed his annoyance and concern about what he described as an emerging pattern in the UK government’s approach to the NIP, which consisted in taking unilateral action and ‘concealing’ it as temporary measures. Similarly, in a joint statement following their Patrick’s day meeting, the US President and the Irish Taoiseach ‘called for the good faith implementation of international agreements designed to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland.’

 Cranking up the nationalist rhetoric

Given the incoherent strategy outlined in the Integrative Review, the escalating tensions around the NIP, the US increasing pressure, and the UK government doggedly persisting with its ‘sovereignty first’ approach, there is a risk that the UK will manoeuvre itself into a corner where it will get neither its sovereignty back, nor be able to offset the self-inflicted economic damage resulting from Brexit. However, instead of addressing the issues at hand directly, the government increasingly resorts to an age-old coping strategy for governments under pressure; namely: nationalism.

To deflect international and domestic criticism the government continues to appeal to nationalist resentments by portraying the EU as “bullying” the UK. The UK Government’s insists that its infringements on the Trade and Corporation Agreement (TCA) and the NIP are reasonable temporary measures that are normal in the early implementation period of new international treaties. Referring to healthcare and residency cards for UK nationals in the EU, the government claims that the EU side too “are not yet fulfilling commitments.” Spurred on by Eurosceptic Tory MPs – who called for a halt to payments to the EU agreed on under the divorce bill – the government seizes on every opportunity to portray the EU as the unreasonable side. Thus, this week, several EU countries’ decision to halt the role out of the AstraZeneca vaccine has led the UK government to publicly defend the vaccine – which it tellingly refers to as the “Oxford jab” – and Ursula von der Leyen’s threat to block exports of vaccines manufactured within the EU, has been described as ‘vaccine war.’

The UK government is not necessarily wrong to criticise some of the actions the EU commission and EU member states have taken this week. Yet, the fact that a public health issue is turned into a political issue at the highest level, imbued with nationalist undertones is deeply worrying. The Johnson government tends indeed to turn mundane, social, and economic issues into highly emotional politicised ones, that appeal to nationalist sentiments and conjure ‘us versus them’ thinking. A striking example was the Pick for Britain campaign launched in 2020 to encourage British workers to replace immigrant workers during the fruit and vegetable harvest. The campaign used language that smacked of wartimes propaganda; calling for a ‘land army’ of Brits to “[c]ome help pick for Britain to feed the nation!” While the Pick for Britain campaign was a reaction to Covid-related travel restrictions not Brexit, it reflects the UK Government’s increasingly patriotic and nationalistic rhetoric. The more it becomes clear that delivering on the many promises made during the Brexit campaign will be difficult, the more the government will seek to blame the EU for it so as to sustain anti-European feelings and nationalist sentiments on which it relies to maintain its legitimacy. While this may sound overly dramatic, there is a real possibility that the UK may inadvertently head down a dangerous path of increasing international isolation and nationalist reaction. Indeed, political philosopher Hanna Arendt considered that the sort of politicisation of social questions that we currently observe in the UK rarely ends well.