The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s Approach to International Affairs

A recent report entitled ‘The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s Approach to International Affairs’ is a prime example of declinism – defined as: a belief or policy that the best the UK can expect, or deserves, is the orderly management of decline. It is further an example of the globalist mindset of the UK’s decadent ruling class.

The report is the product of a two day debate at the Hertford College, University of Oxford, in October 2023. ‘The co-coveners’ are set out as being:

‘Tom Fletcher, Principal of the Hertford College, Oxford; former No10 Foreign Policy Adviser and HM Ambassador to Lebanon. Moazzam Malik, UCL Policy Lab Honorary Professor; former Director General in FCDO and DFID and HM Ambassador to Indonesia and the ASEAN. Mark Sedwill, Member of the House of Lords; former Cabinet Secretary, National Security Adviser, HM Ambassador and NATO Representative in Afghanistan.’

The report’s ‘secretariat … comprises: ‘Roli Asthana (former DFID and UN), Mark Miller (ODI) with input from Tom Pegram (UCL) and James Baggaley (UCL Policy Lab). Hertford College Oxford and UCL Policy Lab provided in-kind support.’

The purpose of the two-day event was: ‘to debate the UK’s approach to international affairs and ideas for reform’ with ‘a background paper and core readings [being] circulated in advance’.

The Foreword of the subsequent report is written by Lord Sedwell. In it he claims that there are ‘a forbidding set of strategic environmental, socio-economic and geopolitical issues’, which ‘to be managed effectively’ would: ‘require international cooperation’. He asked: ‘But how as geopolitical tensions rise?’ He continues:

‘For the UK, for centuries one of the most open economies and societies in the world, global security is national security and national prosperity depends on an orderly international economic system. For us, a functioning global order is a core national interest. And we must be in shape ourselves to shape it.’

In other words, globalisation is the agenda. It is wrong to present ‘global security’ as being the same as ‘national security’, nor does the UK’s national prosperity depend upon ‘an orderly international economic system’. Britain’s industrial revolution occurred in the run up to and during the Napoleonic wars. What matters is that the UK can ensure its own security and stability and that will not necessarily be achieved by hobnobbing on international institutions, and will certainly not be achieved by continuously sacrificing British interests in furtherance of a globalist and cultural Marxist agenda.

The policy of globalisation is a hybrid of political correctness (the mechanism for the imposition of cultural Marxism) and fundamentalist classical liberal free trade theories (stemming from the early nineteenth century).

Lord Sedwell complains that the UK had spent a decade ‘wrestling with our national identity’, but ‘This country still has the world’s sixth-largest economy, some of the best universities, world-class diplomatic, intelligence and security services, a formidable military.’ He believes: ‘A new Parliament is an opportunity to reboot and rebuild.’ That is, the report is produced with an incoming Labour government in mind.

The reality is that the UK economy is flatlining and has been so since the financial crash of 2008, and its military capability is increasingly puny. Lord Sedwell’s description of the UK’s diplomatic services is disproved by Britain’s long term decline and the fiasco of implementing Brexit. The various entities comprising the UK’s ruling class are not as clever as they choose to think they are.

In the Summary, the report asks the question: ‘What will the world look like in 2040 and how will the UK’s role be different and what does that mean for how the UK’s approach to international affairs needs to adapt?’ This is a globalist approach. How the world might look in 2040 is not something to be determined by analysis, as the world is too unstable to be predictable. For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not predicted and the ultimate consequences remain unknown as is the war’s outcome. Then there is the situation in Gaza. The best that can be achieved in future predictions is to identify potential problems and current trends. The report does not do that. The report continues:

‘The task of institutional renewal is challenging:

• Influence abroad depends on political and socio-economic success at home. The UK will need to engage with a clearer sense of purpose, history, interests and assets as an offshore mid-sized power.

• We have to renew – and in some cases build – practical international alliances, particularly with “middle powers”; and share some rights to strengthen multilateralism.

• We need to embed clear long-term mission in the mandates guiding UK international institutions (including by creating a Department for International Affairs or Global Affairs UK).

