US NewsThe Post-Brexit Paradox of ‘Global Britain’

Lib Dems would win general election if it was held tomorrow - poll

The Liberal Democrats would win a general election if one was held tomorrow, according to a new national poll. Following impressive results in the European elections, the resurgent party have pipped the Brexit Party to top spot in a YouGov survey carried out for The Times. It is only the second occasion that neither Labour nor the Conservatives have occupied first place in a YouGov poll. Brexit in-depth: All the latest news, analysis and expert opinion Some 24% said they would vote for the Remain-supporting Lib Dems, with 22% backing the Brexit Party.

Can any project forged on the back of Brexit be truly internationalist? Theresa May’s successor will find out.

Areas with lots of migrants voted mainly to Remain. Or did they?

© Matt Dunham / AP Brexit supporters participate in the "March to Leave" on March 29, 2019, the date Brexit was supposed to happen.

Editor's note: The opinions in this article are the author's, as published by our content partner, and do not represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.

LONDON—Brexit is an all-consuming maelstrom of political dysfunction, one that has compelled Britain’s eyes inward. Yet amid the chaos, Prime Minister Theresa May has been steadfast in her determination that the country’s international role should not succumb to the same myopic fate as its departure from the European Union has.

Sajid Javid says 'no, no, no' to second Brexit referendum

Tory leadership contender Sajid Javid has ruled out a second referendum, a general election and revoking Article 50 should he win the keys to Number 10. The home secretary is one of a dozen Conservatives vying to become the next prime minister. Writing in the Daily Mail, he said the public had voted for Brexit "in good faith" and MPs and the government have "a duty to get on and deliver on the result". "The voters have been asked their opinion more than enough times. Never in this country's history have we asked people to go to the polls a second time without implementing their verdict from the first," he said.

Level playing field: A set of rules to ensure that one country, or group of countries, doesn't have an unfair advantage over another. This can involve areas such as workers' rights and environmental standards. Free trade agreements like the Brexit deal often include level playing field measures.

Britain has taken security and defence cooperation off the table in talks. But these are more important than fish quotas, says Guardian columnist The essential issue here is that Brexit can make EU membership go away, but not the EU itself. When the only problem was being inside, escape was the

In the febrile early months following the June 2016 referendum when Britain voted to leave the EU, its allies were fearful that the vote would see the country’s drawbridges snapping upward. Sensing the urgent need for optimism, May and her then–foreign secretary (and now possible successor), Boris Johnson, gave bold speeches, setting out ambitions for what they called a “truly global Britain.” Conjuring an image of a triumphant, swashbuckling nation retaking its rightful place on the world stage, a global Britain embodies the promise of a Brexit dividend, one in which the country is no longer hemmed in by what Brexiteers see as a European cage.

Almost three years on—through failed parliamentary votes, cabinet resignations, and May’s announcement that she will step down as prime minister—this mantra of internationalism remains one of the few legacies of May’s premiership. So far, however, a global Britain has been nothing more than a hollow promise.

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Brexit would eliminate Britain 's tariff-free trade status with the other EU members. Tariffs would raise the cost of exports. The U.K. is already vulnerable because heat waves and droughts caused by global warming have reduced local food production.

It is true that Britain must have a global perspective and look for profits wherever they can be found. But globalism as a strategy is a different matter, for four reasons. There are two further options for a post -EU British foreign policy, although they are more theoretical than practical: the first is that of an

© Thomson Reuters File: British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a statement in London, Britain, May 24, 2019. REUTERS/Toby Melville With British diplomats struggling to convince their international peers of the phrase’s fundamental purpose and meaning, a cross-party group of lawmakers leading the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee warned last year that “Global Britain” had only succeeded thus far as “a superficial rebranding exercise.”

At the heart of the global Britain promise is a great paradox: Those who are most naturally inclined to support such an idea—young, university-educated, well-traveled Britons—fundamentally resent the notion that any project forged on the back of Brexit could be truly internationalist.

Foreign policy has often served only as a sideshow to British domestic politics. However, with Brexit sparking complex new conversations about trade, diplomacy, and defense policy—as well as more elemental questions about Britain’s role in the world—foreign affairs may well become one of the most active battlegrounds of Britain’s deepening social fault lines.

MICHAEL GOVE: The real horror of a Halloween No Deal Brexit? Handing the keys to Number 10 to Jeremy Corbyn

MICHAEL GOVE: I have used the Whitehall machine to get things done and force through dynamic reforms. I have directed civil servants rather than letting them direct me. That’s what I did as education secretary – with 1.9million more children now in good and outstanding schools. That’s how I approached reform of the criminal justice system – modernising our courts and making punishments fit the crime.

Post - Brexit Britain Will Stick to Old Alliances. Britain will continue to stick to its fundamental foreign policy objectives but will have a greater national autonomy and flexibility in decision-making, says Inderjeet Parmar, an international relations expert and professor of International Politics at City

The referendum reshaped the British political landscape, and generated fears that the West, more generally, is marching away from globalization, in favor of trade With this upcoming Saturday marking 100 days since the referendum, here we tell the story of post - Brexit -vote- Britain in 17 charts.

Brexit in-depth: The latest news, analysis and expert opinion

And with about a dozen contenders lining up to replace May as Britain’s prime minister, the future of the ”global Britain” catchphrase and the strategy it was intended to inspire will become central to the Conservative Party’s, and the country’s, future. False silos that have long separated domestic and foreign policy will have to come down.

