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ABSTRACT
What role do the historic identity tropes associated with being an island play in the foreign policy of contemporary Britain? To answer this underexplored question, this article utilises theories of critical geopolitics and ontological security to analyse a series of recent parliamentary debates and reveals the continuing importance of geopolitics to British foreign policy. This entails a conceptualisation of the role that discourses of island geopolitics played in the British Empire, giving rise to a set of tropes that I call island identity. Many studies emphasise the enduring pragmatism of British foreign policy; by contrast, my framework allows a foregrounding of how foreign policy-makers seek ontological security through the use of the established discursive tropes of island identity which establish Britain in subject positions of geopolitical relevance relative to novel contexts. The case studies focus in particular on globalisation and the EU –two issues of particular relevance, especially since the Brexit vote. This article allows a deeper understanding of both by contextualising them within British traditions of geopolitical discourse.
Acknowledgments
For Robbie. I am grateful to all who have helped shape the island identity with me: Stephen Burman, Klaus Dodds and, most of all, Stefanie Ortmann and Fabio Petito.
Notes
1. Jackie Abell and colleagues’ survey of contrasting public perceptions of islandness in contemporary England and Scotland; Abell, Condor and Stevenson (Citation2006).
2. Ontological security builds on a notion proposed by Anthony Giddens: ‘Confidence and trust that the natural and social worlds are as they appear to be, including the basic existential parameters of self and social identity’ (Giddens Citation1984, 375, Citation1990, Citation1991). See Huysmans (Citation1998), Manners (Citation2002), McSweeney (Citation1999), Mitzen (Citation2006a, Citation2006b)) and Steele (Citation2005).
3. Wendt (Citation1999, 225). By way of counterpoint, see, for example, Campbell (Citation1998, 219–21).
4. Breaking the mould (and we might expect more in the wake of the Brexit vote) is the 2015 special issue of the Journal of Common Market Studies which advances an ‘agent-centred, but not agent-only interpretivist perspective’; Bevir, Daddow and Schnapper (Citation2015, 3). See in particular Daddow (Citation2015b), Fontana and Parsons (Citation2015), Ludlow (Citation2015) and Wellings and Baxendale (Citation2015). Of interest elsewhere for how they conceptualise British foreign policy, identity and, in some cases, islandness are: Barkawi and Brighton (Citation2013), Edmunds (Citation2014), Evans (Citation2014), Garton Ash (Citation2004), Gaskarth (Citation2013), Gaskarth (Citation2014), Hadfield-Amkhan (Citation2010), Law (Citation2005), Peckham (Citation2003), Porter (Citation2010) and Readman (Citation2014).
5. For examples of this type of thought from beyond Britain, see Demangeon (Citation1925) and Schmitt (Citation1942, Citation1950)).
6. On British maritime trade and strategy, see Corbett (Citation1911), Kennedy (Citation1976), Mahan (Citation1900) and McInnes (Citation1998). For realist theories of sea power or ‘offshore balancing’, see Mearsheimer Citation[2001] 2003; and, for a critical geopolitical perspective on Lines of Communication, Ó Tuathail Citation[1992] 2006.
7. For contemporaneous accounts of this, see Curzon (Citation1889) (for an anthology of Curzon’s speeches, see Raleigh Citation1906), Dilke (Citation1890), Mackinder (Citation1904a) and Mahan (Citation1900).
8. HC Deb 3rd April 1982, vol.21, col.638.
9. HC Deb 11th February 1963, vol.671, col.957.
10. Bowen Wells (Conservative): HC Deb 11th December 2000, vol.359, col.428.
11. Mark Hendrick (Labour): ibid., col.415.
12. Ibid., col.384.
13. Ibid., col.394–5.
14. Cook: ibid., col.382–3.
15. Cook: ibid., col.378; Maude: ibid., col.392; Ernie Ross (Labour): ibid., col.395.
16. Maude: ibid., col.395.
17. Maude: ibid., col.395.
18. Ibid., col.372.
19. Ibid., col.378.
20. Ibid., col.376.
21. Ibid., col.378.
22. Ibid., col.386.
23. Ibid., col.394–5.
24. Ibid., col.391.
25. Ibid., col.388.
26. Ibid., col.395.
27. Ibid., col.393–4.
28. John Spellar (Labour): ibid., col.450.
29. Donald Anderson (Labour): ibid., col.407–8.
30. Michael Howard (Conservative): ibid., col.411; Nicholas Soames (Conservative): ibid., col.417.
31. Menzies Campbell (Liberal Democrat): ibid., col.402; Soames: ibid., col.416–7; Wells: ibid., col.426–7; Paul Keetch (Liberal Democrat): ibid., col.438; Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative): ibid., col.444, 446–7.
32. Hendrick: ibid., col.414–5.
33. Wells: ibid., col.427.
34. Wells: ibid., col.428.
35. HC Deb 18th March 2003, vol.401, col.760–911.
36. HC Deb 27th November 2003, vol.415, col.152.
37. Straw: ibid., col.142–4, 152; Anderson: ibid., col.166; Andrew Mitchell (Conservative): ibid., col.191; Richard Ottaway (Conservative): ibid., col.195–7; Hugh Robertson (Conservative): ibid., col.208–9, 211; Soames: ibid., col.216.
