Sergey Lagodinsky argues that, despite Brexit, the UK is a key ally in efforts to protect the post-war liberal order from populist pressures.
When President Trump appeared to deny Angela Merkel a handshake during her first official visit to the US under the new US Administration, much was said about two leaders’ vastly different styles. Authoritarian leaders tend to humiliate or intimidate others. This is what Vladimir Putin was aiming to achieve when he brought his dogs to a meeting with the German Chancellor. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to Nazi comparisons. During their meeting on 17 March, President Trump reportedly went further by handing her a symbolic invoice for €350bn, the amount of money “owed” by Germany in unpaid NATO bills. This kind of attitude seems to be the new reality in Washington D.C.
It is to Merkel’s credit that she remained both self-confident and graciously diplomatic. Precisely this combination is the best strategy for the free world in these four to eight years of Trump: Presidents come and go but transatlantic relations remain and, like it or not, they will continue to be the backbone of the post-war liberal order. It is this Merkel-like diplomatic resilience that was visible in her meeting with the new US President, that all of us will need in the near future.
But here’s the rub: such diplomatic resilience will only succeed as collective action. President Trump’s administration clearly hopes to divide proponents of the liberal order by insults and poisoned gifts. In Trump’s opposition to the EU, London becomes an instrumental ally of choice for his dismissive view on Europe and the world. Theresa May’s Washington visit in January has demonstrated that she also perceives him as a strategic opportunity. In her search for a viable alternative to the EU, Trump’s preference for bilateral trade relationships comes in handy. London’s turn to the United States is as understandable as it is unfortunate. The new US administration allegedly makes calls to embassies from around the world with offers of trade deals. As understandable as it is, the UK risks becoming a boon to Trump’s permanent efforts to delegitimise global free trade as a concept and the EU as a construct.
The only way to break the game of President Trump is to unmask his attempts to use London against the EU. This is not impossible given one simple fact: most people who speak of Brexit in London and Marine Le Pen’s movement in France in one breath fail to acknowledge a major difference between these two phenomena. While both are anti-EU, only one of them is anti-Western and anti-liberal. And this is not London. It is hardly a coincidence that around the time of Merkel’s visit, the UK was forced to distance itself from Trump’s accusations that it was the British secret services that colluded with President Obama on wiretapping him during the presidential election campaign. The strong response from Britain’s GCHQ typified this kind of liberal sanity we need in the face of post-truth politics.
While the EU and Great Britain are about to start hard exit negotiations, they should go out of their way to contain Brexit as a technical issue, while keeping a close strategic alliance in defending liberal order at home and abroad. Trump’s presence in the White House and Le Pen standing on the steps of the Élysée Palace make our common interests clearer than ever: with or without EU membership, the UK has to ensure that it coordinates with others, especially Berlin and Paris, on the one issue of paramount importance: the future of our societies as liberal democracies.
Sergey Lagodinsky is Head of Department – EU/North America at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Published in March 2017