Russia and Ukraine crisis has exposed myth of ‘Global Britain’

The perceived logic of Global Britain is well known, insisting as it does that freed from the “constraints” of the EU, the UK is primed and ready to access the world on its own terms both diplomatically and economically.

In creating this post-Brexit identity, Britain we are told has become more assertive on the world stage and determined to set itself apart from the European ties detested so much right now by many in the Tory government. Advocates of such thinking point to the current crisis over Ukraine as proof of this new “assertive” Britain.

They never tire of reminding us that while the French and Germans have concentrated on talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin and been wary of military muscle flexing, good old “blighty” has been busy making sure Kyiv was getting enough guns and anti-tank weapons.

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In other words, plucky Britain was back doing what it does best, “taming” the Russian bear, a role Tory cheerleaders again reminded us that Britain has played for centuries and certainly since Winston Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” after the Second World War.

That Alexander Boris de Pfeffel, and so forth, the great Churchillian imposter and imitator that he is loves such comparisons goes without saying – but dream on Johnson, for the reality is something else entirely.

Put another way, if the crisis over Ukraine has revealed anything about UK foreign policy and so-called Global Britain, it’s two things. The first is that Britain simply cannot afford to ignore Europe. Yes, our giant neighbours France and Germany might at times have adopted a very different diplomatic stance over the Ukraine crisis, but then that’s only to be expected given the various geopolitical factors that concern them most.

The most obvious example of this of course is their dependency on Russian gas supplies, and in Germany’s case especially the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. France and Germany too might be the world’s third and fourth-largest weapons exporters, but both Paris and Berlin have thus far refrained from sending arms to Ukraine to avoid provoking or rather angering Moscow.

For its part Britain can look on disapprovingly at such decisions by both countries and their wider stance over Russia’s threat to Ukraine, but this should not blind the UK to the fact that the EU is crucial for any strategic allegiance in facing down Moscow whatever the disdain or contempt some within the British government have for continental federalism.

Right now, though, that blindness prevails and to such an extent that both France and Germany have found themselves at odds with the UK and US as Johnson follows in the footsteps of Tony Blair by becoming the latest US president’s British poodle.

Which brings me to the second thing that the Ukraine crisis has starkly revealed about UK foreign policy. I’m talking about the very extent to which Britain despite Johnson’s bluster about Global Britain has become increasingly dependent upon and aligned with Uncle Sam.

Historic “special relationship” ties aside the speed at which Johnson has fallen into place behind US President Joe Biden’s administration has been surprising to say the least.

At the outset Johnson and Biden appeared to have little in common with the US president previously describing Johnson as “a physical and emotional clone” of Donald Trump.

Such was the apparent animosity between them that there was an almost palpable hostility shortly after Biden’s inauguration.

Unresolved questions too about the future of Northern Ireland have fuelled tensions in UK relations, not just with the EU but also with Washington.

Johnson’s inept handing of issues concerning the pressing uncertainty over the Irish border did nothing to improve an atmosphere of mistrust between him and an Irish Catholic US president who is deeply committed to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

But how things have moved on.

So much so in fact that during a recent 40-minute telephone call to discuss the Ukraine crisis, Biden

is said to have told Johnson at the end of the conversation that “we’re not going anywhere without you pal”.

It might just have been a quaint American turn of phrase of course, but few observers deny that on foreign policy Johnson’s government seems increasingly ready and willing to dance to the tune coming from across the pond.

As Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, associate professor of international relations at SOAS, University of London recently observed, it was only last year in a speech at the Munich Security Conference that Johnson stressed the importance of the UK’s security partnerships and announced a $22 billion increase in British defence spending over the next four years. This it should be said was music to the ears of the Biden administration.

In an in-depth analysis entitled The Myth Of Global Britain for Foreign Affairs magazine, Vinjamuri recently also detailed how things didn’t stop there.

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“A few months later, Johnson’s government published a strategy document that spelled out a foreign policy agenda that is closely aligned with the Biden administration’s approach, including emphasising science, liberal-democratic values, and crucially, a greater strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific,” added Vinjamuri, whose conclusion is that Brexit has left Westminster ever more dependent on Washington than it has been for some time.

The bottom line in all of this is that far from UK foreign policy being the independent entity that Johnson’s government claims it is, Washington increasingly calls the shots. Already it seems British anger with America over the shambles that was the Afghanistan pull out has been all but forgotten.

As the Ukraine crisis has reminded us, Johnson and Biden – with a few exceptions – are by and large on the same page when it comes not just to facing down Russia, but in other areas too.

Knowing something of what has resulted in the past when UK and US foreign policy initiatives readily coalesce makes me, and I’m sure many others, just that little bit nervous.