The part of Boris Johnson’s autobiography which most immediately captured the public imagination was his confession that, in the midst of the pandemic, with fears that the E.U. was hoarding vaccines belonging to Britain, he considered ordering the army to cross the Channel to seize them. Pearls were clutched and sage pundits argued that here was yet another sign that this least serious of politicians was fundamentally unfit for the office with which he had wrongly and briefly been entrusted. It was just not the sort of thing a British Prime Minister would do.
Except, of course, it was.
In 1847, the residence of Don Pacifico in Athens was ransacked by a rioting mob. A Gibraltarian by citizenship, he appealed to the British Minister Plenipotentiary for assistance in extracting compensation from the Greek government. Assistance was duly rendered, but compensation was slow to arrive, so the matter was escalated, eventually reaching the desk of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston. Rapidly losing patience with Hellenic prevarication, he did what any reasonable Victorian statesman would– he sent the Royal Navy to Greece, arrested its fleet and launched a blockade of Piraeus, the country’s main port. Compensation was, of course, forthcoming.
The Don Pacifico Affair was just the sort of exploit Palmerston loved, coming a few years after he launched the First Opium War and a few years before he launched the Second, history’s only (to the best of my knowledge) examples of a nation resorting to armed conflict to protect the interests of its drug dealers. He might have recognised a “rules-based international order”, but it had only one commandment– Britain did what it wanted, everyone else did what they were told. For him the purpose of foreign policy was “so a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and strong arm of England will protect him from injustice and wrong.” If anything, merely instructing the SAS to return with the vaccines would have struck him as unambitious, he would probably have demanded they stuck a couple of Rembrandts in their knapsacks too just to teach the Dutch a lesson.
Setting the rules allowed Britain to believe it was a nation which follows the rules, an idea which maintains its grip on the national identity. Others, of course, see things differently. There is a well-known internet meme where “British history as written by the British” is depicted as a sweet labrador, wanting nothing more than a cuddle. “British history as written by everyone else” by contrast is represented by a snarling hellhound, blood dripping from its insatiable fangs.
And the rest of the world has a point. For, while there has been the occasional outbreak of good behaviour (ending slavery, for example), for most of our history, we have dedicated ourselves to piracy and conquest, helping ourselves to whichever country, ship or artefact took our fancy. This does not, contra some modern retellings, make us uniquely sinful – every society has tried the same, we just did it a bit better. There is an irony in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the French archaeologist tells the Scottish-descended hero, “Once again, Dr Jones, we see that there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take” when the results of Britano-Gallic rivalry have very much flowed in the opposite direction…Just ask Mauritius.
For Britain’s period of setting the rules followed a long period when it broke the rules. When the Spanish ruled the waves, privateering was every Englishman’s duty (the Royal Navy once refused funding for an expedition to locate Drake’s coffin on the grounds that, the business with the Armada aside, he was a pirate, not a naval officer). When Britannia did, it was a scourge no different to piracy. Slavery was perfectly fine for most of the nation’s history until it decided it wasn’t at which point other nations had to give it up too, emancipation being a precondition for any treaty with the world’s superpower during the Victorian period (the French, predictably tried to wriggle out). It was the hard power behind Pax Britannica which turned the world’s pirates into its prefects, happy to dish out punishment to the lower forms if they stepped out of line.
The hard power may have gone, but the fondness for rules remains; now, however, like the weedy new boy, deployed as a defence rather than a tool. Ostentatiously doing the right thing is a way of diverting the authorities’ attention to others.
Some of the arms export licenses to Israel were suspended. Because of international law. International law which the Americans seem perfectly content to ignore. Human Rights mean criminals cannot be deported. Human Rights the French seem perfectly content to ignore. There was an Advisory Ruling that the British Indian Ocean Territory be given up, so it was despite, to paraphrase Colin Chapman, Advisory Rulings being for the consideration of strong men and the obedience of weak men. A classically educated (or a French) Foreign Secretary might have channelled his inner Leonidas and replied “Molon Labe” – come and take them – but ours meekly complied; and paid for the privilege.
Keen to avoid accusations of cravenness, it was, of course, more complicated than that. Following the judgement would go down well with the “Global South”, who, overcome with respect for our rule-following, would row in to help us in whatever crisis lurks around the corner. The Americans wanted it (maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, there are conflicting reports). The Chagos Islands were given away either to suck up to the cool kids or because a big boy made us do it.
Whichever explanation is true, neither speaks of a powerful polity. Nations which take rules which hurt them to do the bidding of a hegemon or to curry favour with others, are nations which feel they have to. Nations which see no other way of achieving their objectives. Nations which think they are too weak to do otherwise.
And still they can fail. For it is only in the Bible that the meek inherit the Earth. In the real world, their opponents seek to make them yet meeker. Giving away territory does not win brownie points in a global popularity contest; it encourages others who think they have claims to have a go. My noble act of self-sacrifice is your confession of weakness. Nations which gain a reputation for paying the Danegeld find themselves attracting rather a lot of Danes.
Nor is currying favour with the hegemon a winning strategy if that hegemon is losing its hegemony. For the history of the past decades is a history of America steadily losing its ability to order the world. It was, more or less, able to pacify Iraq. It was unable to do the same in Afghanistan. It could not stop Russia redrawing the borders it had created with Ukraine and is an onlooker as China throws its weight around in Asia. It cannot even force Israel to do what it wants. If the first stage of imperial decline is when an empire’s enemies defy it, the second is when its clients do too. For all Britain’s self-congratulation for following the rules, they are the rules of a power which is losing its power to set the rules. The nation which once exploited Spain’s decline to hunt its galleons has chosen to provide its successor’s escorts.
Finding a historical analogy for Boris Johnson was always a popular sport, his election victory making many think of Disraeli. But to my mind, Charles II was always a better bet. Both were fond of the opposite sex. Their accession to the top job coincided with a change to the constitution. Both dealt with a plague. The parties we shall pass over in silence. Perhaps it was as a throw back to this period that the plan to raid Holland appealed, speaking as it does of a Britain which while not dominant is powerful enough to protect its interests. Or perhaps the erstwhile classical scholar remembered his Thucydides – the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.
This piece was first published in Country Squire Magazine, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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Very entertaining article which made me long for the Britain of old. There was a certain swashbuckling arrogance which I find attractive.