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Hard Choices Ahead Hard Choices Ahead The Chatham House–YouGov Survey 2012 British Attitudes Towards the UK’s International Priorities Jonathan Knight, Robin Niblett and Thomas Raines July 2012 Hard Choices Ahead The Chatham House–YouGov Survey 2012 British Attitudes Towards the UK’s International Priorities Jonathan Knight, Robin Niblett and Thomas Raines July 2012 © The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2012 Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) is an independent body which promotes the rigorous study of international questions and does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. Chatham House 10 St James’s Square London SW1Y 4LE T: +44 (0) 20 7957 5700 F: + 44 (0) 20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org Charity Registration No. 208223 ISBN 978-1-86203-269-9 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Cover image: © Andrew Winning/AFP/Getty Images Designed and typeset by Soapbox Communications Limited www.soapbox.co.uk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Latimer Trend and Co Ltd Contents About the Authors iv Preface v Executive Summary vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Reviewing a ‘Distinctive’ British Foreign Policy 2 The coalition’s performance 3 Threats and priorities 6 Fearing the worst: terrorism and the British public BENOÎT GOMIS 7 3 Britain and the European Union: Drifting Apart 8 A British vision for Europe? 8 The advantages and disadvantages of EU membership 9 The UK’s future in Europe 12 Cooperation with the EU 14 Uncertainties over the UK’s referendum debate RObiN NIBLETT 15 Delusions of sovereignty: there is no opt-out from globalization, even for Britain 16 CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER 4 An Island Alone? Pillars of a More Independent Foreign Policy 18 Britain in the world 18 Foreign policy assets 20 International development – spending and priorities 20 Can the coalition government fulfil its commitments on aid? ROB BAILEY 22 Allies and partners 24 Use of military force 24 No mandate for further interventions in the greater Middle East JANE KINNINMONT 27 5 A Divided Coalition 28 A ‘distinctive’ foreign policy 28 Britain and the EU 29 An island apart? 29 Mars and Venus 30 6 Conclusions: Hard Choices Ahead 31 7 Key Survey Insights 33 PETER KELLNER Appendix 35 About the Authors Jonathan Knight is Research Associate, Director’s Office andM anager, Strategic Initiatives at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs.) In this capacity, he contributes to the institute’s research on UK foreign policy, global trends and international risks, and has worked on the Chatham House–YouGov Survey since its inception. He also works with Robin Niblett on centrally coordinated research projects and strategic planning. His main research interests are UK foreign policy and US foreign policy. Previously, he was Research Assistant to the Director at Chatham House and coordinated the institute’s project on ‘Rethinking the UK’s International Ambitions and Choices’. He holds an MA in International Relations from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and a BA in History from St John’s College, University of Cambridge. Dr Robin Niblett became the Director of Chatham House in January 2007. From 2001 to 2006, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. During his last two years at CSIS, he also served as Director of the CSIS Europe Program and its Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership. Dr Niblett’s principal substantive interests are European integration, transatlantic relations and UK and US foreign policy. He leads Chatham House’s work on the Chatham House–YouGov Survey and directed the project on ‘Rethinking the UK’s International Ambitions and Choices’ in 2009–10. He is the author of Playing to its Strengths: Rethinking the UK’s Role in a Changing World (Chatham House, 2010). He is also the editor of and contributing author to America and a Changed World: A Question of Leadership (Chatham House/Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), the author of or contributor to a number of CSIS reports on transatlantic relations and contributing author and co-editor with William Wallace of Rethinking European Order (Palgrave, 2001). Thomas Raines coordinates the Europe Research Programme at Chatham House. Previously, he worked as an analyst in the Strategy Unit of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London. He is the co-author of the Chatham House Report A Diplomatic Entrepreneur: Making the Most of the European External Action Service (2011), with Staffan Hemra and Richard Whitman. He has served on a number of election-monitoring missions with the OSCE. He studied history and political science at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Pennsylvania. Preface This is the third survey of British attitudes towards the UK’s international priorities that Chatham House has developed in partnership with YouGov. The first survey took place in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 UK general election (24 June–2 July 2010); the second was conducted twelve months later (17–23 June 2011). This latest survey was conducted between 13 and 21 June 2012, and again tests British thinking about the country’s place in the world and how this thinking may have changed since the coalition government came to power. As with the two previous surveys, Chatham House asked YouGov to measure not only the attitudes of the British general public, drawing on a survey sample of 2,079 individuals, but also those of a group of 735 ‘opinion-formers’ from YouGovStone.1 The intention is to highlight any differences of opinion between these two groups, each of which can bring a different sort of pressure to bear on the government’s international policy choices, especially at a time of severe budget cuts. While a number of the questions were identical to those of the 2011 and 2010 surveys, allowing for comparison between the three sets of results, the 2012 survey contains new questions that seek to probe more deeply public and opinion-former attitudes to some the government’s international objectives. This year we have included a special focus on the UK’s relations with the European Union at a time of great uncertainty regarding the future of the European project; the results are addressed in detail in chapter three. The following analysis does not address all of the results, but rather offers a synopsis of some of the main points from the survey, considering their implications for the coalition government’s intention to implement a ‘distinctive’ foreign policy, with particular reference to the hard choices which will need to be made in the coming years, notably over Europe. It also features analysis by Rob Bailey, Benoît Gomis and Jane Kinninmont of Chatham House and two external expert commentators – Dr Constanze Stelzenmüller, a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States; and Peter Kellner, President of YouGov. Our thanks to them for their contributions. Our hope is that readers will look through the results in detail and form their own conclusions. YouGov has provided a breakdown of the results from the general public by stated voting intention, 2010 vote, gender, age, ‘social grade’ and region, while the YouGovStone results are broken down by party affiliation voting intention and then by sector.2 Chatham House has created a dedicated website (chathamhousesurvey.org) which allows the results to be filtered by sample (general public and opinion- formers) and category (voting intention, age etc.), where you can also access the full survey results. We would like to acknowledge the hard work and research assistance of Rachel Franklin during the development of the survey questions and the analysis of the results. We also thank Nico Petty, Antoni Rybaczyk and Holly Young for their assistance with the preparation of the tables of results. Finally, we are very grateful, as always, for the editorial support provided by Margaret May and Nicolas Bouchet in our Publications team. Jonathan Knight, Robin Niblett and Thomas Raines Chatham House July 2012 1 For a full definition of YouGovStone, see the Appendix, page 35. YouGovStone panellists are opinion-formers drawn from a wide range of sectors including government, business and the media. 2 Figures which refer to the general public’s political party affiliations are drawn from 2010 voting data, unless stated otherwise. For the opinion-formers, the figures use voting intention data. Executive Summary Reviewing a ‘distinctive’ British foreign policy As a medium-sized power in the midst of a protracted economic downturn and under severe resource constraints, the United Kingdom faces hard choices in its foreign policy. Despite this, the coalition government entered office with high ambitions to develop a ‘distinctive’ British foreign policy. This was to involve no ‘strategic shrinkage’, the vigorous promotion of British businesses and trade interests, a cautious approach to European integration, a reinvigorated but rebalanced relationship with the US, and strengthened relations with emerging powers. The survey results indicate broad alignment between the government’s priorities and the views of the public. Both the general public and opinion-formers rank commercial diplomacy as a top priority in British foreign policy. 47% of the public believe that national interests should drive UK policy. And there is a close correlation between the government’s approach to its relations with the European Union (EU) and the sceptical attitude of the British public towards Europe.
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