Reader TTS

One of the barely reported changes in government since the election is the change in the Foreign Office’s status as the principal department of state for Britain’s relations with the rest of

the world. There have been some obvious mistakes. One was the instruction sent to UK diplomats that they should not sit among EU representatives when visiting EU capitals for international

meetings. Another error was the letter sent by the UK’s High Commissioner in Canberra to senior Australian MPs dressing them down for daring to criticise Britain over the decision to hand

over part of the UK’s future telecommunications network to Huawei, a barely disguised instrument of the Chinese Communist Party. The MPs who sat on Australia’s Security and Intelligence

Committee were so angry they cancelled a planned trip to meet opposite numbers in Westminster. Then there was the “no show” of senior British ministers at the Munich Security Conference.

This has become the equivalent of the Davos World Economic Forum for all matters on defence and security. At the last minute, Britain sent a junior FCO minister with zero experience or

status in this field. In a rare break with the foreign policy mandarin’s rule not to criticise UK foreign policy after they have quit the diplomatic service, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, who had

served as our man in Washington and Brussels and in No.10 as chief international adviser, wrote to the _Times_. He said that snubbing the Munich gathering “is not just bad form, it is a

missed opportunity and a further sign of insularity. Brexit means we no longer have the constant contact with EU partners that gave British governments for nearly five decades an instant

information exchange and source of support and challenge. In parallel, the Trump administration has devalued the transatlantic alliance, including its British component.” The latter point is

important. The term “special relationship” like the word “Brexit” is no longer in No. 10’s lexicon — President Trump slammed the phone down on Prime Minister Johnson over Huawei, and a

succession of US politicians denounced Britain kow-towing to China at the expense of the Atlantic Alliance. Even Nancy Pelosi, the chief Democrat on Capitol Hill, joined in. At the same

time, the FCO has the weakest team of ministers in post-war history. Dominic Raab is there as a Johnson loyalist and early signer-up to Brexit. James Cleverly, the Minister of State, was a

star cabinet minister who appeared on television with effect during the first six months of the Johnson premiership. And then we have the statement from the Prime Minister’s Brexit

negotiator. In a speech in Brussels, David Frost veered off into political-historical musings. “A new governmental system overlaid on an old one,” he said in his Brussels lecture,

“purportedly a Europe of nation states, but in reality the paradigm of a new system of transnational collective governance.” It is not clear if Frost is referring to the 1957 European

Economic Community or the Europe of Margaret Thatcher’s Single European Act which abolished key national vetos to promote continent-wide commerce and capitalist competition. Frost, a

likeable and respected mid-ranking FCO official, whose highest post was Ambassador to Denmark before he went off to double his salary as Director of the Scotch Whisky Federation, was not

known for musing on political philosophy. But now, like a trained Marxist, he described a “second revolution”_ _as_ _“the reaction to the first — the reappearance on the political scene not

just of national feeling but also of the wish for national decision-making and the revival of the nation state. Brexit is the most obvious example for that, but who can deny that we see

something a bit like it in different forms across the whole Continent of Europe?” It is true that there are political forces all over Europe that promote the primacy of the state over the

economic interests of their people. But their political parties are constantly rejected at the ballot box and all of them have dropped demands for referendums on EU membership as they’ve

seen the problems caused by Brexit. But is this supremacy of the national identity something that a person like Frost should be applauding? Frost’s speech was populist in tone and based on

identity politics rather than the politics of national interest. There is nothing wrong in senior diplomats echoing the views of the elected prime minister. But, on the whole, the FCO has

not sought to promote populist or identity politics. It has always sought to be present in every forum where opinions are formed or decisions are made that impact on Britain. Now a new FCO

is taking shape and has to define its role under a prime minister who clearly has little regard for its (self) importance and still less for the diplomatic traditions of making friends and

influencing people. It will be interesting to see if this new populist diplomacy sinks roots. But, as with much in the Brexit process, we may have to wait a long time to find out.