The former British prime minister, Harold Wilson, once quipped that “a week is a long time in politics”, and his successor, Boris Johnson, now knows how right he was. On Jan 31, after an official investigation found there had been a “failure of leadership and judgment” over drinking parties held at No 10 Downing Street in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions (“Partygate”), Johnson had to apologize to both Queen Elizabeth II and Parliament. Some of his members of Parliament said he had lost their confidence, and a police investigation was launched.
The former British prime minister, Harold Wilson, once quipped that “a week is a long time in politics”, and his successor, Boris Johnson, now knows how right he was. On Jan 31, after an official investigation found there had been a “failure of leadership and judgment” over drinking parties held at No 10 Downing Street in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions (“Partygate”), Johnson had to apologize to both Queen Elizabeth II and Parliament. Some of his members of Parliament said he had lost their confidence, and a police investigation was launched.
Fast-forward to March, and his performance during the Ukraine crisis has reversed his fortunes. Whereas some of his party critics no longer want him to go, the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, has stopped demanding his immediate resignation. At least for now, the crisis has saved his bacon, and those eyeing his job have backed off.
When, however, they thought Johnson’s days were numbered, his potential successors were “on maneuvers”, readying their leadership bids. The noisiest was his recently appointed foreign secretary, Liz Truss. As The Guardian reported on Jan 2, she hosted “fizz with Liz” dinners for politicians and “biz for Liz” receptions for potential donors at “5 Hertford Street”, a high-end club in London’s Mayfair district, owned by Robin Birley, the entrepreneur who helped finance Johnson’s own leadership campaign.
Earlier, on Dec 6, in an effort to appear as the “new Iron Lady”, Truss, while in Estonia, had herself photographed in battle gear atop a Challenger 2 tank, reprising the pose immortalized in 1986 by Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Although she imagined this would play well with the party faithful, it left most people cold.
As the politicos arrived at 5 Hertford Street for their “fizzes”, Truss must have hoped her record was past history. After all, they would have recalled her run-ins with the judiciary during her brief stint as justice secretary (lord chancellor). In 2017, after the Court of Appeal’s judges were denounced by the media for being “enemies of the people” over their Brexit judgment, the lord chief justice of England and Wales, Lord (Roger) Thomas, called Truss out for failing to defend him and his fellow judges. In a shocking indictment, he said the judiciary had to be protected, and “it really is absolutely essential we have a lord chancellor who understands her constitutional duty”.
This hit home, and, after less than a year in office, the then-prime minister, Theresa May, removed Truss, to general relief. Once, however, Johnson succeeded May, her star was again in the ascendant, and she became trade secretary in 2019. Then, after she negotiated several trade deals, Johnson made her foreign secretary in September 2021, after her predecessor, the hapless Dominic Raab, had imploded.
Raab, of course, is best remembered for some quite extraordinary blunders. When, for example, a national security law was approved by Beijing for Hong Kong in 2020, Raab promptly announced it was contrary to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, unaware that it said nothing about national security, an issue solely within China’s purview. He then publicly denounced the British barrister, David Perry QC, for having agreed to prosecute a national security case in Hong Kong, when the case he was handling had nothing to do with national security. Then, in August 2021, after he was found to be holidaying in Crete while Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Johnson, given public outrage over the plight of British nationals and translators trapped in Kabul, finally realized he had to go, but compensated him with Truss’ old job as justice secretary.
Although Johnson, after this fiasco, might have been expected to choose a “safe pair of hands”, he opted instead for Truss. Whatever other qualities he may possess, he is clearly a poor judge of character, and this may yet be his undoing. As he, more than anybody else, should have realized, once the UK left the European Union in 2020, it needed a credible foreign secretary of real stature, able to inspire confidence abroad and influence people, yet both his picks have fallen short.
If Johnson imagined that things would improve with Raab gone, he was sorely mistaken. Although Truss certainly attracted attention, it was for all the wrong reasons. In January, for example, she was widely criticized, firstly, for having, as trade secretary, hosted a hugely expensive lunch party for a foreign official at 5 Hertford Street, ignoring civil-service advice to choose somewhere less costly, and then, secondly, for flying by private jet to Australia at a cost to the taxpayer of over 500,000 pounds ($660,000), when a Qantas business-class ticket would have cost only 7,712 pounds. Although her jet seated 200 people, Truss’ party comprised only 14, and the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said her prodigality showed “the public exactly how little respect this Conservative government has for taxpayers’ money with her ridiculous waste”.
While in Australia, Truss, with an eye on her leadership bid, sought to play the China card, announcing that Beijing could use any Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch its own aggression in the Indo-Pacific. She clearly imagined that scaremongering would play well with her hosts, recently signed up to AUKUS, and was, therefore, worthwhile, even if it damaged Sino-British relations. Some people, however, saw through her, and the former prime minister, Paul Keating, called her remarks “demented”, and urged her to go home.