38. Ibid., col.144.
39. Straw: ibid., col.148; Anderson: ibid., col.166; Campbell: ibid., col.166.
40. Straw: ibid., col.149.
41. Straw: ibid., col.149; Campbell: ibid., col.166.
42. Michael Ancram (Conservative): ibid., col.158.
43. Straw: ibid., col.152; Campbell: ibid., col.172; Jeremy Corbyn (Labour): ibid., col.190.
44. Straw: ibid., col.149, 153; Soames: ibid., col.216–7; Geoff Hoon (Labour): ibid., col.222.
45. Straw: ibid., col.144, 146; Hoon: ibid., col.229.
46. HC Deb 27th November 2003, vol.415, col.160.
47. Ibid., col.160–1. See also Hugh Robertson: ibid., col.208.
48. Soames: ibid., col.217–8.
49. Hugh Robertson: ibid., col.209.
50. Anderson: ibid., col.165.
51. Ibid., col.149.
52. Ibid., col.226.
53. Ibid., col.149.
54. Ibid., col.150.
55. Ibid., col.152.
56. See, from contrasting political standpoints, Corbyn: ibid., col.187–8; Crispin Blunt (Conservative): ibid., col.201–3.
57. T. Blair, Speech, London, 15th December 1998, reproduced in Deighton (Citation2001, 310).
58. Douglas Alexander (Labour): HC Deb 15th May 2012, vol.545, col.430, 441; James Morris (Conservative): ibid., col.466–8; Denis MacShane (Labour): ibid., col.471; Andrew Murrison (Conservative): ibid., col.472; Mark Lazarowicz (Labour): ibid., col.486; Dan Jarvis (Labour): ibid., col.494; Ivan Lewis (Labour): ibid., col.516.
59. Alexander: ibid., col.430.
60. Morris: ibid., col.466.
61. Jarvis: ibid., col.495.
62. Ibid., col.414.
63. Ibid., col.415–8.
64. Ibid., col.418.
65. Ibid., col.413.
66. Ibid., col.429.
67. Ibid., col.430. See Lewis: ibid., col.511.
68. Morris: ibid., col.467. See also Hague: ibid., col.413; Christopher Pincher (Conservative): ibid., col.485; Lazarowicz: ibid., col.486; Lewis: ibid., col.516.
69. MacShane: HC Deb 15th May 2012, vol.545, col.468.
70. Alexander: ibid., col.430. See also Murrison: ibid., col.472.
71. Lewis: HC Deb 15th May 2012, vol.545, col.516.
72. Morris: ibid., col.466.
73. Pincher: ibid., col.483.
74. Pincher: ibid., col.485.
75. James Lefroy (Conservative): ibid., col.488.
76. Ibid., col.497–500.
77. Morris: ibid., col.467.
78. Hammond: HC Deb 1st June 2015, vol.596, col.313–26; Benn: ibid., col.326–35.
79. James Heappey (Conservative): ibid., col.402.
80. Richard Benyon: ibid., col.363.
81. Blunt: ibid., col.359; John Baron (Conservative): ibid., col.369.
82. Hammond: ibid., col.321; Benn: ibid., col.326; Phil Wilson (Labour): ibid., col.411; Jonathan Ashworth (Labour): ibid., col.415; Mary Creagh (Labour): ibid., col.419; Justine Greening (Conservative): ibid., col.420.
83. Hammond: ibid., col.318.
84. Albert Owen (Labour): ibid., col.393.
85. Alan Duncan (Conservative): ibid., col.337.
86. Benn: ibid., col.327.
87. Stephen Doughty (Labour): ibid., col.398.
88. Ashworth: ibid., col.415.
89. Hammond: ibid., col.314.
90. Hammond: ibid., col.325; Benn: ibid., col.327; Gisela Stuart (Labour): ibid., col.358; Wilson: ibid., col.411–2. See also Corbyn:, ibid., col.353–4.
91. Robert Jenrick (Conservative): ibid., col.413.
92. Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative): ibid., col.381.
93. Hammond: ibid., col.315.
94. Hammond: ibid., col.324.
95. Richard Graham (Conservative): ibid., col.378.
96. Ibid., col.381.
97. Jenrick: ibid., col.412.
98. Mike Wood: ibid., col.406.
99. Bob Blackman: ibid., col.406. See also, Andrew Rosindell: ibid., col.392.
100. Mike Gapes: ibid., col.370; Gavin Shuker: ibid., col.406.
101. Benyon: ibid., col.362; Blackman: ibid., col.381.
102. Corbyn: ibid., col.353.
103. Jonathan Reynolds (Labour): ibid., col.414.
104. https://www.snp.org/our_vision accessed 21st June 2017.
105. Angus Robertson: HC Deb 15th May 2012, vol.545, col.464–6.
106. Patrick Grady: HC Deb 1st June 2015, vol.596, col.396.
107. The following specifically pondered that question: Hammond: ibid., col.313, 317; Duncan: ibid., col.337; Stuart: ibid., col.359; Blunt: ibid., col.359; Benyon: ibid., col.362–3; Gapes: ibid., col.370; Graham: ibid., col.377–8; Zahawi: ibid., col.380–1; Doughty: ibid., col.398–9; Mark Pawsey (Conservative): ibid., col.410; Jenrick: ibid., col.413; Ashworth: ibid., col.415.
108. Alex Salmond: ibid., col.343.
109. Salmond: ibid., col.338; Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: ibid., col.372.