The U.K. Shouldn’t Disarm Itself in the Soft-Power War
Moves to undermine the British Broadcasting Corporation threaten what to this day remains the former imperial power’s most powerful tool of global influence.
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There are very few ways in which Great Britain can still claim to be a global power. It does not set the terms of world trade as China does. It has ceded the waves to the U.S. Navy, which boasts ten times as many aircraft carriers. It does not have regulatory or standard-setting power, unlike the European Union it so huffily left. Sure, the United Kingdom has nuclear weapons. But then, so does North Korea.
What North Korea does not have, to its great loss, is the British Broadcasting Corporation. To this day, the BBC spans the world as effortlessly as the Royal Navy once did; indeed, it may be the only imperial legacy that has a purpose in the 21st century. That’s why it’s deeply worrying that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, filled with boosters of “Global Britain” and defenders of the country’s imperial past, seems intent on rendering this last great British asset valueless.