Editorial | Don’t take Ahmad’s assurance at face value

During a recent debate on Britain’s foreign policy, John Casson, who recently served as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Egypt and was previously foreign affairs private secretary to David Cameron, offered an anecdote of a conversation he had with a recent foreign secretary in the back of a car while stuck in London traffic.

Mr Casson asked the minister what was it he was trying to get the foreign office to do and what legacy he would like to leave. “The person thought about it and said, ‘Well, I really think we should be trying to save the African elephant and leading on the international wildlife trade, and it is really important that we bring girls into school worldwide, and, I suppose, there are conflicts in the world we should be taking a lead on solving’.”

The minister to whom Mr Casson alluded, as the Guardian newspaper reported, is widely believed to have been Boris Johnson during his notoriously erratic stint as Theresa May’s foreign secretary before succeeding her as prime minister. Mr Johnson was re-elected last week.

Mr Casson gave the anecdote to highlight what he believes to be absence in strategic thinking in British foreign policy, since the days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

We repeat it to underline why Jamaica ought not to take at face value Asif Ahmad’s assurance of deepened relations with the UK under Britain’s new Tory government.

“I do not see anything other than stronger United Kingdom engagement in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean,” the high commissioner told this newspaper.

It is not that we, too, aren’t concerned about the fate of African elephants and the illicit global trade in wildlife or are not 100 per cent in supports of girls having equal opportunity as boys in schooling. We are!

Neither do we fear an immediate cut to British aid to Jamaica under Mr Johnson’s proposed merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department of International Development (DfiD), although that could happen.

Our deeper concern is that from our distance, Mr Casson’s characterisation appears to have captured Boris Johnson precisely – a toffish dilettante, without the discipline for the hard graft of policy, or commitment to strategic interests. And if he has the latter, Mr Johnson’s attitude in the past doesn’t suggest that Jamaica and the Caribbean, are high on his agenda. At best, he perceives this region with a kind of benign oblivion.

Indeed, Mr Johnson’s global priorities are to “get Brexit done”, build his personal relationship with Donald Trump, and negotiate a trade deal with the United States. All of which, of course, are one, and the same, thing.

PASSIVE BYSTANDER

The point is while Mr Johnson’s government won’t upset, in the short-term, the carry-on trade arrangement between the UK and the CARIFORUM countries when Britain dislodges from the European Union, we do not expect him to be a credible partner in the cause of multilateralism against Mr Trump’s assault. He, in pursuit of the supposed special relationship with the United States, and fearing that upsetting Mr Trump would undermine the prospects of a deal, will probably cause Britain to be a passive bystander.

Indeed, the post-war global arrangements are in need of reform. However, a rules-based, multilateral system remains the best insurance for small, weak countries like Jamaica and its partners in the Caribbean against arbitrary actions, or worse, by powerful nations.

Therein is part of the reason why Jamaica should be undertaking a review of its foreign policy, in concert with its partners in the Caribbean community (CARICOM), to ensure a coordinated front against the emerging global challenges.

CARICOM, in this regard, should be at the forefront of initiatives with similarly vulnerable countries so that theirs represent a strong voice at the table. The proposed CARICOM-Africa summit should be a stepping stone in this process.