Getting Brexit done has shown up all that still remains to be done to help make Britain central to the prosperity and security of our allies and friends.
Television headlines recently showed the terrible volcanic eruption that ravaged Tonga, but why was the report of Britain dispatching HMS Spey to support the relief effort, led by allies Australia and New Zealand, right at the bottom of the news agenda?
For the world that was global Britain in action. Our British Isles leaping to help a group of islands 13 time zones away.
Following on from the establishment of AUKUS and in the wake of the Carrier Strike Group’s power projection, is it not news that the Indo-Pacific is fast becoming the centre of economic, security and political gravity of a new multi-polar world order?
Of course, the assorted left rejoiner Brexit-bashing brigade would have you believe that Britain cannot play a meaningful role in global affairs outside the EU’s orbit; though it has to be said, the likes of the shouty-mad-as-a-EU-hat man seen loitering outside Parliament, has been quite quiet of late.
Yet, with a resurgent UK leading G7 growth, record job numbers and as one of the first exiting the pandemic, that argument is as past its sell-by-date as the hidebound EU.
There is no bigger example of the stuck-in-the-mud out-of-sync-with-liberty EU than the outrageous prevailing view at its heart – Berlin blocking Estonian defence assistance to Kiev trying not to upset the Kremlin, even as it amasses its belligerence in Eastern Europe.
Whereas following UK support for Kiev with the supply of defensive anti-tank weapons, “God save the Queen” amassed trends on Ukrainian Twitter.
With Boris Johnson having got Brexit done and Liz Truss getting on with sorting out the Northern Ireland Protocol, British support for free Ukraine and a helping hand for Tonga sum up what makes our Britain global like no other.
Yet there is a whole world of goodwill still to be tapped, where a Global Britain helps unleash the potential of the world’s leading free democracies, by identifying shared values, shared challenges, and shared strengths to ensure security, stability, and prosperity.
Getting Brexit done has shown up all that still remains to be done to help make Britain central to the prosperity and security of our allies and friends.
The biggest step in that direction is the Prime Minister’s ‘Roadmap 2030’ signed with Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister. However, we now need to go further and faster. And we do this by building a framework of political and business engagement to bind together the tremendous goodwill for a global Britain that exists throughout the world, especially the Indo-Pacific.
Now providence places Global Britain in the centre of a core group of natural allies and friends across the Indo-Pacific. With India, Australia and Japan defending the frontier of freedom, turbocharging our strategic partnership with these free democracies it is crucial to integrate free Britain into the centre of the network of liberty.
Many hurdles remain – hostile forces running 24×7 fake-news bots spreading disinformation to undermine democracy in London, Washington DC and New Delhi, the CCP undermining nations with its debt-trap diplomacy – toxic forces chiselling at the very foundations of our freedoms and liberty.
However, it is in the greatest democratic exercises of our times – the EU referendum and the biggest democratic mandate in history, earned by PM Modi that offer us the hope and optimism to prove that democracy is more resilient than the toxic agenda of the anti-UK- India-Israel-US-Brexit bashing nexus.
Global Britain, together with a New India, is uniquely placed to lead the charge to defend our way of life – free democracies, linked by free trade, powered by free enterprise, driven by a free people.
And on free trade, the more than five dozen trade deals signed, including two brand new ones with Australia and Singapore, and the prized deal with India in the offing, are a shining testament to how Global Britain is revving up to lead the global recovery. And this is still before British business really goes global with entry into the tier-A Indian towns.
With free enterprise – there is not a brighter beacon of hope and aspiration than the UK where our agile businesses, slashing suffocating red tape, are more productive, innovative, employ more people and generate more revenue.
This is the ready-to-make template which we must push to persuade the next start-up, the next unicorn, the next big idea that free enterprise and education is the best way known to mankind to lift the next billion out of poverty. And now more than ever, as the world economy attempts to reach escape velocity out of the orbit of Covid, Global Britain must set the global tempo.
Be it getting Brexit done, more trade deals than Emmanuel Macron could shake a stick at, record job numbers and mega manufacturing investment, Johnson has shown how Global Britain is a proven winner. And this is the Global Britain vision which resonates with the goodwill in capitals across the free world.
That’s why the Global Britain Centre is established to bring together a coalition of those who want to fill in the gaps, colour in the details, to pour concrete into the foundations of a Global Britain turbocharging free democracies, free trade and free enterprise. To help build a Britain that is truly global, by global Britons, for Britons that are going global.
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