{"id":19921,"date":"2020-03-06T13:50:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T13:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/?p=19921"},"modified":"2023-11-23T16:51:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T16:51:04","slug":"the-week-in-foreign-policy-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/2020\/03\/the-week-in-foreign-policy-8\/","title":{"rendered":"The week in foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

British politics this week has been riven not only with COVID-19 fears, but a growing internal debate within the Civil Service over bullying allegations, and the collapse of airline Flybe. Government – and the headlines – have been stretched all over the place with contingency planning and crisis communications. Across the world, there\u2019s even more going on in the week in foreign policy:<\/span><\/p>\n

According to <\/span>the Guardian\u2019s<\/span><\/a> Daniel Boffey and Mark Townsend, Boris Johnson has been accused of \u2018playing politics with the safety of Europeans<\/a> after rejecting an EU proposal for future defence and foreign policy coordination.\u2019 EU officials have said the British government is trying to turn security into a bargaining chip in talks – which has not gone down well in Brussels. EU sources accused the UK of trying to create leverage in the talks by rejecting Brussels\u2019s suggestion in its negotiating mandate of an \u201cambitious, close and lasting cooperation on external action to protect citizens from external threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Britain is accused of not taking its commitment to \u2018Global Britain\u2019 seriously enough – particularly when it comes to humanitarian crises in the Middle East. In <\/span>the Independent<\/span><\/a>, Charles Lawley argues that the West is currently without any moral leadership on the current situation in Idlib, Syria. According to the <\/span>Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations<\/span><\/a>, 10 schools and a hospital in Idlib were recently bombed on the same day. \u2018If the UK is true to its stated belief in rules-based international order, then we must ensure those who have committed any crimes against humanity are prosecuted, otherwise the message being sent is that institutions like the Geneva Convention are just for show.\u2019, Lawley concludes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In more positive news for the government, James Hitchings-Hales argues in the <\/span>Global Citizen<\/span><\/a> that the decision to reverse the ban on offshore wind farms is great news for the environment – particularly in the year in which Britain is hosting COP26. The article quotes Alok Sharma, COP26 President, who said that the race to net-zero \u2018means making the UK a world leader in renewable energy.\u2019 According to Hitchings-Hales, Britain is already a <\/span>world leader<\/span><\/a> when it comes to offshore wind energy \u2014 with the UK already controlling 36% of the world\u2019s offshore wind capacity, <\/span>according to<\/span><\/a> the Global Wind Energy Council. Even Green Party MP Caroline Lucas took to Twitter to praise the government\u2019s move, <\/span>tweeting<\/span><\/a> that: \u201cthe government is finally lifting barriers to our cheapest renewables.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the week in foreign policy: amidst the growing spread of COVID-19, or coronavirus, <\/span>the Atlantic\u2019s<\/span><\/a> Tom McTague has argued that the entire situation is about more than just the rapid spread of the viral disease. McTague argues that: an outbreak like the coronavirus reveals the priorities and values of a society, and how long it can cope without the freedoms it\u2019s accustomed to. Here in London, the government acknowledges that its own power is limited, and that it may have only a small window to impose curbs on a population unused to even basic state restrictions. McTague spells out the stark, dark political reality of COVID-19, and the pressure on government – \u2018the dilemma for Johnson is simple: How much time, money, and social upheaval should be spent saving lives from COVID-19?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Manveen Rana and Oliver Wright at <\/span>the Times,<\/span><\/a> Boris Johnson has secretly moved to strip the Department for International Development of its power to determine how the overseas aid budget is spent. The move is certain to face opposition in the House of Commons, with Chair of the International Development Select Committee, Sarah Champion, already arguing that: \u2018Internationally the great strength of DfID is that it is seen as independent from political interference and that is why as a country we are so well regarded.\u2019 Rana and Wright note that, despite Johnson\u2019s previous commitments to DfID and the 0.7% target, he has criticised DfID in the past and claimed that \u2018global Britain\u2019 needed an aid budget \u2018more in line with Britain\u2019s political, commercial and diplomatic interests.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The British Foreign Policy Group is an independent, non-partisan think tank based in London. Through dynamic research, events and networks, we seek to strengthen the UK\u2019s international engagement, and advance our understanding of global affairs in the 21st Century.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more original research, comment and events from the British Foreign Policy Group – including the week in foreign policy – sign up to our Newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communications and Events Manager Matt Gillow explores the opinion and news stories that you might have missed in the week in foreign policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":21290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-perspectives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}