My Lords, I am grateful in advance to those who have kindly agreed to participate in this debate—at least, I hope I stay grateful when I hear them. I am especially looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley of Camden Town, which will follow immediately. We will all listen with the greatest interest, in view of his wisdom and experience.
We are at an extremely dangerous moment in history, when the issue is the survival of world order of any kind. Some of the wisest minds, not just in America but on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world, tell us we are at the edge of an abyss. One of the best-selling books in America has been Robert Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy. It was published more than two decades ago, but some would say this anarchy, in international affairs, has already arrived very promptly.
This is a new world in which we have to make our way, guard and protect ourselves more strongly than ever, contribute to others, set examples, define our purposes, and preserve our unity. We can forget about it all going on in faraway countries of which we know nothing; it is all very near, on our doorstep. Forget even the language of East and West, as though they were split into two halves of an orange, the idea so favoured by American academia, or the patronising concepts of North and South, developed and developing, all implicitly dividing the world between them and us—now an utterly flawed approach in this multipolar age.
How can that idea make any sense at all any longer when scores of countries, aspiring to liberal values in their own ways and not wanting to be beholden to either of the 20th-century hegemons, America or China, are not in the Atlantic West at all? They are in the East, the South and all around the world. They call themselves the neo-non-aligned, which in fact is most of the world’s 191 nations, large and small. The danger to Ukraine is the danger to them. What is happening is not just a European issue, as some seem to think. What they want in this digital age is not great power bullying, but independence and freedom from being put in ideological boxes or spheres of influence. As Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General—a man I much admired and who was much underestimated—once said, everyone needs a country to love. That is one message to guide us through the labyrinth in the digital age, in direct contrast to all the talk from a past era of the great powers fixing it, of blocs to align with, or of spheres of influence to conform to.
Forget too all the patronising talk about tilts to the Indo-Pacific, or pivots to Asia and the developing world, as though we are doing them a favour. That is the language of the past, when might was still seen as right and the West thought it was the master of the world. Forget about the historic confrontation between capitalism and socialism that much preoccupied the last century, when even Russia and China now have their own twisted forms of capitalism, even if they do not admit it. That debate is over too, and another one has begun on how to make liberal market capitalism—our sort—far more stable, far fairer and much more widely shared, and how to escape its massive unpopularity, especially among the young. Capitalism, for us, ought to be not a defeat but a matter of victory.
My Lords, it is with great humility and a profound sense of responsibility that I rise to address this House for the first time. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of joining your Lordships and extend my sincere thanks to those who have supported me on this journey. In particular, I thank the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip, who was also one of my sponsors, for their warm welcome. I also thank my other sponsor, my noble kinswoman Lady Pitkeathley, who, in her wisdom, decided that the Lords was such a good idea that she sent for reinforcements. The kindness and patience of the doorkeepers, officials and staff have made these first steps so much less daunting.
The subject of today’s debate—the United Kingdom’s global position—challenges us not only to assess where we stand but to consider how we move forward. We do so at a time of great uncertainty—as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, set out for us—and our history shows that our ability to thrive depends on creativity, adaptability and leadership. To maintain our standing, we must embrace these strengths now more than ever.
Entrepreneurship has been a lifelong passion for me, though my path to it was unconventional. I started in music—writing, recording and playing in bands, including in Camden, chasing that elusive big break. Like many in the arts, I quickly learned that dreams alone are not enough. Resilience, reinvention and the willingness to take risks—and sometimes embarrass oneself—are just as important.
That spirit carried me through my career, from introducing universal banking services while at the British Bankers’ Association to sourcing helicopters for the Prime Minister during the 2001 and 2005 general elections and to manufacturing table tennis tables in China. In many ways, music and business share the same DNA—good ideas, hard work and not a little luck; and, always, a team.
My Lords, it gives me great joy to follow the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, on the occasion of his maiden speech and to have the privilege of formally welcoming him into the Chamber. He and I have known each other for some 30 years, and our paths crossed because of our shared passions for policy, the creative industries and the arts. He has had a much more successful career than I have, getting his hands dirty working in his community, genuinely shaping the lives of so many people in Camden and beyond, and coming up with creative thinking.
