David Pratt: Boris Johnson creates an illusion in pursuit of ‘Global Britain’

Johnson revels in slogans, in just the same way he revels in notions of Britain’s greatness, and never misses an opportunity to dress it up in the language of some bygone age. His is still in a delusionary world where the sun never sets on Britain’s global presence and Britannia still plays its part in “ruling the waves”.

This week the Prime Minister set out how he would make Britain “match fit for a more competitive world”, as he delivered the long-awaited Integrated Review into UK foreign and security policy.

Casting an eye over the 100 or so pages of the “Global Britain” blueprint – or perhaps it should be called the “Johnson Doctrine” – I couldn’t help thinking of one of those self-assured to-do lists I sometimes make out that provide an initial glow of satisfaction before the harsh reality sets in that I have to actually deliver each item and, on some occasions, pay for them.

Such is Johnson’s rose-tinted view of Britain’s international prowess and standing that almost always when his government engages with the wider world there is a mismatch between scale of ambition and the resources and capabilities to really make things happen.

Frankly, throughout the time Johnson has reiterated his mantra about Global Britain, I like many others have never had the faintest idea of what he meant by it.

Perhaps sensing this degree of national confusion, the PM on Tuesday published an exclusive comment piece for The Times to coincide with the Government’s release of the review or to give it its full official title, Global Britain In A Competitive Age.

Was I any the wiser from what he outlined in the article? Not really. Again, it was filled with typical Johnson bluster, speaking of how its “thanks to our history and geography that the UK is already in many ways more global than our comparators”.

Is that really the case, or is not more likely that once again the PM is viewing Britain’s global role through some ancient telescope? Like one from the Napoleonic era perhaps.

If Johnson is to be believed, then one of the UK’s greatest assets is the “vast dispersal of British ideas, and British values, puffed around the world like the seeds of some giant pollinating tree”.

These the PM lists as “everything from habeas corpus and parliamentary democracy to freedom of speech and gender equality”.

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They “put forth great roots and branches”, though sometimes, Johnson says with just a hint of superiority, “they still fall on stony ground”.

If this was meant to be Johnson’s most coherent stab to date at defining Global Britain, then it raised as many questions as it provided answers. Drill down too into the actual meat and bones of what’s detailed in the review and it becomes obvious that ambitions and resources don’t stack up, especially on defence and security.

As journalist and author Paul Mason highlighted in the online journal Social Europe, the UK’s armed forces are already 9000 under strength, after decades of cuts.

Also, despite the injection of £16.5 billion into its capital budget in November 2020, mainly to buy frigates already promised, the Ministry of Defence has a long-term shortfall of up to £17bn on its equipment budget, according to the National Audit Office.

All Johnson is doing here is perpetuating the flawed premise, which goes back a long way now that the UK can maintain a “full spectrum” military capacity that ranges from a complete expeditionary force to an expended nuclear deterrent.

It’s all very well grandstanding through the deployment of the

Royal Navy’s new flagship aircraft carrier to the Indo-Pacific region

as a show of determination to

China and conducting maritime exercises with friendly powers like Australia and Japan.

But it speaks volumes about Britain’s actual capacity and the difference between hubris and reality when borrowed US aircraft are used to fill that same aircraft carrier’s flight deck because Britain doesn’t have them.

Whatever Johnson might claim on just about every level, the UK’s military capability suffers badly from overstretch and is nothing like the pocket-sized superpower he would like to think it is.

This “Indo-Pacific tilt” the review speaks so grandly of appears also to ignore the fact that the most important partner in terms of UK security is in fact Europe. Even the Americans are said to prefer the idea that the UK focuses on the Atlantic, European mainland and Mediterranean as part of its Nato commitment.

FLYING the Union flag or ensign from an aircraft carrier in Asia again harks back to another age and smacks more of posturing than of any real strategic value. For if truth be told, by far the Western country with the most shares at stake in the Indo-Pacific will remain America.

Johnson has always led a government that wants to have its cake and eat it, that much was evident in the Brexit negotiations. Here once again in the review’s pages there is no sign of a government willing to admit that it cannot have everything.

Billed by the PM, at its launch in February 2020 as “the most radical reassessment of the UK’s place in the world since the end of the Cold War”, the review bulges with Johnsonian optimism, which as his track record has shown, should give us all cause for unease and an expectancy that it will fall far short of the mark.

“The objective of Global Britain is not to swagger or strike attitudes on the world stage,” insisted Johnson in his Times article this week, but many both here and overseas remain sceptical of that.

From images of Metropolitan Police officers wrestling women to the ground during a peaceful vigil to allegations of racism in the royal family and more breaking of the rules of the Brexit deal, Britain’s global reputation isn’t exactly on a high right now.

Reading Johnson’s pledge in The Times this week, I was reminded of the furore 50 years ago resulting from remarks made by Dean Acheson, US President Harry Truman’s secretary of state.

Acheson speaking to cadets at the US military academy, West Point, observed in his speech that, “Great Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role”. The same it seems rings true for the illusion that is “Global Britain” today.