Cleverly by name. And perhaps even Cleverly by nature, too? Judging by his Guardian interview this week, and by his step-by-step rebuilding of Britain’s relations with Europe, James Cleverly seems to be quietly cajoling Conservative foreign policy down off the post-Brexit battlements and towards a more recognisably practical and stable place in world affairs. If so, two important questions follow. Where exactly is that new place for Britain? And will the Tory party let him do it?
The foreign secretary’s interview in Tokyo exemplifies Rishi Sunak-era pragmatism. The interview’s tone is less brazen towards China than anything that any of Cleverly’s recent predecessors would have either wanted or felt able to say. But it is also stronger on mood music than on measurable stuff. It reads in part like an attempt to soothe the ill-feeling provoked by Emmanuel Macron’s comment that America’s allies should not become its “vassals” in any confrontation with China.
Nevertheless, just look at some of the things Cleverly said after the G7 foreign ministers meeting this week. It was not in anyone’s interest “to just pull the shutters down” on relations with Beijing. China’s size and importance mean “we have got to – and therefore we will – engage closely and regularly”. Not to engage means “throwing away” influence. Engaging means focusing on “what is in our national interest, and what is in the interest of the world more generally”.
This is not the usual language of post-Brexit Britain. The words have, of course, to be judged against Cleverly’s actions. Yet they are a long way from the sabre-rattling and flag-waving of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss eras. If she had lasted as prime minister, Truss intended to formally designate China as “the most serious long-term threat to our values and way of life”, in an intended update last autumn to Britain’s integrated review of foreign and defence policy. In the event, the review was rewritten under Sunak to dub China “an epoch-defining challenge to the type of international order we want to see”.
But the Cleverly approach has little in common with the language of the pre-Brexit era, either. Those were the years in which David Cameron promised a “golden era” in UK-China relations, and the former chancellor, George Osborne, proclaimed Britain as “China’s best partner in the west”. On his state visit to Britain in 2015, President Xi Jinping struck a similarly starry-eyed note, speaking of lifting relations “to a new height”, and describing China and Britain as “a community of shared interests”.
Rarely has hot air emptied more definitively from a diplomatic balloon than it has since then. Most of the reasons for the shift are China’s doing: among them, the repression in Hong Kong, threats against Taiwan, human rights issues, cyber and technology security fears, Covid and Chinese support for Russia in Ukraine. But a key driver has also been the refreshed British nationalism that coursed through the Tory party after Brexit, driving a general bullishness towards other nations.
Most of that nationalism, self-evidently, was targeted at the European Union. For some years, the European Research Group became the most important faction in the Tory party. Ministers could not govern without its support. But, as Brexit’s salience and popularity have waned, so has the importance of the ERG. The March parliamentary vote on the Northern Ireland protocol revisions (in which Cleverly was deeply involved) showed their numbers reduced to a small rump.
For many erstwhile Brexiters, China is now the great new threat on which their nationalism feeds. There have been periods in the past two years when the Sinophobe Tories seemed on the verge of turning the Conservatives into the anti-China party as well as the anti-Europe party, particularly while Truss was in a senior position. But the confidence that is so evident in Cleverly’s interview suggests that these attempts are running out of steam, too. Much will depend on the reception that his planned China speech next week receives.
It is no surprise to see the nationalist “ourselves alone” tendency on foreign policy withering. Britain won’t get anywhere by seeing everyone except Australia as a threat. The part of Brexitism that genuinely imagined Britain could reclaim great power status outside the EU looks more delusional than ever today. Economic stagnation and the Ukraine war have underscored the fact that Britain’s interests are dependent on restored trade and effective alliances, above all with North America and Europe. For the rest, Britain is not a Pacific power, Russia is a hostile state, the future of the US remains uncertain and liberal democracies need to stick together. There is no role in such a world for a maverick Britain.
So it makes complete sense for Britain to be more appropriate in its foreign policy ambitions and to prioritise the practicable. This explains why Sunak and Cleverly, both former Brexiters, are trying to regain some of the trust – and trade – in Europe that Britain lost in the Johnson and Truss years. This is the process of which restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland is the necessary foundation. It’s exactly what Labour would do too.
It also makes sense to seek a conditional, varied and more nuanced relationship with China – and one day, when conditions again allow, with Russia. The image Cleverly used in his interview to depict such a relationship had a period charm. “It’s not an on-off switch. It’s not even a volume knob. It’s not about dialling up or dialling down. It’s more like a graphic equaliser.” At least the megaphone has at last been quietly junked. Now Britain needs to find the right tune.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
