The Conceptual Basis of British Post-Brexit Foreign Policy: the Idea of “Global Britain”
This article is devoted to the problem of the formation of the conceptual framework of Great Britain’s foreign policy after leaving the EU, the main essence of which boils down to the idea of “Global Britain”. Its purpose is to trace the transformation of this idea, which substantiates the United Kingdom’s claim to be a global player in the modern world from the moment it appeared in the country’s political discourse shortly before Brexit to the conceptualization of the country’s foreign policy after leaving the EU. It is stated that the problem of determining further priorities of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom arises after the unexpected results of the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union. Brexit and the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in 2020 accelerated the development of the country’s foreign policy strategy. There has been a major overhaul of the country’s strategy since the end of the Cold War, conceptualized on March 16, 2021 with the emergence of the government document “Global Britain in an Age of Competition: A Comprehensive Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy Review”. This concept is based on the idea of “Global Britain” as a new superpower, which has all the prerequisites to secure its status as a global player in the world arena. It is noted that the positioning of Great Britain as a global player on the world stage in government documents and speeches of conservatives could be found even before Brexit. The very appearance of the term is not the merit of the Conservative Party. Thus, G. Brown, who was a member of T. Blair’s Labor government, back in 2005, in his speech, mentioned the special role of his country in European unification. The concept of “Global Britain” was further developed on the eve of the country’s withdrawal from the European family, when the Tories began to develop a conceptual basis for a new foreign policy course for the United Kingdom. They proposed this concept as an alternative to EU membership, focusing on the geopolitical and geo-economic prospects that opened up for the UK after the “divorce” from the EU. Based on the analysis of the strategic documents of the United Kingdom after Brexit, it is shown how the idea of “Global Britain” from part of the political discourse of the government of the Conservative Party appears as a concept. The apogee in its development is the publication of a strategic document on March 16, 2021. Its analysis allows us to determine the main directions of British foreign policy after leaving the EU based on the idea of “Global Britain”. Among the main directions, it is worth noting the turn towards engineering and the preservation of a close alliance with the United States. It is concluded that the UK has the potential to realize the ambitions of a global player: the country is a nuclear power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a member of the G7, G20, the world’s leading economy, has the largest defense budget.