“Foreign policy isn’t about foreigners,” Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of Parliament and the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told me. “It’s about us, and how we shape the world around us in the interest of our people, our friends and partners.”

It won’t be easy: New research I have conducted with the British Foreign Policy Group, an educational think tank, and the pollster BMG makes clear that Britain is phenomenally divided on the country’s international identity, spearheaded by a government unable to make the trade-offs necessary to truly achieve the idea of a global Britain. The notion that citizens will instinctively support the costs necessary to become a more prominent military, diplomatic, and trading power does not stand.

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Karen Cook’s first design for the land at 22 Bishopsgate in the City of London, an extravagant spiral-topped tower, foundered during the financial crisis. When the UK voted for Brexit in 2016, it looked as if the architect’s second design — for a less flamboyant but even larger tower — might go the same way. But after a brief pause, her investor backers decided to proceed, and today 22 Bishopsgate looms over the City as 1,200 workers toil to finish the tallest and largest office building in the Square Mile. The 62-storey skyscraper reached its full height of 278 metres last month, and construction of the £600m building is meant to be finished towards the end of this year.

Gallery: Brexit timeline (Photo Services)

Political momentum is instead building behind those who see more downsides than upsides in our changing world, and for whom liberalism and internationalism inspire suspicion, mistrust, or even fear. These Britons generally have lived less mobile lives, hold identities more closely rooted in their communities, and are less bothered by events outside the confines of the nation. For example, just 6 percent of those who traveled abroad frequently last year consider immigration to be an important issue, compared with 44 percent of those who didn’t leave Britain. Among those who never stray abroad, there is, to be sure, a significant degree of distinction between people whose socioeconomic circumstances have hampered their access to international opportunities and the older, wealthier Britons who have chosen to prioritize an exclusive national identity.

May herself supported remaining in the EU ahead of the 2016 referendum. But after the vote, while many of her colleagues in the Conservative Party espoused a so-called Liberal Leave argument—that Brexit would allow Britain to secure new free trade deals and to better work with fast-growing developing countries—she recognized the role that concerns about the economic and social consequences of globalization had played during the referendum. At the first Conservative Party conference following the vote, she spoke to the growing reticence toward internationalism and the clamor for a strong expression of national pride, telling the audience, “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.”

This extraordinary moment broke with 20 years of political consensus behind a form of loose cosmopolitanism, beginning with Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997, signifying the radical early ambitions of May’s premiership. It also pitted her government’s two core messages against each other—at once pushing for a global Britain while denouncing globalism. Ultimately, her efforts to promote a global Britain without the support of global citizens were always doomed to fail.

© Thomson Reuters A pro-Brexit supporter wraps herself in a flag, as rival pro and anti-Brexit demonstrations take place, in central London, Britain, December 9, 2018. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez In a divided Brexit Britain, only one issue provides space for common ground: trade. Those who voted to leave the EU and those who cast ballots to remain differ on many issues—only a quarter of Leave voters support increases to Britain’s overseas spending, and Remain supporters are twice as likely to care about climate change and global conflicts—but all agree that trade should be at the heart of the country’s global priorities.

Although Matthew Elliott, who led the Vote Leave campaign, recognizes that the “liberal, internationalist, free-trading” argument for Brexit was not the primary driving force for core Leave voters, he told me he was certain that it was decisive in persuading swing voters. In this way, the Leave campaign was incredibly effective at mustering diverse constituencies to support the vision of a sovereign, global Britain, unshackled from the EU.

Nonetheless, there is little appetite to stomach the compromises of free trade: Only 26 percent of Leave voters we surveyed would be willing to accept any increases in immigration from, for example, India, one of Britain’s priority markets—even if they were crucial to securing a free-trade agreement.

It can be difficult to reconcile the pulsating tribalism of post-referendum Britain with the immense popularity of the flagrant internationalism promoted by the successive Blair governments. At the 2005 Labour Party Conference in Brighton, the then–prime minister forcefully rebuked the growing disquiet around globalization, announcing, “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer”.

© Thomson Reuters An anti-Brexit protester demonstrates outside the Houses of Parliament, ahead of a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Blair’s political fortunes were not evergreen, though. His decisions on economic policy, immigration, and the Iraq War would crucially challenge the public’s trust in an increasingly connected world order and the institutions that seek to uphold it. As Britons cast ballots more than a decade later in the EU referendum, voters had begun to reject the sense of inevitability they had been sold around the nation’s trajectory. Indeed, by 2016, Blair would launch his own policy institute in London, its mission—“Making globalisation work for the many”—hinting at a degree of regret.

Westminster will undoubtedly continue to debate Blair’s legacy for many years to come. It is clear, however, that no other leader in this political generation is likely to inherit the fortuitous climate for internationalism that he enjoyed.

With the clock ticking on May’s premiership, the paradox of a global Britain she unwittingly exposed will need to be reconciled by her successor. The candidates jostling to replace her as the Conservative Party leader and, by extension, prime minister, appear committed to championing a global Britain, but have not yet articulated any means of persuading the large swaths of the country skeptical of internationalism to fall in line.

If her successor calls for a general election and the opposition Labour Party comes to power, it will face its own reckoning around the discord between its membership’s broad support for international institutions and its leadership’s radical positions on unilateral nuclear disarmament, NATO, and the military.

For now, however, the challenge falls to the party that has made itself the party of Brexit and a global Britain, without delivering either.

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