Harold Macmillan, a more far-sighted UK prime minister, came to power at a time when Britain needed to come to terms with its diminished postwar role.
Recognising this, the Tory PM shifted British imperialism towards a strategy of ‘soft’ power and diplomacy – attempting to paint a picture of Britain as democratic, stable, and reliable. To this end, he hung in Number 10 a quote from The Gondoliers: “Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot”.
In the years and decades since, however, British imperialism has become even more entangled. Endless austerity has ruthlessly decimated the Foreign Office, severely blunting Britain’s ability to project any influence abroad.
As part of this, overseas development ‘aid’ has been cut from 0.7 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.5 percent, with a new plan to cut it to 0.23 percent by 2028-29.
A new ‘restructuring plan’, meanwhile, proposes 2,000 job losses – 25 percent of the total Foreign Office workforce. Civil servants have compared the atmosphere to the Hunger Games, with Whitehall mandarins forced to reapply for their jobs and compete against one another.
“The mood in some departments is despondent, even mutinous,” stated one anonymous employee inside the Foreign Office, speaking to Sky News. “(There is) very little trust in senior leadership.”
Aid and imperialism
Foreign ‘aid’ has never been charity. ‘Soft’ imperialism is still imperialism.
The establishment’s turn towards diplomacy, foreign aid, and ‘democratic values’ was always a smokescreen for pursuing the interests of Britain’s bankers and bosses; a seemingly ‘kinder’, more ‘humanitarian’ means of securing global markets and spheres of influence for British capitalism.
Now the mask is coming off altogether, however. In the last few years, the vast majority of ‘foreign development aid’ has gone to Ukraine. And even this is dwarfed by the billions sent to Zelensky’s regime in military support. Hard – not soft – power is on the order of the day.
What remains of Britain’s ‘aid’ budget, meanwhile, is set to be squeezed even further to pay for Burnham’s tokenistic attempts to soften the cost-of-living crisis.
His promised £2 bus fare cap, for example, will cost over £500 million next year – mostly funded by forcing the planet’s poorest countries, many of which are former British colonies, to pay interest on the ‘aid’ they receive. In other words, ‘development’ grants will be replaced with loans and debt.
Selling off the family silver
British imperialism is also eating away at itself. The British Overseas estate – £2.5 billion worth of property in other countries, owned by the Foreign Office – is being sold off piecemeal, eroding the global sway of the country’s diplomatic apparatus.
In 2018, the Tory government offloaded the UK’s prestigious Bangkok embassy for £420 million . Since then, a swathe of properties in major cities – including Tokyo, Paris, Bilbao, Bogota, Lusaka, and Montserrat – have followed.
Currently, a seven-bedroom New York penthouse, bought in 2019 for £12 million for the trade commissioner for North America, is under review. At the time, this purchase was defended as “the best possible deal” for promoting UK interests in the US market for “years to come”. Today, its potential sale is an apt reflection of the sorry state of the ‘special relationship’.
Illustrating the long-term decline of British imperialism even more, one-in-seven properties in the Foreign Office’s portfolio are not considered ‘operationally safe’, with a maintenance backlog of almost £500 million.
This is consistent across the British state, with 30 percent of the Ministry of Defence’s estate deemed to be in an “unacceptable condition”.
In other words, the UK government is spending millions refurbishing the country’s embassies – attempting to maintain an image of grandeur that British imperialism can no longer afford.
Overthrow the warmongers!
The truth is that the British Empire is long gone. But unlike the deluded, jingoistic establishment, we will not weep for Britain’s decline.
The humiliating cuts to the UK Foreign Office are nothing more than a ‘market correction’ – bringing Britain’s instruments of ‘soft’ power into line with the real position of British imperialism.
The task for workers and youth is to sweep away this whole bloated, wasteful wreck, along with all the imperialist warmongers who uphold it.
