British Prime Minister Theresa May during the final press briefing at the EU Summit in Brussels, Oct. 21, 2016.Alastair Grant/Press Association. All rights reserved. At the EU’s October summit, UK Prime Minister Theresa May told the assembled leaders that, once it left the EU, the UK would remain a ‘strong and dependable partner’. Given that the UK is effectively walking away from the heart of Europe’s post-world war two order, the EU27 leaders could be forgiven for taking this with a large pinch of salt. Since the Brexit vote… how little attention has been paid to this shift to a global foreign policy of narrow mercantilism.
Whatever the UK’s future foreign policy goals, it is clear that Brexit entails a profound loss of influence and engagement for the UK across a range of EU and global challenges. Yet one of the remarkable features of the British debate since the Brexit vote is how little attention has been paid to this shift to a global foreign policy of narrow mercantilism, with attention focused instead onto how to retain all the benefits of the single market while leaving the EU (a quixotic aim indeed).
Losing influence across the board
The EU faces a set of major challenges today that range from internal ones, to its neighbourhood to global issues. These include tackling the continuing fall-out from the 2008 global financial crisis, the ‘arc of crisis’ that surrounds the EU’s neighbourhood both to the East and South, and global issues – not least climate change, and the shifting global power order.