It is a testament to our friendship that he recalled to me the other day that I once bumped into him and lamented to him, “Why do I have so many lefty friends?”, which will not surprise my friends on these Benches. It is a joy to have him join us in the House of Lords. It would be churlish of me and against the spirit of welcoming him to point out that he is a nepo Peer and that his wonderful mother sits in the Chamber with us today. It would also be grotesquely hypocritical because I am also a nepo Peer, having followed my own late father, who was a life Peer, into the House of Lords. I make that point because I know what a wonderfully additional heart-warming moment it is to come into a Chamber that would have formed part of his life even before he formally joined us. I look forward to debating with him for many years to come about the importance of the creative industries. I also welcome his speech because of his focus on the future, on innovation and on the strengths that Britain has today, here and now in the 21st century, rather than looking back necessarily on past glories.
A friend of mine, the academic James Crabtree, who specialises in south-east Asia, sent me a diptel this week on WhatsApp from a recording of a meeting between Senator Barry Goldwater and the Prime Minister of Singapore in which it was remarked that the British might have lost their muscle, but they are able to think. It is an echo of the remark that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, made about having lost an empire but looking to find a role.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue at a crucial time. I also welcome the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, and look forward to hearing a lot more from him in the future.
We have a long history and a clear footprint around the globe, even though our reach and capacity have diminished. Our global position has been defined by our interconnection with America, Europe and the Commonwealth. However, whatever was special about our relationship with the United States is now over; trust is broken. That does not mean that we should cease to have a relationship with America but, from now on, it will be on different terms and that is irreversible.
I have always taken the view that the UK’s most important ties, by force of geography, history and culture, are with our neighbours across a narrow stretch of water, as opposed to a vast ocean. During our 47-year membership of what is the EU, the UK carved out a unique, semi-detached position. We threw that away with Brexit and now run the risk of being isolated from both the USA and the EU. By leaving the EU, we weakened both ourselves and the EU.
I commend the Prime Minister for his efforts to co-ordinate with European partners and maintain good relations with the White House, and they have been rightly praised. I understand it when he says he is not seeking to choose between Europe and Washington. However, what he must avoid is allowing President Trump to dictate in any way how we reset our relationships with the EU and Europe, either on trade or defence and security.
Historically, the UK has reached around the globe, but we have sadly neglected that in recent decades. It is surely time to revitalise our relationship with the Commonwealth. The savage cut in aid compromises that, but we must look to commit more in promoting trade, investment, diplomacy and culture—soft power—to show that we value our membership. I recently spoke with a member of the Government of one of the smaller Commonwealth countries and asked what benefit they perceived in King and Commonwealth. I was told that it was a matter of complete indifference, as it made no impact. That is a travesty and should surely change.
My Lords, it is customary to congratulate the holder of a debate such as this one, and I do so with all the more enthusiasm on this occasion, since that person is the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who was instrumental in setting up your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee and was its first chair. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, on his thought-provoking maiden speech.
As for the timing of our debate, that too is pretty good. With the publication of the global strategy review from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, only a few weeks away, that report and this debate are together linking Britain’s hard and soft power, which must always be considered together if we are to get a full picture.
The first thing to be said is that the word “global” in the title of today’s debate has nothing whatever to do with that silly slogan of “global Britain” dreamed up by Foreign Secretary Johnson to characterise post-Brexit Britain. Britain’s global role has existed since the 16th century and had nothing whatever to do with whether we were inside the EU or outside it, even though we had a lot of pretty tempestuous relationships with the other countries of Europe along the road. Nor does it have much to do with that other emanation of Johnsonian imagination—the Indo-Pacific tilt, which overlooked that, if you tilt towards something, you necessarily tilt away from something else, in this case Europe. President Putin’s aggression against Ukraine has upended that tilt comprehensively.
The decision at the end of last month to substantially increase defence spending deserves full support, but the decision to finance that exclusively by a massive cut in our overseas aid budget, which had already been plundered to pay for Ukrainian refugees in this country, is going to inflict great damage on our soft power and influence around the world. The least the Government should do now is to commit themselves to increasing the 0.3% of GNI as soon as growth picks up.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Howell on securing this debate, though I fear I cannot quite share his degree of optimism. I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, on a most accomplished maiden speech. We look forward to hearing many more. It is of course a privilege to follow the noble Lord who has just spoken, who brings his considerable expertise to bear on our discussion of these issues.
