Ten years on from the UK’s Brexit referendum the only apparent national consensus is negative – that the country cannot survive without partnering with a major power, either the EU or US. This unreconciled difference between remain and leave advocates as to which one is both wrong and distracting. Its effect is to leave the UK without a serious voice in global debates, while partners have doubts as to any of its commitments.
Similar middle powers are currently trying to hedge their geopolitical bets by maintaining a variety of relations, a reality that lies underneath the much-hyped Mark Carney speech at Davos. There is little choice for the UK than to seek to reconcile its US “special relationship” with the geography and attitudes of a European power, preferably within a coherent overall approach that provides more to say about navigating today’s turbulent trade policy.
Long-standing UK political culture demanding all Prime Ministers maintain strong relations with the White House is unlikely to change. This however will always be problematic particularly during periodic US forays into military adventurism or protectionist trade policy and there will never be complete alignment.
In contrast the EU is typically regarded as a rather foreign entity, publicly ridiculed. This badly serves a UK economy and many other policies such as migration control dependent on good relations with neighbours. EU folk meanwhile notice that Berlin or Paris are seen as more important than Brussels in UK political discourse, and continually fear a government accepting various long-standing US asks such as on technical or food standards.
Experienced global trade experts say that negotiating simultaneously with the US and EU is exhausting, so it may not be a surprise that a UK doing so permanently while in denial about this leaves little room for much else. Pursuing shallow Free Trade Agreements with the likes of Australia and India is relatively easy but yields modest economic gains. This is not least when there is constant concern as to whether content would clash with US or EU asks.
Claims of UK free trade leadership similarly look hollow not least as the first country to sign a non-WTO compliant trade deal with this US administration. Trying to balance partners is presumably also what lies behind a rather odd UK submission on the future of the WTO that claims current world trade rules were based on a vision of “inevitable global harmonisation of economic models” that isn’t what committed free-traders would say.
The Labour government elected in 2024 renounced the worst behaviour of its predecessors in the hope of generating growth from deeper EU trade relations. Yet it has been surprised by Brussels mistrust of whether the UK is really committed. Slightly unfair perhaps, but exacerbated by successive UK governments thinking negotiations must be top secret preventing them from building public support or home or abroad. Signing deals with the US under coercion from multinational companies while still thinking it can negotiate with Brussels on regulations like Made in Europe does not help.
Such limited self-awareness recurs in the UK system. Few commentators paid attention to the coincidence of the timing of accession to the CPTPP with the signing of the Windsor Protocol regarding Northern Ireland. For months previously there had been indignity on the part of CPTPP negotiators that the UK simply hadn’t been listening to their point that it couldn’t break one agreement and sign another.
What oddly seems to surprise UK commentators and politicians is that others made its life more difficult by turning away from free trade, as if only the UK was allowed the populist turn that was leaving the EU. Little better demonstrates British exceptionalism more than suggesting Brexit would have been fine if only other countries had behaved differently. Far better understanding of the rest of the world is required.
For the broader trends leave WTO rules fragile, mistrust rampant, and the Free Trade Agreements of UK government focus almost a remnant of a time in which countries sought the gains of liberalisation rather than trying to manage global inter-connectivity. Populist revolt against technology-led change is a reality, as is China building manufactured products at previously unimagined scale, and the US similarly for the tech backbone of the world. Nobody including them is very happy with the global (dis)order that seems set to continue.
There is little evidence that UK politicians have given much thought to these developments. Officials improbably claim to be leaders in the emerging concept of economic security that attempts to reconcile new developments, but is too often being defined as random government interventions and protecting those with large lobbying budgets.
New Ministers ignoring some serious work which went into 2025’s trade strategy is not helpful, similarly headcount reductions in key departments. Even worse in a government system that depends on steers from the top is there not being a trade expert in the 10 Downing Street heart of government since 2016, and no EU one since 2019.
Difficult though it may be, this is a time when middle-powers like the UK really need to be bringing some serious thinking to the table, because otherwise their trade dependency may be further exploited by increasingly capricious superpowers. Sadly, there seems to be too much fear or Brexit hangover even to use the UK’s well-established convening powers, and much temptation to retreat to insularity. This particularly needs to change.
While stop the world we want to get off was a message from the Brexit referendum it can’t actually be delivered given the world didn’t stop and the UK can’t just be subordinate to EU or US. Similarly finding that Boris Johnson’s buccaneering trading Britain can’t even reconcile its major trade partners is no surprise given the naivety of Brexit promises.
There is a minor consolation that this government is not doing as much damage as their predecessors. Moving on from this point though requires serious thinking and deft handling at political level including through shaping the UK public debate. There are occasional encouraging signs – reasonable ministerial messages that the UK does not have to choose between major powers. These however require considerable development and amplification to be really focusing the UK’s trade policy in what is a harsh operating environment.