John Kerr: Brexit is about foreign policy. Why is Britain being so silent?

On February 18 I heard the Foreign Secretary repeatedly tell the Munich Security Conference that leaving the EU would mean “liberation”. A man of his intelligence surely knew that in Munich the word means escape from Nazi rule.

Not a new theme for him: on May 16 2016 he had told Sunday Telegraph readers that the European Commission’s aims were similar to those of Hitler’s Third Reich. And he had since compared President Juncker to a prisoner-of-war camp guard. But in Munich, where the EU is seen as a guarantee against past horrors returning, the shock was palpable: turning to me, a former German diplomat said: “He really doesn’t want to make it easy for Mrs Merkel to help Mrs May, does he?”

Good question. And I’m still not sure of the answer. One hears tales of similar failures to win friends elsewhere. Does he think that if Brexit goes badly the ball might still come free at the back of the scrum, and he might touch down in No 10? Is he still playing to the Mail/Telegraph audience and isn’t too bothered about foreigners? He knows that David Davis can’t move the Brussels negotiation on from the financial details of the divorce settlement to parallel discussion of our future relations with the EU 27 if we plan to renege on legal commitments. So why does he tell the Commons that the 27 “can whistle for” any UK payment?

And why doesn’t he do the one thing that really would help? The divorce negotiation is intrinsically difficult, because it’s a zero-sum game. The less the EU gets from us, the more the other dozen net contributors have to pay, or the harder hit are the net recipients, the poorer countries of Southern and Eastern Europe. So all 27 seek to maximise their claims, and we are right to scrutinise them rigorously.

But negotiating on a future relationship is different, because there’s a mutual interest in getting one that works. And the more promising it looks, the greater the incentive for the 27 to agree a sensible compromise on the money. Which is why the drafters of Article 50 insisted that the divorce terms must “take account of the framework for the future relationship”.

So where, among the new UK papers, is our draft framework? It matters, because we will presumably still want, post-Brexit, to maximise European support for UK interests on wider world issues. We will presumably still aim to win the 27’s backing before key Security Council votes.

In the fight against terrorism we will presumably still want to share intelligence and have access to the European Arrest Warrant and the Schengen Information System. We will presumably still see an interest in co-ordinating and so optimising development aid, action against global warming, support for democracy, human rights, and a rules-based international system. While no longer at the EU Council table, won’t we still want to influence its decisions? So why hasn’t the Foreign Secretary said so?

It’s his business. Davis’s remit is divorce; Liam Fox’s is trade; Johnson’s is UK foreign policy, including its European dimension. So why, though so damagingly voluble on others’ business, is he so silent about his own?

As the guns of August threaten to thunder, with President Trump talking “fire and fury” against North Korea, what is his view on the nuclear threat? We know Merkel’s, but our friends in Seoul might like to know ours: they believe we could still have some restraining influence in Washington. Are we exercising it? We have an embassy in Pyongyang: they, and the US and most EU countries, don’t. Are we drawing on this asset to give informed advice to our friends?

Johnson has been holidaying in Turkey. What is his plan to shore up Nato’s eastern flank, as President Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic regime denounces the US and turns to Moscow? Has he nothing to say about war in Donbas, leaving that too to Merkel, although the Major government signed the Budapest Memorandum on the territorial integrity of Ukraine?

Why are we silent while President Trump refuses to rule out military action against Venezuela? Or threatens trade measures against China? Or rages against the nuclear agreement with Iran which we helped to negotiate? Where do we stand on the Saudi/Qatari crisis? Are we still relaxed about the Saudis bombing cholera-struck Yemen?

Keeping our heads down isn’t always wrong. But a policy of always doing so risks seeming ignominious. And it devalues the prospect of continued foreign policy co-operation which should be a card in our Brexit hand. I don’t believe the Foreign Office has lost all the necessary expertise. I do wonder if the Foreign Secretary has a taste for the necessary application.

But there is an alternative, and more alarming, explanation. The Trump wild card features in all these current crises. And Johnson has from the start been a Trump apologist: when EU foreign ministers met to compare notes on the Trump election victory he ostentatiously stayed away, dismissing their discussion in advance as a “whingerama”. When last heard from he was still maintaining there was no cause for alarm. Was he behind the unprecedentedly early state visit invitation? Is he Trump’s poodle? If so, why?

Could it be that he really believes, with Fox, that provided we keep on sucking up a sweetheart transatlantic free trade deal may bail us out? Despite that “America First” inaugural address that promised America “protection against other countries making our products, stealing our companies, destroying our jobs”?

Trade negotiation is always mercantilist arm-twisting, and the US always fights hard: the sharpest US/UK row I witnessed was when Thatcher stood up to Reagan about US sanctions on European firms, including Rolls-Royce. Harsh words were exchanged, but he respected her the more for it. A free trade deal with a president who denounces free trade is a mirage, and not standing up to him risks forfeiting respect all round.

Callaghan, Carrington, Howe, Hurd... Foreign Secretaries used to cut ice abroad, particularly in Europe and America. But maybe that’s not Boris’s game.