IS Britain great anymore? Not in the eyes of the international community.
European countries like Estonia are opening borders as their Covid lockdowns are eased. The Italians are welcome, likewise the Spanish – both countries with early, heavy Covid death tolls that are now apparently under control. On Tuesday, 26 Italians sadly lost their lives to Covid. But almost 10 times that number died in the UK. Our populations are roughly similar in size.
So, the borders of the seven nations in the “Baltic bubble” aren’t opening yet for citizens of the US, Russia – or Britain.
Ditto Greece, Austria, Spain, Cyprus and Slovakia, while the Netherlands, Slovakia, Iceland and Bulgaria want British visitors to quarantine for a fortnight.
That’s what the PM’s chaotic and cavalier Covid “strategy” has won for “Great” Britain. Pariah status. Apart from tourism-dependent economies desperate enough to contemplate “air bridges”, we just aren’t welcome. Not yet.
Earlier this week, two Kiwis returning home to visit a dying relative produced New Zealand’s first new Covid cases for almost a month. Where did they come from? The UK. Now that may have been very bad luck, and Jacinda Ardern hasn’t made any attempt to blame Britain or pass the buck. But the story has made headlines around the world, and given NZ’s recent celebration of its precious, hard-won Covid-free status, news that the first re-infection came from Blighty further cements Britain’s image as the Covid sick person of Europe.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Boris Johnson axed the Department for International Development (DFiD) this week, prompting this angry protest from Daniel Willis of the international charity Global Justice Now: “DFID has been far from perfect, but its formal independence from the Foreign Office offered protection from aid money [becoming] a slush fund for business interests. Now that’s been swept away – Empire 2.0 here we come. It’s bad news for the fight against global poverty, and good news for suppliers of corporate drinks parties in foreign embassies.”
Never mind the moral arguments, because Johnson clearly doesn’t use or hear them. The pettiness of that move has left Britain’s much exaggerated soft power looking hollow and wilted, just as UK teams are trying to negotiate new trade deals to replace the agreements that will fall away once the UK leaves the EU in December. Good timing.
But wait. Boris has an idea. A way to lift Britain’s battered image abroad. He wants a military plane used by the Prime Minister and members of the royal family to be repainted in the colours of the Union flag so he can travel the world in red, white and blue style and thus promote “Global Britain”.
Even in the great panetheon of Boris distractions, this one is particularly crass.
It’s not just that flying into foreign capitals where international aid has been axed in a Union Jack-emblazoned plane will produce a mixed reception.
It’s not even that the rest of the world will be laughing like drains as a Prime Minister jets his way into last-gasp Brexit talks in Brussels, like a latter-day Austin Powers.
It’s that empty, childish, Trumpian gestures like this only serve to convince politicians, trading partners and citizens around the world that they’ve been fooled by Britain’s habit of trumpeting its own greatness.
And they won’t be fooled again.
Headlines from around the world show how far Britain’s international stock has fallen.
The Italian Corriere della Sera says Britain’s situation is “a nightmare from which you cannot awake, but in which you landed because of your own fault or stupidity”, adding that Britain has become “a prisoner of itself” – the country most reluctant to impose a lockdown and now the most cautious to start reopening.
The German DPA news agency says Britain has emerged as Europe’s Covid “problem child”; Die Zeit puts the UK near the bottom of the Covid league table, writing: “The [British] Government is now trying to pretend to the public that it has the situation under control.”
THE Greek daily Ethnos describes Boris Johnson as “more dangerous than coronavirus”, and says one of the great tragedies of the crisis is that “incompetent leaders” such as Johnson and Donald Trump were “at the helm at a time of such an emergency”. Le Monde in France has described England’s new “stay alert” slogan as cringeworthy and suggests the UK itself is “fading”.
It seems hell hath no fury like European neighbours suddenly disillusioned.
As Rebecca McQuillan observed in the Herald: “This is more than schadenfreude towards self-important ‘buccaneering’ Britain; it is genuine incredulity. How did Britain, one of the world’s most advanced democracies, with its sophisticated healthcare system, a nation embarrassed by an over-endowment of world-leading universities, end up lagging behind our neighbours in the biggest public health crisis of the last century?”
Of course, many readers of this paper could easily supply the answer. But foreign commentators tend to overlook “domestic” politics and therefore missed the collapse of the post-war settlement, the hostile environment, Windrush scandal and the stealthy marketisation of vital public services in England. That’s why so many progressive Europeans didn’t “get” Scottish independence first time around, believing the campaign was based on anti-English, right-wing, xeonophobic nationalism. Not any more.
Scotland’s distinctive approach to lockdown has gained profile far beyond these shores – thanks to warm words from David Nabarro, a special envoy to the World Health Organisation, who said Scotland is “doing good” in its response to the pandemic.
But Scotland’s increasingly distinctive international profile and Britain’s long slow slide from credibility started long before the Covid nightmare with Brexit.
Last May, the UK serving ambassador to South Korea Simon Smith said Brexit is a political shambles which is destroying the UK’s reputation abroad.
WEEKS earlier, Scott Wightman, UK High Commissioner to Singapore, said Britain is seen as a country “beset by division, obsessed with ideology and careless of truth” and as a result, major investors expect future investment in Europe to be directed towards Germany and France.
Wightman quit his job and is now back in Scotland as director of external affairs for the Scottish Government.
This is where we were in the eyes of our own tactful, punch-pulling diplomats last year, before Covid had even struck.
Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat, says: “The reputation of nations has been put under the microscope [by Covid]. Were they efficient in responding? How did their populations react? Were they led by reason or emotion? What did they prioritise? All of that will resonate for years in the league tables of soft power.”
Which is a polite way of saying Britain’s soft power – built on a self-proclaimed reputation for competence and common sense – has completely evaporated. The curtain’s been swept back to reveal a blustering old Etonian running the show, wielding nothing more credible than a large Union Jack-coloured megaphone.
Boris may refuse to see himself as others see him.
But the eyes of the world are on Britain now, and they can clearly see what supporters of independence have seen for decades now ... Little Britain.
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