the times | Thursday April 28 2022 29
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Buy prints or signed copies of Times cartoons from our Print Gallery at timescartoons.co.uk or call 020 7711 7826Post-Brexit Britain’s back on the global stage
Our foreign and defence policy is winning friends in Europe, but the rhetoric must be matched by increased firepower
weeks. They are members of the EU
by conviction and wish Britain had
not left, but have moved on and see
forging closer ties with Britain, and
maintaining strong links with the
US, as vital for their defence and
security. The various alliances
overlap and it is about grown-up
co-operation.
The British have to maintain
perspective, of course. Britain won’t
be the boss in this new dispensation
and it would be ridiculous to think
so. Nonetheless, it is well-positioned,
playing a positive role in Nato and
advocating a sensible reinforcement
of the G7 in an attempt to constrain
and deter autocrats.
There is an obvious problem, and
Truss alluded to it in her speech. To
match the rhetoric, Britain is going
to have to spend more on defence.
Even the record boost of £16.5 billion
announced in 2021 is not going to be
enough to expand the army again
and deliver more new weapons.
This will be tough. To increase
defence spending meaningfully, and
sustain it well above the
commitment of 2 per cent or more of
GDP, means expanding the economy
to make the extra spending
affordable. Here the government is
doing poorly, with anaemic growth of
1.8 per cent or maybe lower
predicted by the chancellor next
year. It’ll take a lot more than that to
defend democracy.This battle for freedom being
fought by the Ukrainians, said Truss,
should be a catalyst to rethink how
democracies use economic firepower
and military investment as a
deterrent to aggression. The G7,
Truss believes, should be given a
permanent secretariat and grow in
status.
This is a more expansive, global
analysis of the problem than that
advocated so far by Macron. His
main aim has been Europeanintegration, led by him. On defence
he wants a more limited role for the
US in Europe, a long-term French
aim dating from the Cold War.
After recent events (and with
Germany in crisis over delivering
insufficient aid to Ukraine) it is
ridiculous to imagine this appealing
to the Poles, the Swedes, the Finns,
the Baltics and others such as the
Romanians. It is highly doubtful they
will want to be led by Macron, or
wish to sign up to his vision of
French leadership, a diminished
Nato and deals with Moscow.
Several senior diplomats from
northern European countries have
made that point to me in recentbroadly the right strategy and
finding its feet on the global stage. It
is developing a useful role as a friend
to northern and eastern Europeans,
and is a cheerleader for a beefed-up
G7, the collection of seven leading
democratic economies plus the
European Union.
This is the backdrop for the speech
delivered by Liz Truss, the foreign
secretary, at the Mansion House in
London last night. As Truss said,
“geopolitics is back” after a long,
complacent period when it was
assumed, after the Cold War, that
economic integration would drive
political change, moderating
autocratic regimes such as those in
Russia and China. It didn’t work.
The international system of rules
was bent out of shape by Xi Jinping
and Putin, always able to use
blocking votes at the UN, always able
to rely on western softness and
hunger for cheap energy and
consumer goods overshadowing any
requirement to act.
Now the democracies are realising
they have clout. The G7 represents
roughly 50 per cent of global GDP
and has been the main organising
body for sanctions against Russia
since the invasion. On China, the
lesson from Ukraine is that the US
should increase aid to democratic
Taiwan and the G7 should use its
economic leverage to dissuade China
from starting a war.A
ll hail mighty Emmanuel
Macron, le Roi Soleil
reborn, re-elected to the
Élysée and now master of
the European political
scene. Supposedly.
It is a beguiling narrative. Macron
thrashed his right-wing rival in
Sunday’s election, thank goodness.
Now his fans hope he can lead
Europe on defence and foreign
affairs. And make silly old Britain
look isolated and small in the
process.
In a laudatory letter to The Times
this week, Lord Ricketts, Britain’s
former ambassador to France,
encapsulated the view that nothing
can ever go right after Brexit. He
described victorious Macron as the
most experienced western leader.
That claim might be disputed by
President Biden, who was first
elected to the US Senate in 1972, five
years before Macron was born.
Ricketts said Macron would not
make restoring relations with Britain
a priority, because the president
dislikes the prime minister and has
better things to do. Perhaps,
although do not underestimate the
possibility of the fellow showmen
and brothers-in-egomania rekindling
their original bromance over a glass
of claret and a conversation about
Napoleon. Or the French president
forging a relationship with any
successor to Johnson.
After all, the notion of magnificent
“Manu” leading Europe, with Britain
adrift, is at odds with geopolitical
reality and looks daft after the
Russian invasion.
Listen to the Ukrainians. It is
British defence policy under Ben
Wallace in the vanguard: helping
Kyiv with weapons shipments,
intelligence and training, along with
the US and Canada, and taking arobust stance against the Kremlin.
By contrast, it is Macron’s approach,
pursuing a grand security settlement
with autocratic Russia, keeping
President Putin on speed dial and
pushing for the creation of a
European army, that has failed.
Although post-Brexit Britain has
numerous economic problems and a
drifting government, on foreign and
defence policy it is mapping outMacron’s approach to
Ukraine, with Putin on
speed dial, has failed
Britain must maintain
perspective. It isn’t
going to be the boss
Iain
Martin@iainmartin1