STEVE BLOOMFIELD
In the summer of 2016, a few weeks after Theresa May became prime minister, Number 10 approached the White House with an idea. Leaving the EU, as May herself had pointed out during the referendum, would mean losing international influence. But if May could lead Britain into a new alliance, she thought, perhaps some of that damage could be fixed. Britain and the US, along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, already co-operated on intelligence through the “Five Eyes” alliance. What if, May suggested, this alliance expanded beyond intelligence and became a formal political bloc? Barack Obama’s response was blunt. “That’s crazy,” he told his aides. “What are those five countries going to do?” They didn’t have an answer and the offer was declined (in slightly more diplomatic language).
Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, huge questions surrounding the UK’s place in the world have been left unanswered. May has come up with a slogan, Global Britain, but nothing so far resembling a strategy. The cabinet has been at loggerheads about how far—or not—to remain “aligned” with the European economy. But even to the extent the UK is tempted to try something different, there is no agreement about what that is—whether to concentrate, as George Osborne did at one time, on aligning with China? Or forging new links with other emerging economies? To double down on the relationship with Washington, or look back to historic colonial connections?