Should we put Britain first? The ‘national interest’ question
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The term ‘national interest’ has re-entered political conversation. Immigration, energy security, national defence and protecting domestic industries are recurring popular concerns. A survey by More in Common found 63 per cent of Britons now support a ‘Britain First’ approach. After decades in which globalist thinking elevated transnational institutions over national sovereignty, politicians, too, are talking up the nation’s interests. Reform UK builds politics around Brexit’s promise to ‘take back control’. The Conservatives propose leaving the European Convention on Human Rights because laws should be ‘determined by a sovereign Parliament’. In his first major TV interview as prime minister, even Andy Burnham declared: ‘Defend your own national interest before anything else.’
Yet is this a case of paying lip service to national interest rather than pursuing it? The nineteenth-century statesman Lord Palmerston argued that national interests are ‘eternal and perpetual’ and that our duty is to follow them. But now Britain is a mid-ranking power whose ability to act on interests and duties has been constrained by decades living under EU rules, how can the country re-establish itself as a sovereign actor? Sceptics argue that claims to put Britain first are often performative, such as briefly denying America use of military bases to invade Iran. Britain can reject EU demands to join SAFE (Security Action For Europe), but struggles to fund its armed forces or defend its borders against small boats. It can reject Argentina’s claims over the Falklands, but from the EU ‘reset’ to giving away the Chagos Islands, Britain seems more likely to relinquish rather than assert sovereignty. What is needed to rekindle a sovereign future?
Some critics see these international difficulties as reflecting confusion at home, where developing coherent national purpose runs into muddles over identity and who belongs to the national community. When Reform UK’s pledge to prioritise British-born workers for social housing is dismissed as ‘scaremongering’, does the state have the maturity to debate which interests should take priority – never mind resist global corporations or NGOs pursuing their own agendas? Decades of prioritising sectional identity interests also raise questions about whether ‘nation’ has become a dirty word, when celebrating or contributing to national success is regularly condemned – from flagging lampposts to defending porous borders in coastal towns such as Portsmouth. Yet are government critics any less confused? Should Britain outsource free-speech protection to foreign states such as America? And is digital sovereignty, including deciding what global technology companies make available to British audiences, part of putting national interest first?
The wider challenge is how to pursue potentially disruptive national interests while offering stability in an increasingly fragmented world. Charles de Gaulle famously said nations have ‘no friends, only interests’. Yet after decades stressing shared Western ‘values’ – such as tackling global poverty and climate change – renewed emphasis on national interest can appear partisan and divisive. ‘America First’ makes many nervous. International law has often proved a fair-weather friend, invoked to justify wars in Iraq and the Balkans while disregarding national sovereignty. But as the US demands ownership of Greenland and China rattles sabres over Taiwan, could an unapologetic pursuit of national interest also undermine the international safeguards intended to protect human rights, democracy and states’ freedom from external interference?
Can Britain put national interest first or is it an empty political slogan? How can a coherent national interest be defined at home when national identity and belonging remain so contested? In the increasingly fragmented world of geopolitics, how should the national interest be pursued?
