Question

Does the U.K. have an interventionalist or isolationist foriegn policy? Explain using examples (preferably a few paragraphs)

Answer 1

Is the United Kingdom becoming more isolationist in its foreign policy outlook? Growing uncertainty about its European future, declining budgets for defence and diplomacy, the government’s parliamentary defeat over intervention in Syria: this has led to the belief that the UK’s status as an internationalist state is slowly eroding.

The United Kingdom in 2014 seemed to face something of a crisis of identity. The referendum on Scottish independence tested the very continuation of the country in its present form. It generated a debate on, why it was essential to preserve the "Britishness". Although the referendum was won by the unionists, the fact that 45% of the population of one of the constituent nations of the UK voted to leave it poses an ongoing, unresolved challenge to the union. The rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), including its success in the May 2014 European Parliament elections and the success in parliamentary by-elections of two defecting Conservative MPs to UKIP, reflects wider public disaffection with traditional politics and political parties, as well as hostility to immigration and European integration. Many of these trends have major implications for Britain’s international standing

United Kingdom is becoming more insular, or even more isolationist, in its foreign policy outlook. At the same time, though, many in the public think that the UK’s international burden is too great and that other countries should do more. The public is hostile to development aid. It also remains reflexively Eurosceptic, seeing more costs than benefits to membership of the European Union, despite evidence of a modest improvement in perceptions of the EU. Many in the public support leaving the EU altogether, but more continue to favour a looser relationship rather than a ‘Brexit’.

This is not a straightforward environment for making foreign policy. Nor does it change any of the material constraints on a mid-sized country like the UK, particularly one that still faces huge economic challenges. In meeting its international commitments to aid spending against the tide of public opinion, the government has shown political courage, albeit within a Westminster political consensus that has made sustaining that decision simpler.

Such views pose a challenge for policy-makers, who must determine the extent to which they try to lead public opinion or are led by it. There is a traditional view in some circles that the complexity and sensitivities of foreign policy mean that the influence of public opinion on it should be limited.