A recent survey of popular and elite opinion done by the Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, reveals that Britons still want the United Kingdom to be ambitious in its foreign policy and to play a key role in world affairs.
As of today Britain belongs to the club of the world’s major economies and occupies a structurally important position within a number of multilateral organisations. However, lately it seems that the British government is more willing to take a back seat when it comes to foreign policy and that the UK’s status as an internationalist state might be slowly eroding.
Now, as Thomas Raines, who wrote the report, said, “the public appears to reject ideas of decline and supports an ambitious British foreign policy”. The results of the survey show that 63 percent of the public and 61 percent of opinion-formers believe that Britain should aspire to be “great power”. Moreover, 70 percent holds that the UK has a responsibility to maintain international security, 60 percent supports providing troops for peacekeeping operations and a clear majority believes the UK should be at the forefront of the global response to climate change.
Terrorism is prioritised by the public as a source of foreign policy concern and Russia is considered a main threat to stability in international security. Yet, for what concerns the military campaign against ISIS the UK’s contribution to the coalition is rather modest: an average of less than one air strike per day, a small number of weapons for the Kurds and a commitment of 48 trainers. On the European front, while the German chancellor, the French president, and the US secretary are leading the diplomatic mission aiming at securing a ceasefire in Moscow and in Kiev, Britain has shied away from the frontline with David Cameron not even attending the defence summit in Munich last Friday.
However, the survey also found that “public’s attitudes are marked by a degree of caution and defensiveness. They are sceptical of intervention in support of uprising overseas, think foreign policy should focus on protecting the UK at its borders and remain unsupportive of development aid.” These views pose a challenge to foreign-policy makers, who are pressured to design a foreign policy that is ambitious in its scope, but constrained by a limited budget.
Interestingly, the survey revealed that the public and opinion-formers are divided concerning the European Union, with public perceptions of the EU remaining negative and the opinion-formers being extremely supportive of membership to the EU.
It is time for the UK to rethink its strategy and reassess its standing in global politics. Britons are clearly dissatisfied with the current foreign policy and this is something politicians campaigning for the May general elections need to take into account.
