Written evidence submitted by Bobby McDonagh (IRN0005)

I am delighted to contribute to this Foreign Policy Inquiry. My insight into the operation British foreign policy is based principally on three decades of working on different aspects of European Union negotiations in which Ireland and the UK, although we often saw things differently, were exceptionally close partners. I have observed and interacted with the UK’s European diplomacy from many vantage points, including as Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the EU, as Director General for EU policy in Dublin, as Ireland’s Ambassador in London, and during stints on secondment to both the European Commission and European Parliament. 

Beyond sharing the understanding which many Irish people have of the politics and psychology of our nearest neighbour, and the ubiquitous links of family and friendship, two things have given me a particular empathy for Britain and encouraged me to respond positively, without hesitation, to the invitation to offer some thoughts on the foreign policy review: first, the years which I spent as Ireland’s Ambassador in London which included the Queen’s historic visit to Ireland, the highest point in the complex and often troubled relationship between these islands; and, second, my years as an undergraduate at Oxford where, as it happens, I studied the same subject at the same college as the current Prime Minister (although many years before him) - a fact which, although it supports no claim to particular wisdom, offers a foreigner a relatively unique insight into some of the attitudes and thought processes that shape much of British public policy. 

The fact that the UK has now left the European Union does not diminish, to the slightest degree, the relevance of my observations on Britain’s EU diplomacy for the future of British foreign policy more generally. While it is incontrovertible that the UK has distanced itself from the European project for any foreseeable future, the qualities which it has traditionally brought to its EU diplomacy will be all the more important as it seeks to plough a new and more individual furrow in the world.

During my career I have also witnessed the operation of British foreign policy  outside the EU context, notably in relation to bilateral British/Irish relations and the Northern Ireland peace process. However, insofar as my observations may have some value for the parliamentary inquiry, my perceptions of British diplomacy in Europe essentially encompass the points I wish to make so I will limit myself to the EU context. 

Let me start with an anecdote. In 2009, when I was Ireland’s Ambassador in London, a senior Conservative frontbencher, later a senior minister, asserted to me over lunch at the Embassy that the performance of the UK team in Brussels had been weak and that it would be a priority of a Conservative Government to strengthen that performance. I found myself in the very odd position, as a foreign diplomat, of explaining to a heavyweight British politician that the UK was in fact highly influential in Brussels, to the extent that its performance was widely considered second to none. The problem revealed by our conversation was not any lack of British influence in Brussels, but rather a startling lack of awareness at home of that influence.

It is a simple and incontrovertible fact that the UK will be significantly hamstrung in designing the most effective approach to the conduct of its future foreign policy outside the European Union if it does not accept and understand the diplomatic strengths which gave it such influence when it was  still a member of the European Union; so much influence in fact that the UK not only shaped every specific debate significantly towards its own interests but also moulded the EU as a whole towards an overall design that it favoured - open, enlarged and still significantly intergovernmental. The EU that the UK chose to leave was much closer to a British design than was ever explained to the British public.

It is not my intention to reopen the Brexit debate; any decision in that regard  would be for the British people to consider in the fullness of time. Rather it is to point out, on the basis of my experience, that for future British foreign policy to make the most of Brexit it must be based on the reality of the country’s diplomatic strengths as manifested in Europe,  rather than on a myth about its diplomatic impotence.    

The UK’s negotiating strength in the EU was not helped over the years by its decision to opt out of several key policy areas, by a failure to use the European Parliament to best effect or by the favouring, from time to time, of short-term tactics over long-term strategy. Nevertheless, there is a wide measure of consensus across Europe that British influence was exceptional. The UK shared the significant levers of influence that are common to all Member States across the EU institutions. But, beyond that, the British impact was enhanced by the quality of its civil servants, the effectiveness of its coordination mechanisms, the potency of its networking, the dominance of its language and the admiration for its pragmatism.

It seems to me that there are six essential qualities of British diplomacy which made possible its immense influence in the European Union, and which have contributed to the UK’s justified reputation for diplomacy in Europe and further afield. It is important, and timely in the context of this review, to recall those qualities because, perhaps strangely, they have been called into question in the context of Brexit and should now be reasserted because they will be all the more important in shaping Britain’s foreign policy in the new circumstances in which it finds itself.