The global position of the United Kingdom has changed beyond all recognition in the last few weeks. That is because the world has changed beyond all recognition in the last few weeks. We are at a turning point comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but this turning point is not, alas, for the better. It is making the world a more dangerous place than it has been since 1989, or perhaps even longer ago than that.
The great certainty that has dominated all global strategy since 1945 has been that the United States has been the leader of the free world. It has seen its role as the guarantor of a rules-based world order which it helped to devise. Of course, it has made mistakes—not all of its interventions have had beneficial results—but, on the whole, both it and the world have benefited enormously. Millions more people now live under freedom and many more millions no longer have to suffer the grinding misery of poverty. Of course, the United States has not been the sole author of these benefits, but without its leadership, it is very doubtful whether this progress could have occurred.
This great certainty has gone. It grieves me to say what I am about to say. I lived in America for a year as a young man. Both my children are married to Americans. All my grandchildren are dual citizens of the United Kingdom and the United States. But the last few weeks have made it clear that the United States is no longer a reliable ally of this country.
I join in congratulating my noble friend Lord Howell. On this occasion, as on many others in his long career, he has shown himself to be one of Parliament’s thought leaders. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, on this pleasant family occasion.
Disraeli warned us of those who fall into their anecdotage. I hope the House will forgive me if I offer one anecdote from my own experience as Minister of State in the Foreign Office. When I was the first British Minister to return to Aden in 1990 after our rather disgraceful scuttle from that place in 1967, leaving our local allies in the lurch, I was given in my briefing a saying from the area of that time of final British retreat. The saying was this:
“It is always better to be the enemy of the British than their friend. If you are their enemy, there is the possibility of being bought. If you are their friend, there is the certainty of being sold’’.
That is the way it goes with retreating empires. It is, one might say, something the friends of the United States are now learning, or have learned, from the end of the Vietnam War onwards, via Kabul and now to Ukraine. Once a nation, still immensely powerful though it may be, decides for better or worse that it has had enough of overseas adventures, its allies had better watch out: as Taiwan should now watch out, as Israel should now watch out, and as Europe, Japan and South Korea must watch out.
As Robert Tombs wrote eloquently in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, there have been plenty of warning signs, which we in Europe have ignored. Trumpism expresses the turning point in a style that would have shocked previous Presidents, but however expressed, something irrevocable which was a long time in the making has now been done. America is going home. The structures it supported and which its friends took for granted can no longer be relied upon. Trust has been broken in a way that cannot be recreated.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Pitkeathley, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I follow in every sense what the noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Waldegrave, have just said.
In this crisis we need to hope for the best, prepare for the worst and learn from the past. I hope that Putin buys the ceasefire compromise and comes to accept Ukraine as the legitimate sovereign state it is, but we need to prepare for a future in which his appetite for territorial gain has only been whetted. The analogy, I think, is Munich in 1938: Hitler settled for one-third and nine months later came back for the other two-thirds.
We need to contemplate a future in which America, perhaps in the hope of pulling apart the Beijing-Moscow relationship, finds itself closer to the autocrat in the Kremlin than to the democrats in western Europe. At Munich last month, Vance told us that the real threat to Europe was not Russia but the enemy within—our corrosive liberalism. Musk says that America should quit NATO and America has left planning for some NATO exercises. So far, Trump has said only that America will not defend NATO’s free riders, and for America to follow Musk’s advice would be remarkably quixotic. America is right to resent the free riders, but it is America that drives the bus.
The NATO supreme commanders have always been serving US officers reporting to their commander-in-chief, and Congress accepted the Washington treaty only when that was spelled out to it. The alliance has been, from the start, a very effective means of projecting US power—too effective for de Gaulle’s taste. The American military and the American arms industry would be horrified if Musk got his way, and we should work to see that he does not. We should work to strengthen Europe’s contribution to the alliance, as Peter Carrington and Helmut Schmidt did with their Eurogroup and European defence improvement programme when Congress first got stroppy about the free-rider problem. But we also need to prepare for the worst, as the noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Waldegrave, have been saying.
