What will the world think of a UK without Scotland?

Joe Wright, 25 June 2014

Soft power can be a watery and abstract element of UK policy and diplomacy, but we take it seriously. There’s even a Lords Select Committee to keep track of and promote UK ‘influence’. The Committee recently published a paper ‘Power and Persuasion and Power in the Modern World’, which tracked the shifting importance of ‘power through influencing other countries to want the same things as the UK … building positive international relationships and coalitions which defend our interests and security, uphold our national reputation and promote our trade and prosperity. As opposed to: the use of ‘force and coercion for a nation to assert itself, labelled as “hard power”.’ Talk to any diplomat – UK or foreign – and they will wax lyrical about the equal importance of ‘public’ to private diplomacy. What people say about us, what other countries media and politicians say about the UK, matters.

Brand Britain has done rather well in this respect. The last Soft Power Global Survey by Monocle magazine (taken in 2012) placed the UK as the world’s no.1 soft power, pipping the US to prime position. This came at a time when the Obama administration was floundering: the world had begun to take exception with American exceptionalism, conflicted foreign policy and evermore introverted politics. The UK, on the other hand, was riding a wave of positive exposure with all eyes on the successful Olympics. This long and hard won gentle power has, as the Lords pointed out, done wonders. London is thriving, inward investment is high, and our universities are brimming with people from every corner of the earth. That is the effect of soft power: people want to do business with, and in, countries they like. Most importantly, this is one poll we come ahead of the Germans in.

But this hard won reputation may now hang in the balance as we lead up to Scotland’s referendum in September. Both campaigns have so far paid a great deal of attention to the UK’s hard power. Better Together defined their campaign by strength and security: a shared currency for economic strength, a shared army and nuclear capability, being in the G8 (currently the G7, until frosty relations with Russia thaw), on the UN Security Council, in Europe. The Yes Campaign’s core message sought to alleviate any fears Scottish people may have with losing those. But there is more at stake here.

We have little idea of how we will see ourselves as a set of nations outside of the UK, let alone how we will be perceived internationally; as well as rightly questioning the hard power of the UK without Scotland, it is ludicrous to assume that soft power will remain unaffected. The Olympics did wonders for the UK because of the exposure. Being the first break up a western democracy for decades this too will be an event that won’t go unnoticed. Coverage will be international. Any observer of UK affairs will then be entitled to ask ‘if the UK is such a wonderful place, why have 8 per cent of their population decided to leave?’