First, experts and expertise are self-evidently a fundamental requirement of any effective foreign policy. Foreign policy is a complex and subtle business. In any democracy, decisions should naturally be taken by elected politicians. However, unless those decisions are based of the best advice available, the pursuit of national interests will be significantly compromised.  During the decades I worked with British colleagues on European issues one of their great strengths was the depth of the expertise available to them in London, Brussels and from Britain’s global diplomatic network. Any diplomat sitting behind a United Kingdom nameplate in Brussels could be relied on to be thoroughly briefed on whatever issues were under consideration including on Britain’s interests. It is probably fair to say that British expertise in Brussels was unparalleled; and knowledge means both power and influence.

During the Brexit process, however, experts were explicitly and publicly derided and Government policy has seemed often to be driven less by professional analysis of British interests than by emotion about British identity.  It seems essential, probably more important than anything else for the shaping an effective foreign policy into the future, that the United Kingdom should rediscover the importance of listening to the exceptional diplomatic advice available to it.  Listening with an open mind to advice about Britain’s interest is especially important when that advice is uncomfortable or runs counter to a government’s own preconceived inclinations.  Obviously, this does not mean appointing political advisors or promoting public servants who will tell their political masters what they want to hear. On the contrary, it means valuing and rewarding those who speak the truth without fear or favour. The UK will now be outside the EU, but it must surely strive to recapture the open and constructive policy formulation process which characterised its membership of the European Union. This remains a fundamental prerequisite for identifying and pursuing its own interests.  Deep experience and wise advice will, of course, be available both from the Foreign Office and from across Whitehall.

Second, any foreign policy strategy worth its salt must start with a realistic identification of one’s real friends in the world. Even after Brexit, most of the UK’s closest friends will still be its former partners in the European Union; friends in terms of interests, values and geography. It was in recognition of that friendship that the UK joined the EU in the first place and put so much effort and energy into making the common enterprise work.  The public perception of the EU is sometimes one of division and conflict. The reality, however, sitting around the European table, is one of friendship, respect and accommodation. To note just one of the many threads in the rich tapestry of European friendships, the modern friendship between Britain and Ireland, so much in contrast with the conflictual history of our islands, grew out the recognition during decades of shared EU membership that we had much more in common than we had to divide us, that any disagreements were in the context of broadly agreed aims, and that we had a deeply shared way of doing business.

It is sad that the tone of the current British approach to the Brexit negotiations has become transactional and that the language of partnership has, for the moment at least, been consciously set aside. Of course, the UK should nurture other friendships around the world, as the EU and its individual Member States likewise do. But a cornerstone of an effective British foreign policy must be a spirit of consonance and cooperation with its natural friends. There is a lot of ground now to make up following the deliberate stoking, by some, of an irrational hostility to the European Union. It is important for the UK to have a stable and prosperous EU, as it is for the EU to have a stable and prosperous Britain.  

In this context, it would be a significant mistake for the UK to prioritize friendship in the years ahead with any individual EU Member States on the basis of the degree of the euro-scepticism of their Governments. One or two EU governments may make noises that are superficially attractive to strong proponents of Brexit in the UK, but their approach to democracy itself tends to be the antithesis of modern British values. 

Third, British diplomacy in the EU always understood and recognized the importance of compromise. British Ministers and diplomats were well capable of striking hard bargains when necessary, but they also recognized that the system would only work, including in Britain’s interests, if bargains were struck.

British diplomacy, at political and official level, understood this well. Indeed, a willingness to compromise in support of one’s own country’s broader interest is in the very nature of diplomacy. However, a significant factor in the growth of dissatisfaction with the EU, in British public opinion as elsewhere, has been an inability or unwillingness to explain that no Member State can get everything it wants in any negotiation. I can think of no other explanation for the fact that some senior British politicians, including the one I referred to earlier in this submission, seem to have had no idea of how influential the UK actually was in EU negotiations. This in turn fed into the widespread assertion, with no basis in reality, that Brussels, or indeed France or Germany, was “telling the UK what to do”. Britain’s EU partners and the European Commission would laugh out loud at the idea that the UK was a pushover.