May I remind noble Lords that this is a timed debate and we have to finish it by 3.19 pm? I am gently reminding noble Lords that the advisory speaking time it is four minutes.
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I believe we can compare this age with the printing press revolution of the 14th century, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution all rolled into one—although, of course, it is coming far faster and affects a far greater number of the world’s people on a far bigger scale than ever before. Among other things, it has changed the nature of international influence and pressure. We call it soft power, or some do, although, of course, it goes along with hard military power and smart power—the mix of the two. This House of Lords can claim a lot of credit for opening up this debate with our seminal report of March 2014, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World. It certainly seemed to have an impact on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which promptly set up a department to supervise soft power.
We are, as a consequence of our policy blindness, still suffering from a gross underestimate of the future importance to us of the Commonwealth network: the best and largest soft-power greenhouse of all, with some of the world’s fastest-growing economies among its members. This becomes the ultimate kind of association, both of peoples, professions, institutes and Governments, and of the comity of nations which a common language, with a common culture embedded within it, sustains and nourishes. No binding treaty is needed for the basic voluntary atmosphere of friendship and instruction that lies behind it.
Under past and present Governments, there has been some distinct and welcome progress in our repositioning journey—joining organisations such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, for example—although the cost of that has been getting policy with our European neighbours badly wrong. Relations with greater Europe are a neighbourhood, common-sense problem. It is plain sense that we must stay on the best possible relations with our continental neighbours—all of them. Of course we must co-operate in dozens of sensible and practical ways, as I know this Government are trying to do and we saw attempted by the previous Government—not with great success. The European Political Community, of which we are an active member—in fact one of the leading members—could prove the gateway to a thousand constructive outcomes of European co-operation without getting too bogged down again in outdated Brussels procedures.
The ingredients to make all these new relationships and alliances work are trust and mutual respect, with a strong and agreed set of rules and commitments, but that is just what has gone missing. It is as if the new strongmen of the globe—Trump is one, Putin another and Xi Jinping a third—all want different rules and methods, their own, and all with the least possible restraints on their actions. In fact, it now looks as though even America’s vaunted constitutional checks have gone on holiday, as the country is led into an outright trade war by one man’s say-so.
Can we protect ourselves, with all this lack of trust and respect swirling around and across the Atlantic, pulling the world we knew apart? Does America have all the cards in the Ukraine situation, as its President seems to think? Do we, for example, hold a better and friendlier set of world connection than the USA does—or shortly will, if the Trump hallmark is grabbing Greenland, kicking Mexico and trying to swallow Canada, a nation that happens to a powerful member of the Commonwealth with King Charles as its constitutional head? That is disrespect for you—that is the language we have to talk—not to say bad manners as well.
Anyway, in a networked, hyperconnected and technology-dominated world we do have some cards, and by common consent the Prime Minister has played some of them, so far, with great skill. Mr Zelensky—caught in the firing line between President Trump and Vice-President Vance—also has a card or two, although, alas, he never had the chance, in the Oval Office train crash, to play them.
The list of issues which should make America pause before pursuing a course of playing the big nation 20th-century battalion game is a long one. Many other items not listed here arise, not least that great nationhood arises from serving the world, rather than overriding or threatening it. We shall see how Mr Putin responds to President Trump’s latest threat about ruining Russia. Judging by his past performance, I do not think he will accept it very well, but we will see. Maybe he sees a gain for Russia in it; maybe he will go for it. To make America great again, it must be ready to serve freedom as it did in the past. At the moment, frankly, it is being led in the opposite direction.
We are not alone in facing this central challenge of the digital age with its contradictions and its transformative powers, which continue to unfold at a great rate, but we have a role emerging from the turbulence to replace the one we are alleged to have lost in the last century, with that famous put-down remark from Dean Acheson about having
“lost an empire but not yet found a role”.
We can pioneer popular social capitalist reform, which is the underpinning of stable democracy—neither works without the other. We can help rebuild the world institutions of the last century—as we helped to build them in the first place—with the UN very much included, to address climate change, the quandary of the world as super-mass immigration takes over and other 21st-century issues, such as worldwide energy transition.
