Editorial of the “World”. Breaking with one’s own continent by leaving the European Union means that the United Kingdom has to reinvent its place in the world. This central Brexit design, sold to British voters under the high-sounding slogan of “Global Britain” (“World Britain”), never had clear content. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, tried, Tuesday March 16, to give him one, by presenting his “Strategic review in matters of security, defense and foreign policy”, supposed to define the governmental orientations for the ten years to come.
More than fifty years after having chosen to integrate Europe by proclaiming its withdrawal “East of Suez”, and thus given up his ambition to be a planetary power in himself, Mr Johnson seems to be backtracking. Almost silent on relations with its European neighbors, the prospective document advocates a “Rocker” diplomatic and military towards the Indo-Pacific zone, and affirms the British ambition to play, once again solo, a global role. The prime minister says to himself “ deeply confident “ in the capacity of his country to “Shaping the world of the future “.
While designating China as a state threat against the United Kingdom, London wishes to intensify its trade relations with Beijing. Mr Johnson also insists on the tremendous economic outlet that constitutes the entire booming area between India, Japan, China and Australia. Anxious to strengthen the status of nuclear power of the United Kingdom as an ally of the United States, he also announces that the country will acquire 80 new nuclear warheads, bringing its arsenal to 260 warheads.
Hazardous solitary strategy
The legitimacy of the United Kingdom, a member of the United Nations Security Council and an important part of NATO, to freely choose its foreign policy is not open to debate. As a European, however, one may be surprised to see a neighbor ostensibly turning his back on you to adopt a fuzzy and risky solitary strategy, where imperial nostalgia rubs shoulders with strategic skill and where planetary pretensions are used to hide the shock. economics of Brexit. What does the British ambition to once again become the champion of free trade mean at the very moment when the pandemic calls into question the merits of all-out globalization?
Boris Johnson presents himself as a defender of international relations based on law. This does not prevent it from announcing a strengthening of its nuclear weapons, at the risk of contradicting the non-proliferation treaty to which London is a signatory. At the very moment when he is actively seeking new allies in Asia-Pacific, he tends to alienate those he keeps calling his “European friends”.
The day before the Prime Minister’s strategic announcements, the European Union sent him a formal notice for violating the Irish protocol contained in the Brexit agreement. By refusing controls on the arrival of goods in Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson, who wants to be the champion of respect for the law, denies his own signature and exploits Irish instability. Less than three months after being concluded, the Brexit deal is flouted. Divorce between neighbors, natural partners and, in fact, friends, has become a field of conflict from which no one sees the outcome. It is difficult, under these conditions, to see in Mr Johnson’s planetary announcements anything other than a worrying headlong rush.
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