At this point, Johnson decided that Truss should go to Russia, to explain his government’s stance on the Ukraine crisis, and to try to influence the Kremlin. This, however, was a disastrous miscalculation, and, in hindsight, he must have realized he should have gone himself, as did his French and German counterparts, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. From the outset, it was clear that Truss was out of her depth, although she tried to muddle through, as in Australia, by mouthing sound bites. This time, however, she was pitted against Russia’s veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and he had her measure from the outset.
The low point arrived when, in an episode of toe-curling embarrassment, Truss made a geographical gaffe. When Lavrov asked if she recognized Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh, two regions in the south of the country where Russia had been strengthening its forces, she replied the UK would never recognize them as Russian. Although she was hastily corrected by her ambassador, the damage had been done. To limit the fallout, her officials later suggested Truss had misheard Lavrov’s question, but nobody was fooled.
When asked to comment on their exchanges, Lavrov said he was “disappointed” with Truss’ performance, adding that “our most detailed explanations fell on unprepared soil”. If Truss had thought her lack of insight could be overcome by improvisation, she was mistaken, and her platitudes cut no ice. As HuffPost explained, her mission was “unsuccessful, with some critics believing the Foreign Secretary was there more for the photo opportunities and ‘Instagram diplomacy’ than to negotiate”.
By this time, it was clear that Truss, like Raab before her, had not mastered her portfolio, and could veer off message at any time. Thus, on Feb 27, when asked by the BBC if Britons could go to Ukraine to fight against the Russians, she replied, “Absolutely, if that’s what they want to do,” whereupon all hell broke loose. Within hours, Johnson’s spokesman rowed back on Truss’ remarks, urging Britons not to travel to Ukraine, and Johnson himself later pointed out that any British soldiers who traveled there to fight could expect to be court-martialed. It was left to the defense secretary, Ben Wallace, to remind everybody that Truss’ own department had earlier advised British citizens not to go to Ukraine. Yet again, therefore, she had messed up, and this time she could not claim to have misheard the question.
Even though Truss is a former justice secretary, her gaffe showed she was as ignorant of the law as she is of foreign policy, and, in the wake of her remarks, a foreign office spokesman explained there could be legal consequences for any Britons going to fight in Ukraine. Whereas the UK’s Foreign Enlistment Act (1870) makes it illegal for a British citizen to fight in a war involving a nation-state that is at peace with the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service has previously advised that British nationals fighting in war zones without their government’s permission risk being prosecuted under the UK’s Terrorism Act (2000).
When, moreover, Truss declared that Russia might extend its offensive into NATO territory, she again drew headlines, while producing no evidence. At times of global tension, reckless speculation, as any good diplomat knows, can up the ante, and is best avoided. Her comments were inevitably picked up on by Moscow and reportedly used as a pretext for placing its deterrence forces, including nuclear weapons, on high alert. Although Johnson gallantly tried to bail her out, it was left to Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to point out that Truss had given the Russians a basis for escalation.
When, moreover, the British prime minister makes foreign policy pronouncements, it is the invariable practice to clear them with the foreign office first, not least to ensure that everybody is singing from the same hymn sheet. Thus, on Feb 28, when Johnson’s spokesman announced that the purpose of Western sanctions was “to bring down the Putin regime”, it was naturally assumed it carried Truss’ imprimatur. This, however, was not so, and Downing Street hastily explained that its spokesman had “misspoken”, and that “we’re not seeking anything in terms of regime change”. Although the blunder had “Truss” written all over it, her actual involvement was not explained.
Whereas the public blunders of Raab and Truss are well documented, they are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. For every gaffe that has been exposed, there will be many that have passed under the radar. This should concern everybody, as they could have caused real harm to Britain’s overseas interests. Although the British people, post-Brexit, wanted their country to pursue an independent foreign policy, they expected it would be professionally managed by statesmen on top of their briefs, and not by party hacks.
Once the UK left the EU, it was obvious that, if the “Global Britain” project was to succeed, British foreign policy had to be entrusted to visionaries, who knew where the country’s best interests lay and could navigate choppy waters. It is, therefore, a tragedy that it has ended up in the hands of mediocrities, incapable of seeing the wider picture. All, however, is not yet lost, as Johnson currently commands 360 members of Parliament, many talented. Among them, there must be some intellectual heavyweights, who prioritize principle over prejudice, substance over superficiality, and competence over careerism. Even if not his usual cronies, he should now consider advancing them, not least because Britain’s global interests, if they are to progress, must be served by people of genuine stature.
The author is a senior counsel and professor of law, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.