{"id":528,"date":"2016-10-12T10:53:11","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T10:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=528"},"modified":"2017-01-06T16:29:38","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T16:29:38","slug":"the-rise-of-the-anglosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=528","title":{"rendered":"Rise of the Anglosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Britain begins to turn more sharply away from a future \u201cacross the Channel\u201d, the idea that its best future can be found \u201cacross the oceans\u201d is emerging as a key rallying cry for the supporters of hard Brexit.<\/p>\n

In the past few weeks, as the May Government begins to find answers to the big questions about the\u00a0best course for Britain\u00a0as it moves towards,\u00a0and then beyond,\u00a0the end of its membership of the European Union, there has been intensifying behind-the-scenes lobbying for the idea of a formalised union of the so-called \u201cAnglosphere\u201d countries.<\/p>\n

The idea is that what is currently known as the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d (FEVY) intelligence sharing agreement between Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would be extended to create a much wider, formal treaty covering trade, commerce and diplomacy as well as security.<\/p>\n

Britain would be at the\u00a0centre\u00a0of this new international architecture, with a parallel process of negotiation for its implementation occurring as the process of extracting Britain from the EU takes place.<\/p>\n

The concept has already been given formal expression by several leading Australian conservative politicians \u2013 with backing from the Murdoch media \u2013 with a call for the Australian government to immediately offer Britain an \u201copen slather\u201d trade agreement to take effect from the day after the UK\u2019s EU membership ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia should waste no time in seeking a simple but comprehensive free trade agreement with Britain,\u2019 Murdoch\u2019s flagship newspaper The Australian editorialized last week. \u201cShared membership of the\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0would make unnecessary the tortuous negotiations and labyrinthine detail that delays free\u00a0deals between very different parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Australian prime minister\u00a0Tony Abbott spoke with key members of the May government during the Conservative party conference last week and strongly urged them to put the idea formally on the government\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

The three key Tory ministers (apart from May herself) responsible for mapping a post-Brexit\u00a0future for the UK have all previously supported the\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0idea.<\/p>\n

David Davis said during the\u00a0Brexit\u00a0campaign that he saw\u00a0Brexit\u00a0as \u201ca great opportunity to renew our strong relationships with Commonwealth and\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese parts of the world are growing faster than Europe\u00a0\u2026\u00a0we share history, culture and language. We have family ties. We even have similar legal systems. The usual barriers to trade are simply absent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0idea has strong support among conservative groups in each of the potential member countries. In the US, influential think tanks such as the American Heritage Foundation have promoted the idea and some with connections to the Trump presidential campaign have suggested that, to the extent that Donald Trump would look for\u00a0new alliance relationships in his \u201cpost-globalisation\u201d America,\u00a0being part of\u00a0an \u201cAnglosphere\u201d would be a real possibility.<\/p>\n

Sceptics, however, argue that the idea of an \u201cAnglosphere\u201d alliance as a replacement for Britain being part of the European\u00a0Union and the\u00a0single market is a \u201cwork of cultural and political fiction\u201d.<\/p>\n

Founder of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group and former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans said the idea was \u201ca fantasy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic problem for\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0advocates is that none of the candidates\u00a0for\u00a0membership of this new club are likely to have the slightest interest \u2013 geostrategic, economic or political \u2013 in joining it,\u201d Evans wrote in a paper\u00a0analysing\u00a0the idea ahead of the Brexit vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeostrategically, the main game is, as it has been for most of recorded time, geography rather than history and the biggest game for the foreseeable future is the emerging contest for global supremacy between the US and China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others point out that, even just from Britain\u2019s trade point of view, an\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0would be a poor substitute for the EU.<\/p>\n

The EU represents 44 per cent of Britain\u2019s exports and 53 per cent of its imports.<\/p>\n

Australia,\u00a0Canada\u00a0and New Zealand account collectively for just 3.2 per cent of British exports and 2.5 per cent of imports.\u00a0Even the US only represents less than 20 per cent of the UK\u2019s exports and 11 per cent of imports.<\/p>\n

But for Britain, the wider dimensions of an\u00a0Anglosphere\u00a0may be better than nothing.<\/p>\n

By Geoff Kitney<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"kitney-vb1\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Britain begins to turn more sharply away from a future \u201cacross the Channel\u201d, the idea that its best future can be found \u201cacross the oceans\u201d is emerging as a key rallying…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,117],"tags":[34,56,18],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-brexit","category-trade-europe-and-global-economy","tag-commonwealth","tag-kitney","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}