Description
In 2016, British foreign policy appeared poised for a radical transformation. As Brexiteers remade the Conservative Party and Jeremy Corbyn led Labour, both seized the populist zeitgeist and promised change. The change that ultimately occurred was hardly radical, though. The story of ‘Global Britain’ was less of a rupture and more of (dis)continuity; foreign policy continued to be oriented around the structuring logics of exceptionalism, Atlanticism, and interventionism. To explain why, this paper argues that we should consider a 'three-act play' of national crises: the Manchester Arena bombing, because it provided an opening for dissent; the Salisbury poisoning, as it enabled a defence of the status quo; and the Huawei dilemma, which created conditions for its re-sedimentation. Mobilising A.J.P. Taylor's distinction between criticism and dissent, this paper contends that Jeremy Corbyn’s counter-hegemonic challenge, articulated most successfully in the first act following the Manchester bombing, was defeated by the Establishment in the response to Salisbury. The foreclosing of dissent in the second act was crucial as it allowed the Establishment to resolve its own internal tensions over China in the third. The crisis around Huawei’s involvement in Britain’s 5G network provided the symbolic and affective resources to reassert a shared security-oriented common sense, revealing a hierarchical understanding of the West that centred on the Anglosphere. The paper concludes that Global Britain reproduced many of Britain’s most treasured identifications under the rubric of a familiar, anxiety-infused Cold War logic, rearticulated and ready for a new psychodrama. Demonstrating this, the paper draws on parliamentary debates, mainstream media, and Policy Exchange's output. Policy Exchange is considered in depth because its work had a significant impact on the direction of post-Brexit foreign policy, particularly regarding the ‘tilt’ towards the new geopolitical theatre of the 21st Century, the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific’.
