Deciding on what the UK’s place in the world should be has been like watching politicians spin a wheel. Then spinning it again when the option they landed on doesn’t work out. First, it was the imperial power projections of Brexit, the reassertion of Britain’s place in the world unshackled by the limitations of equal partnership with Europe. You don’t hear so much about this any more (funny that). Instead, we now find ourselves in an era chastened by the embarrassing bombast of the past few years, but still trying to work out where we “fit”, what our role is, in a world where the country’s status has taken a beating.
Earlier this month, former diplomats proposed that the Foreign Office be abolished altogether and be replaced by a new Department for International Affairs. As it stands, the Foreign Office works like “a giant private office for the foreign secretary” and should be replaced by a new independent institution, one “less rooted in the past”. The new body they propose would be a more modern place. The colonial art would go, and with it, other outdated ways of working and thinking about foreign policy.