We can construct and keep in daily or hourly use a dense world network, the densest ever in the hyperconnective age—with every old link, new tie and new nation on the face of the globe, especially our fellow Commonwealth members—always being ready to assist, guide and support. We can respond to populist pressure all over the world by clear democratic reforms here that keep all who wish in constant touch with a strong and trusted parliamentary democracy at work and in detail.
We can design our defences for employing the highest technology and safeguarding the civilian order and its supply chains as never before. We can boost enormously our reserves and the linkages between the military and civilian worlds. In the 1930s we kept our reserves at around 200,000 long before the war began; they are now at 37,000. The expansion must begin.
Crisis is opportunity We are in a very advantageous position to make the best of the present upheavals, with our global links, friends and experience, providing we build on the assets bequeathed to us. If we are smart and creative, there was never such a new dawn and clear horizon, for all the world’s uncertainties, and never such an open sea for a nation such as ours. I beg to move.
That belief in collaboration led to one of my proudest achievements: Camden Collective. This initiative emerged from a simple but pressing problem: too many talented entrepreneurs, particularly those without post-university networks, could not afford the space to develop their ideas. Drawing on my own experience with dyslexia, we turned a challenge into an opportunity, transforming empty high street spaces into free workspaces.
More than just pop-up offices and shops, we created a thriving community of innovators, doers, and dreamers. Our first rule, “don’t be an arse”, is not just a joke; it sets a cultural tone where collaboration trumps ego. That ethos has helped hundreds of businesses take their first steps, and I believe it can help shape the future of entrepreneurship in the UK.
Another of our Camden projects is the Camden Highline—a proposed new park in the sky, running between Camden Town and King’s Cross along a disused railway viaduct. Inspired by New York’s High Line, and sharing its design team, it embodies the kind of bold, imaginative thinking that I think can redefine urban spaces and strengthen our international reputation as a hub of creativity.
Technology, particularly AI, is transforming innovation. The UK has world-class AI research and a thriving start-up ecosystem, but our productivity gap remains a challenge. While top firms advance, many businesses struggle to adopt new technologies, limiting our competitiveness. I see both sides of this divide—start-ups I work with already leverage AI, while many traditional businesses, such as those in the business improvement districts I run, face hurdles in adoption. AI’s benefits must be widely shared. The Government’s AI growth zones are a strong start, but hubs must also be placed in urban centres, near innovation clusters such as King’s Cross, where research institutions and tech firms can accelerate progress.
AI can transform public services, as we have heard alluded to today. Standardising AI-driven processes across government would boost efficiency and service delivery, positioning the UK as a leader in AI-supported governance. Smart AI regulation offers a chance to reinforce our global position and while some, particularly in the EU, take a more restrictive approach, the UK can lead with a pragmatic, pro-innovation path. As a songwriter, even at my modest level, I understand creative concerns—I really do—but, if handled well, this could be a rare Brexit silver lining.
As I take my place in this House, I hope to bring a spirit of creativity and adaptability to my work here. The UK’s global standing will be secured not by nostalgia for past glories but by shaping the future. By embracing innovation, supporting entrepreneurship and ensuring that opportunity is shared across society, we will not only strengthen our economy but reaffirm the values that have long made Britain a leader on the world stage. I look forward to playing my part in that effort.
In opening this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, gave a brilliant speech—one always says a speech is brilliant when it entirely reflects one’s own worldview. Everything the noble Lord said about how Britain moves forward in what he quite rightly identified as one of the most dangerous periods, certainly in living memory for me, is absolutely right. We must play to our strengths and not look back on past glories.
We are a strange country. We have, in some ways, a surfeit of self-confidence and, in other ways, a chronic lack of confidence. I always say that what makes Britain great is not our past but what we have today, which is part of our heritage: the rule of law, the English common law, leadership in artificial intelligence—to which the noble Lord referred—our universities, our research base, our Armed Forces and the Premier League. These are the kind of things that people around the world look to Britain for. The remark from the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that everyone needs someone to love should perhaps be framed and put in the Foreign Office, because that is Britain’s opportunity.
This week, as chairman of the UK-ASEAN Business Council, I was lucky enough to preside over our annual business summit. We welcomed the Malaysian Minister for Investment, Trade and Industry, and a Malaysian delegation, because Malaysia is chair of ASEAN this year. It was very telling for me. Somebody came up with a statistic, which I am not sure necessarily bears scrutiny, that about half a million Malaysians have benefited in some shape or form from British education. Given that the population is about 32 million to 34 million, that may be excessive, but the point was made, and the Minister then asked: “So why are only 0.6% of our imports from Britain?”
