The U.K. Only Hurts Itself by Slashing Aid Budget
Foreign development assistance adds far more to Britain’s soft power globally than more guns and tanks will.
In the world of development, Britain is a superpower.
Photographer: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images
The most enthusiastic campaigners for Britain’s exit from the European Union insisted that Brexit’s end result would be a “Global Britain” — a country set free to forge alliances, agreements and trading pacts across the world. More than four years on, we still have no clear idea what a Global Britain would actually look like. No enthusiastic new trading partners have been discovered. Rather than rushing to remedy the situation, Boris Johnson’s government now seems intent on shredding what remains of the United Kingdom’s global image.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced plans to slash about four billion pounds from the country’s development assistance budget. This would lower spending below a threshold — 0.7% of the country’s GDP — that has survived political handovers, a recession and austerity. One government minister has already resigned, former prime ministers have decried the move and MPs are in revolt. While Sunak says he hopes the cuts will be temporary, no expiry date has been set — and many within Johnson’s party are convinced that the foreign aid budget is still too big.