Isolated Britain – Welcome to the New World Order

Jonathan Edwards

Any hopes that the new year would herald a return to more normal and calm times were shredded with the audacious and reckless abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the United States and his removal to New York to face prosecution.

The operation was audacious in that it’s the sort of action you would normally associate with the most far-fetched of Hollywood movies or video games.

Indeed, it seems that President Trump’s appraisal of events was as if he had just seen the promotional trailer for the next Call of Duty X Box game. It was also the clearest demonstration yet that the US was now pursuing an openly aggressive foreign policy based on the use of hard power where the only determining factor at play was self-interest as decided by the occupiers of the White House.

The abduction was reckless on a whole host of fronts. It clearly broke international law no matter one’s opinion of the Maduro regime. It legitimises the expansionist aims of Russia, not least in Ukraine. It further eroded, if it still existed, the so-called international rules-based order that has prevailed since the end of the Second World War.

From a US perspective as well, the operation will undoubtedly damage the country’s standing in the long term across the world, but particularly in Latin America.

The Trump Administration has a primitive view of the world in which every nation state is in it for themselves; where the strong rule over the weak; and where the great powers of the day are in open competition for access and control of resources, especially critical minerals and raw materials seen as essential for new technologies and modern weapons.

Subtlety and a pretence to operate within international norms in international affairs has been replaced with open brazenness.

MAGA’s approach to foreign policy is founded on a paranoiac response to China’s emergence as a truly global power. In the world of MAGA the rest of the Western world, and Europe in particular, has been leeching off the US while rivals undermine its dominance.

The response to the war in Ukraine is a case in point. As far as President Trump is concerned, it is Europe’s problem to solve.

This all leaves UK and European foreign policy at a major crisis point. The old foundations are crumbling. I don’t think for one moment that Prime Minister Starmer has a neutral view on events in Venezuela.

He knows that there is an equivalence with Russian policy in the Ukraine regardless of one’s views on the Venezuelan regime. However, he also knows that due to the strategic weakness of the EU and the UK globally, and in particular in relation to the situation in Ukraine, he has to try and keep the US in game.

Opinions

The problem for the PM is two-fold. Firstly, his non-committal response reconfirmed people’s established opinions of him, arguably unfair, that he is a politician without clearly defined convictions.

It has been an open goal for Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems, who has positioned himself cleverly as an arch Trump critic knowing that a world of opportunities would be presented during the second term due to the likely supine approach of the UK Government.

To compound the domestic political problems for the PM, he also has a new real threat from the left in the shape of the Greens under Zack Polanski, who has accused the Prime Minister of subservience.

Secondly, it seems that UK and EU foreign policy is based on avoiding rocking the Trump boat in the hope that in three years’ time normality will return with the next President.

The overriding aim of the policy is to preserve NATO (only five EU States are not NATO members) and as I said earlier keep the US engaged in Ukraine one way or another.

This week’s UK-French commitment to deploy troops to police a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire can be seen in this context. Whether or not the commitment is credible or not is a debate for another day.

No guarantees

The major problem, if this is the approach, is that there are no guarantees that ‘normality’ will return at the end of the second Trump Presidency.

The Republican Party seems to be moving in an even more extreme MAGA direction and the best the Democrats will be able to offer is a less extreme version. Perhaps the impact of Trumpism will be to embed his worldview on US foreign policy regardless of who controls the White House.

Perhaps there is more substance to the approach of the Prime Minister in that he knows the world has changed and he and other European allies need to buy as much time as possible to work out how to respond to the new world where old certainties are fast diminishing.

If so, rather than skirting issues, the UK Government is going to have to find a way of explaining the vulnerabilities of the current strategic position the UK faces, without the cloak of an empire to project strength and dislocated economically and politically from the rest of our continent.

At the end of the day the UK is far too small a state to be navigating a new wild west world order alone. It faces a fundamental choice. Either it accepts a subordinate relationship with the US pursuing a MAGA like philosophy, or it looks to Europe.

The EU is not without its problems economically and in terms of defence policy, but surely this is a better route for the British state (or a future independent Wales) as we face the challenges of the rest of the century.

Working together with our neighbours based on cooperation in a highly uncertain world.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24