The fact is—I hope I am not getting over my skis when I say this—that there are many countries that love Britain. When you are in the Middle East or south-east Asia, you will constantly meet people who say how highly they hold the United Kingdom in regard, and how much they almost regard it as a second home. That is our strength. We can, in this moment of crisis, wake up and realise that we are not the 51st state. We have influence across the globe, and we should maximise that influence.
In my final remarks, let me play to my strength in terms of my passion for culture and talk about Britain’s soft power. We can exaggerate soft power. I always tease Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum, a man I hold in the highest regard, who talked a great deal about soft power. He once lent the Iranians the Cyrus cylinder, a very important cultural artefact in Persia. I always tease him that, shortly after he lent it to them, they arrested six Royal Navy sailors who they claimed had breached Iranian territorial waters. But the point was made; we lent it, and we got it back.
I have talked about the importance of the British Council in this Chamber in the last few weeks. I have talked as well, many times, about the importance of the BBC World Service. Soft power will not get us everything we want to achieve, but it is a wonderful front door to engage so many different countries in dialogue—countries that respect the United Kingdom, and dare I say it, some of which do love us.
There is, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said, a legacy of goodwill towards the UK in many parts of the Commonwealth and around the world, which we fail to reciprocate adequately. I note that the King met Justin Trudeau in London recently and has been seen in public wearing Canadian uniform and insignia. King Charles is the King of Canada, and I have seen suggestions in the Canadian media that, as their king, he should publicly support Canadian sovereignty and independence. Is there any protocol to prevent him doing that? Surely Canadian Ministers can advise him to do so.
No relationship is perfect. The UK has friends that we have undervalued, and it now appears that we have others that we have overvalued. Our global position should be based on relationships we can trust, even when there are differences. As the world has changed, the UK cannot afford to be dogmatic about negotiating closer links with the EU. We need to build our own defence capacity and reset our relationship. The UK knows what it is like to have continental Europe occupied by dark powers. That was the case when I was born and for more than half my life. Our destiny requires the vision to create the means to prevent that happening again.
One of the biggest challenges we face around the world is the damage being inflicted by the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from multilateral organisations and programmes, from the World Health Organization to the Paris climate accords to the UN’s Human Rights Council—and there could be more to come. Together with the cuts in US aid, these are serious decisions which will weaken western influence, whether or not it is replaced by Chinese involvement, and they will impact some of the poorest people in the world. We will need to do what we can to sustain and strengthen these multilateral organisations, moving ahead, if necessary, without the US, in a plurilateral framework with other like-minded countries; for example, at the World Trade Organization for the proposed pandemic convention, and at the UN. Can the Minister say whether that is the Government’s policy?
In all this we will need to work in close co-operation with and keep in sharp focus our European partners, with the Prime Minister’s aim of a security and defence pact with them at its heart. What is the proposed timetable for moving ahead with that and how does it relate to the handling of the fighting in Ukraine?
To conclude, in all this we will need international partners. Britain is no longer a great power, as it thought it was, perhaps for a little bit too long. But we are a significant middle-ranking power, so we need representation around the world, and that will need to be taken into account in this summer’s spending review, avoiding such pretty useless substitutes as regional representation. We must nurture our main instruments of soft power, such as the BBC World Service, which should be financed by the taxpayer and not the licence holder, and the British Council.
In all this, we should show awareness of how others see us and not just of how we see ourselves.
It is not the act of an ally to impose tariffs on friendly countries. It is not the act of an ally to threaten to take part of another country’s territory—Greenland—by force. It is not the act of an ally to vote with Russia, North Korea and Iran in the United Nations against a motion that recognises that Russia invaded Ukraine. It is not the act of a freedom-loving country to withdraw intelligence and military assistance from a democratic country that has been invaded by a tyrant.
It is foolish to pretend that we can rely on a country which is led by a man who rejoices in his unreliability, who revels in his unreliability, and who uses unreliability as a weapon of choice. The Prime Minister has spoken of himself as a bridge, and his efforts have been commendable, but a bridge needs firm foundations at both ends, and those firm foundations no longer exist on the other side of the Atlantic.
