DANIEL HANNAN: No wonder Britain is friendless on the global stage when so many of our leaders hate this country's history

All of a sudden, the United Kingdom seems both precarious and friendless.

The leaders of the three devolved assemblies, all of whom represent separatist parties, have met in Cardiff to demand referendums.

At the same time, we appear isolated in the counsels of the world. The President of the United States wants to give part of our country to the Republic of Ireland and says he would not back us in the event of a new Falklands War.

Argentina has sanctioned oil companies that recognise British sovereignty over the islands. Two Israeli ministers have called for the Falklands to be transferred to Argentina. The EU approaches the Government’s ‘reset’ as if it were a victorious power dictating terms to a beaten foe.

Our airspace was recently closed and, while domestic incompetence can never be excluded as an explanation, the regularity of such disruptions suggests cyberattacks.

China threatens us over the nationalisation of British Steel and the delays over granting its London mega-embassy.

A Russian spokeswoman said last week that, because British weapons were being used by Ukraine, British military assets ‘in Ukraine and beyond its borders’ were legitimate targets.

A Republican Congressman in Florida, upset by our support for a two-state solution in the Middle East, calls for a ‘four-state solution’ here – that is, the dismemberment of our country. 

The leaders of the three devolved assemblies, all of whom represent separatist parties, have met in Cardiff to demand referendums, writes Daniel Hannan (from left, First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney; First Minister of Wales, Rhun ap Iorwerth; Sinn Fein opposition leader in the Irish Dáil, Mary Lou McDonald, and First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill)

Daniel Hannan says the UK should pour its energies into strengthening relations with those South American countries that back a normalisation of relations with the Falkland Islands, namely Uruguay and, above all, Chile

Never mind that we recently flew sorties to protect Israel from Iranian drones. Never mind, indeed, that we established the Jewish homeland in the first place. We are the baddies now, the Alan Rickman of the global drama.

Meanwhile, Caribbean countries are demanding ‘reparations’, not from the African states that enslaved their ancestors, but from the nation that poured its blood and treasure into a relentless campaign for abolition.

Incredibly, African countries – which became British colonies, in no small measure, because we were trying to extirpate slavery – also straight-facedly demand compensation.

Even tiny Mauritius is threatening court action because we have not handed over the Chagos Islands – a territory that was never part of Mauritius and to which that country renounced all claims after trousering a large sum in the 1960s.

Where did our allies go? How did we manage to be simultaneously at odds with America and China, with Israel and Iran, with Russia and the EU? Has our diplomacy ever been less successful?

It is hard not to link our global unpopularity with the disdain for Britishness oozed by our cultural and intellectual elites these past 40 years. We have been permanently run by what the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton used to call the Down With Us Party.

Sir Roger was talking less about politicians than about the radical lawyers, university lecturers, ‘anti-racism counsellors’, BBC presenters and civil servants who loudly tell everyone that white Britons are responsible for the world’s ills.

They do so to advertise that they hold approved high-status opinions. The trouble is that the rest of the world is listening. One of the more striking changes over my lifetime has been the marked rise in anti-colonial sentiment among people too young to have experienced British rule.

In South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, there is a much more negative view of the colonial era now than there was at the time or immediately afterwards. People rage against an imaginary version of British rule, a version their grandparents would not recognise.

And where did they pick up this imaginary version? Largely from us: from our media, universities and political discourse. In Ed Miliband, our foreign secretary, the Down With Us Party recognises one of its own. It was his recent sanctions on Israel that triggered the backlash from elements of the Israeli and American Right.

Don’t get me wrong, Trump’s appalling comments about Ireland and the Falkland Islands are his responsibility. Similarly, those Israeli politicians who think they are trolling the Labour Government by demanding Argentine ownership of the Falklands are doing nothing of the kind. 

Miliband might well abandon the archipelago if public opinion did not stand in his way. All that these Israeli Rightists are doing is alienating that portion of the population that was until now most supportive.

Still, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that our foreign policy is going disastrously wrong. It can’t be everyone’s fault but ours.

‘Very Well, Alone!’ was the famous David Low cartoon published after the fall of France in 1940, depicting a British soldier on the white cliffs shaking his fist into the gloom. In those days, though, the country was united behind a government that gave defiant expression to such sentiment.

Today, plenty of Brits will take another side against their own country – especially when the other side is the EU. We are as alone as we were in 1940, but without the united resolve.

How might we end our isolation? First, we should build on the alliances we still have. Just as in 1940, our most reliable friends are the other large countries that share our monarch – Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

In seven weeks, Trump, pictured with Irish President Micheal Martin at the weekend, is likely to be thumped at the mid-term elections and his authority will begin to drain away, so we should try to repair relations with the US

We should be doing far more to draw them into a deeper commercial, diplomatic and military partnership, the arrangement known as Canzuk, a project which has considerable cross-party appeal and which is seen as urgent in Canada and Australia following Trump’s commercial hostility.

Second, we should repair relations with the US. In seven weeks, Trump is likely to be thumped at the mid-term elections and his authority will begin to drain away. What are we doing to strengthen our influence on both sides of the aisle in Congress? What are we doing to ensure that a future administration might revive plans for a bilateral trade deal?

Third, we should go into the EU ‘reset’ with our own asks instead of reacting to what Eurocrats demand. In particular, we should remove the internal border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and advertise the benefits that come to Ulster from the Union.

Fourth, we should pour our energies into strengthening relations with those South American countries that back a normalisation of relations with the Falkland Islands, namely Uruguay and, above all, Chile, whose level-headed people back British sovereignty over the territory by 68 to 17 per cent.

Above all, we need to stop broadcasting our weakness to the world. We have a national debt of £3 trillion and our economy has barely grown in over a decade other than through immigration. Who cares what proportion of GDP we spend on defence when our GDP is not rising?

We need to rediscover the truth about our country. We are not a brutal gaggle of slavers and scoundrels. We are a brave and moral nation. We ended the slave trade. We defeated Bonaparte, the Kaiser and Hitler. We invented most of the things that make modern life comfortable. We introduced large parts of the world to free speech, free contract and free elections.

We did these things as a single country, a strong and united archipelago.

Tell that story and back it up with military strength and our international reputation will improve. No one respects a nation whose leaders struggle to celebrate its history. They’ll like us when we are strong again.

Daniel Hannan is Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs.