UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has set out how the UK’s role as a force for good in the world will be the “defining feature of Global Britain for the next decade”.
In a keynote speech at Aspen Security Forum he will stress the need for the UK to use its force “because without power, without economic, military, diplomatic, cultural clout, we can do nothing”.
And he will make clear that our force must be used to increase global security and living standards, both at home and across the world, in the face of a decline in democracy around the world.
He will argue that the UK’s force for good ambitions are “the right thing for a leading power to do, and it is squarely in the interests of the British people”.
Following yesterday’s publication of the Government’s Integrated Review the Foreign Secretary will explain how it provides a strategic blueprint for the UK’s foreign policy and national security approach until 2030.
He is expected to say:“The Integrated Review provides a road-map, guided by our moral compass, our history, and our present day mission as a force for good in the world.
“From our inventors to our entrepreneurs, from our diplomats and aid experts, to our brave armed forces all the people involved in delivering Global Britain share the unifying sense that we are part of a shared planet.
“We believe that we can and should help alleviate the worst suffering in the world that we have a moral responsibility and an indivisible stake in our planet, our global economy, our global eco-system and the conditions of peace and stability that underpin them.”
The Foreign Secretary will make clear that the UK’s motivation for its ambitious strategy is underpinned by a recognition that democracies and the institutions that underpin them are facing their greatest threat since the end of the Cold War.
He is expected to say:”Democracy is in retreat. This decade, the combined GDP of autocratic regimes is expected to exceed the combined GDP of the world’s democracies, but think about what that means for a second.
“Tyranny is richer than freedom, and that matters to us here at home. Because stable, freedom-respecting democracies are much less likely to go to war, house terrorists or trigger large scale flows of migrants and they are generally, not always, but generally easier to trade with, and easier to cooperate with to solve our shared problems.”