So what is to be done? It is clear that we, in common with other countries, not only European countries, must spend more on defence. It is true that we have been freeloading on the United States for far too long, but I am afraid that this new need for increased defence spending must have as its objective not merely the need to convince the United States that we are paying our fair share of the costs of NATO but the ability to defend ourselves and play our part in the defence of Europe without the United States.
The changed attitude of the United States is said to be in order that it can devote itself to the challenges it faces in the Pacific, in particular from China, but its democratic allies in the Pacific have hardly been reassured. South Korea is reportedly considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons since it no longer considers the United States a reliable ally, Japan’s nervousness is palpable, and what confidence can anyone now have for the future of Taiwan?
But we and the rest of the world will be poorer, too. That is an inevitable consequence of a damaging trade war, and the extra spending on defence which is now essential will have to be at the expense of other elements of government spending to which we have become accustomed.
The United Kingdom’s global position has changed in the last few weeks, and it has changed for the worse. We are weaker and we may become poorer. But we can—we must—also become more self-reliant. In doing so, we can yet provide a degree of leadership to like-minded countries which do not see international relations as a series of transactions but recognise that we share a system of values which is worth cherishing, sustaining and defending. That would be an honourable role to which we can and should aspire.
Doubtless, it will not always be quite so difficult as now. Trump will not last for ever: he will not be exempt from Enoch Powell’s law that all political careers end in failure. But his successors will not be able to recreate the status quo, even if they wanted to, and it seems unlikely that they would want to. Now, we in Britain have to find those who most closely share the same real interests as ourselves and build alliances on this shared interest. First and foremost, those who share our interests are our neighbours in Europe, all under threat from Mr Putin.
After Suez, our last big adventure in imperialism, when an infinitely more powerful imperial US cracked the whip and told us to behave, we and France drew different conclusions. Broadly, we decided to stick to the US, albeit as a very junior partner, and France went with Europe. Now we will have no choice other than to become a little more Gaullist. Doing what we can, of course, to keep relations with the USA as good as we possibly can, we have to cast our defence and industrial lot back in with our neighbours. I do not mean by trying to rejoin the EU: that bus has departed. We must also make the best possible technological and defence-industrial alliances that we can elsewhere, notably with Japan, Turkey, South Korea and, if possible, India, as well as Canada, New Zealand and Australia. We also have to maximise our Commonwealth network, as my noble friend so eloquently put it.
My final point, however, is my most important. To make ourselves safe, we have to make ourselves richer. Our position ultimately depends on our wealth. We have a lamentable debt situation, including, as Roger Bootle has pointed out, in the decline of our net overseas assets. We have to strengthen and change the nature of our economy. I do not think we have yet begun to realise the scale of change required if we are to be able to defend ourselves. It is not 2.5% or 2.6%; it will be much more. It will mean profound changes in our society. We have a sort of consensus on defence at present among the Westminster parties, but do we have the social cohesion to accept the burdens that we are going to have to carry? Can we find the people to volunteer for the radically reformed and enlarged armed services we will need? Do we have the industrial muscle still to rebuild our defence industries?
We are going to need a new national unity if we are to succeed. Success cannot be taken for granted, but perhaps this ancient House, just a little distanced—as it should be—from the delights of short-term political infighting, might be one place where the building of a new national consensus might begin.
European security is our security and we need a new structure that we should be defining now—but not in a way which might precipitate the very eventuality that concerns us, so not too much of the performative strategic autonomy talk that we hear from Paris. The best analogy may be 1948 and Ernest Bevin’s Western Union treaty. What would Bevin do now? I will make three guesses. First, obviously, we rearm. Obviously, 2.5% of GDP will not be nearly enough; in the 1970s, we were at 5.5%. Secondly, we demonstrate commitment. In the 1970s, we were still honouring Bevin’s WU commitment to keep 55,000 troops forward-based in continental Europe. The Baltic states must feel now rather as the West Germans did then—and they were very glad to have our forces on the ground. Thirdly, we need to strike a security deal with the EU in May. With the continuing cold wind from the east and new blustery winds from the west, we Europeans need to huddle together.