• We need to harness the combined levers of the state. That requires better central coordination, delivery structures (eg agencies and a development bank) and engagement with domestic stakeholders including devolved administrations.

• And we need to be properly resourced: update tools and skills, a more porous international civil service, and financing (1% GNI for planned international spending alongside 2% for defence).’

This globalist wish-list is positively anti-Brexit. In the 2016 referendum, voters expressed a desire for the restoration of national sovereignty. The report’s authors stated plan is to torpedo that democratic decision.

The UK does not seek ‘influence abroad’ for its own sake – but to defend British interests. We should not ‘share some rights to strengthen multilateralism’ and doing so is against British interests as well as undermining British power. To create new globalist bureaucracies would be an act of madness and wastefulness at a time of difficult economic circumstances. Foreign policy is determined by government and not by globalist bureaucrats. The push to by-pass central government is subversive – especially so given the lack of any English parliament, which means the English are excluded given their lack of a ‘devolved’ administration.

As for the brazen greed for automatic, direct access to taxpayers’ monies, combined with a move to reduce defence expenditure, with a claim for ‘1% GNI for planned international spending’, such is inconsistent with democratic rule and good governance. The report subsequently expands upon the 1% GNI target: ‘to cover planned international spending on climate, humanitarian, development and ‘soft power’ priorities (with exceptional unforeseeable crisis spending in year handled beyond that)’. So, the ‘1% GNI’ target is not even a cap, but more of a starting point!

The bullet points amount to a proposed globalist coup.

The report asserts that the ‘global majority is determinedly nonaligned’ and that ‘humanity faces a series of potentially existential transnational challenges. These include climate change, conflict and insecurity, pandemics, irresponsible use of technology & artificial intelligence, and a global economic system that is seen by many as unjust but also inefficient and wasteful … As national challenges become more transnational reflecting greater interconnectedness, the old established political models are struggling to provide solutions.’ Once again, this is a globalist outlook, with the globalists thinking they are running the world rather than being a part of the UK government representing British interests.

When the report does refer to British interests, it instantly disregards the idea of sovereignty. Instead it asserts that due to the UK’s ‘openness’, its size, its ‘high inward migration’, its ‘significant international diaspora’, and its ‘highly interconnected economy and society’ mean that the UK must:

‘• Prioritise economic cooperation and diplomacy

• Face our historical legacy head-on

• Practise domestically what we preach internationally’

Regarding historical legacy, the report states:

‘We cannot simply brush aside concerns around the UK’s historical legacy and questions of nationhood. The exit from the EU has opened many questions, including in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Former colonies are making increasingly vocal demands around the need for reparations from colonialism and compensation for the loss and damage arising from historical industrial emissions.’

The globalism is laced with cultural Marxism. The UK’s responsibility for any of its former colonies terminated upon independence of those colonies. There is no legitimate case for reparations or compensation for either colonialism or the industrial revolution. Such claims for money are anti-White and anti-British hatred. If the report’s authors feel the urge to donate money to the Third World, then no one is holding them back. Let them get on with it. What they are not entitled to do is thieve monies from the Welfare State and start dishing it out across the Third World in some grand extravaganza of an ego trip.

The report demands: ‘The UK and its traditional allies will have to share rights in multilateral institutions with emerging powers.’ The suggested objectives of the proposed new international affairs department ‘might include: promotion of UK prosperity and security, addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, supporting international development, and championing rights and responsibilities.’ Only the first of these suggestions is concerned with British national interests.

Further: ‘Once ministerial ‘entry’ decisions are made, programme budgets should be delegated and ringfenced in order to provide predictable delivery of climate, development and humanitarian cooperation.’ The new department would be under no control and would be a law unto itself. Complaining about tight budgets, the report demands that such constraint be circumvented with a new ‘development bank with a broader range of instruments and capital base … By leveraging capital markets, this would deliver stronger flows at lower long term fiscal cost to the taxpayer. It would also enable long term investments in line with UK objectives in a broader range of countries, including non-concessional mechanisms in countries that do not qualify for development assistance.’ The globalist extravagance is limited only by the imagination of the globalists and not by economic reality.

The report is a proposed globalist coup.