With the growth of populism, compromise has become a dirty word.  The newly assertive nationalism, which played a large part in bringing about Brexit, but which has taken more virulent forms elsewhere in the world, denies the first principle of diplomacy namely a recognition that other countries have  equally valid interests.

British diplomacy has a well-deserved international reputation and its current practitioners, highly able and experienced, do not need to be told how to interact with other countries. However, British foreign policy will also continue to be shaped by politicians, some of whom in recent times seem to have seen compromise as a sign of weakness, and by tabloids, some of which are captured by the rhetoric of victory or defeat.  

It is essential that, in the years ahead, British diplomats continue to help their Government to understand the point of view and valid interests of other countries and to identify where respectful compromises may lie. It is equally important that those diplomats are valued rather than derided for doing so.  

Fourth, UK foreign policy should recommit enthusiastically to the engaged multilateralism from which, over the past half century, it has benefitted so greatly and to which it has contributed so much.

Some might legitimately argue that such an exhortation is unnecessary. The UK, it is true, has remained entirely committed to many of its multilateral commitments, including to the United Nations and NATO. However, it seems important to recall that Britain has opted out of its deepest multilateral commitment, namely to the European Union, in significant part because it found that very multilateralism uncomfortable and constraining. It is also worth noting that the United States, the country towards which the UK apparently intends to reprioritise its international focus, is - under its current leadership - backing away from multilateralism and in some respects seeking to undermine it.

One specific aspect of reasserting respect for multilateralism would be to return to expressing due friendship and admiration for the European Union of which the UK, for so long and until so recently, was such an influential and valued member. That is not to suggest for a moment that the UK should now rejoin the EU. It is simply to recall that giving in to the temptation to present the European Union as a faceless bureaucracy which sucks up the sovereignty of its Member States, as something distasteful to be kept at arms-length in any international cooperation, would not only be absurd but profoundly contrary to the UK’s interests.   

Fifth, UK foreign policy should rediscover its most important calling card, namely pragmatism. It is a fact that the UK’s standing in the world has not been enhanced by Brexit. A country renowned for its pragmatism, is perceived around the world as having taken arguably the least pragmatic international decision of modern times. Regaining a dearly achieved reputation for pragmatism will be an uphill struggle.

Finally, British foreign policy should seek to regain fully its self-confidence. The UK that thrived as a member of the European Union was self-confidently open, assertive in the spread of its values and proud of its culture. Britain’s decision to leave the EU reflected, in part, a loss of self-confidence in its ability to continue to protect and promote its interests in the complex game of international negotiations of which it had become a master, in the  world of alliances, of give and take, and of accommodation.

UK diplomacy has available to it public servants of great ability as well as an immensely impressive hinterland of think-tanks and academia. Even if leaving the EU has not improved its international positioning, the UK has good reason to approach the foreign policy challenges ahead with reasonable confidence. But confidence is a fragile commodity. It should not be confused with bluster or an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance. Judgement and significant effort will be needed in the years ahead to restore Britain’s belief in its capacity to operate with maximum effectiveness in the imperfect world of international relations in which difficult choices have to be made and in which no country gets to call all the shots.      

In conclusion, I regret if these views are too forthright for some. I can imagine some may bristle at a former Irish diplomat offering blunt advice on the development of British foreign policy. Naturally, I do not claim to have all the answers. I offer these personal reflections, having been invited to do so, sincerely and in friendship.  If some find them uncomfortable, that may underscore their value.

This submission is based, as it must be, on acceptance - accompanied by significant sadness - that the UK has left the European Union. What is done is done. However, I strongly believe that the diplomatic strengths which the UK brought to its EU membership will remain every bit as important into the future. Expertise. Knowledge of one’s friends. Compromise. Multilateralism. Self-confidence. These important babies of British diplomacy should not be thrown out, as they risk being, with the Brexit bathwater.

May 2020