On foreign policy, Boris can be the great disruptor

Much of the post-election attention has gone on the next stage of Brexit and the government’s attempts to set down a domestic reform agenda that works for the Tories’ new northern constituencies. As such, the Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review, briefed as ‘the deepest review of Britain’s security, defence, and foreign policy since the end of the Cold War’, has so far been somewhat overlooked. Yet, as the terms of both the Queen’s Speech and Downing Street’s briefing underscore, this review will ‘reassess the nation’s place in the world’, a pretty significant remit. The Sovereign committed her ministers to ‘promot[ing] the United Kingdom’s interests… work[ing] closely with international partners to help solve the most complex international security issues and promote peace and security globally… [and] stand[ing] firm against those who threaten the values of the United Kingdom’.

Successive governments have treaded cautiously on foreign policy since Iraq, which reflects elite and popular scepticism about the UK’s role in shaping the international order but also led to moral abdications like Parliament’s decision to let Bashar al-Assad crack on with it in 2013.