PM’s foreign policies have been submerged by Brexit, giving the impression the UK has checked out of world debates

Thanks to Brexit, the British voice counts for less at the UN

A mixture of personal praise of Donald Trump, sympathy for the UK after the chemical attack in Salisbury and safety in sheer numbers protected Theresa May from being on the front rank of international leaders who lined up at the UN general assembly to criticize Donald Trump’s Iran policy.

Other European leaders – including Margot Wallstrom the Swedish foreign minister and Emmanuel Macron, the global torch bearer of multilateralism – openly rebuked Trump at the Security Council meeting on Wednesday.

“We have tried sanctions over the years. We tried isolation, and it only gave the most conservative forces in Iran more power,” said Wallstrom. Macron suggested that Trump had no long-term strategy.

May calls for global cooperation at UN and chides Trump over Iran Read more

Off stage, the Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen was even more direct, saying that “a war with Iran will sooner or later be envisaged.”

May, by contrast, was matter-of-fact in her disagreement with the US, preferring to focus her fire on Russia for its “desperate fabrications” over Salisbury – remarks that provoked a stinging rebuke from the somewhat cornered Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

The prime minister tried to minimise her differences with Trump by praising him personally for his leadership role in seeking to reach an agreement with North Korea, which she described as the world’s most potent nuclear threat. She made no comment on the wider damage caused by Trump’s decision to tear up the nuclear deal with Iran.

But there was no disguising the fact that the UK finds itself in the awkward position of being at odds with Trump over a central issue of his administration: how to make Iran change course.

EU, China and Russia in move to sidestep US sanctions on Iran Read more

May and her new foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, have joined with France, Germany, Russia and China in concluding that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal, and – whatever its malign behaviour elsewhere there is no evidence that a sanctions squeeze will produce a more flexible mindset in Tehran – let alone regime change.

That view is held strongly throughout the foreign office, and national security network, despite the frustration of some of the UK’s closest allies in the Gulf such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE – ferocious networkers in British government circles – have for more than a year tried to persuade the UK to confront Iran over its behaviour in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

The language between the US and the EU over sanctions is also becoming fruity.

Earlier this week, Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, described EU efforts to shield European firms trading with Iran as “one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional global peace and security. By sustaining revenues to the regime you are solidifying Iran’s ranking as [the] No. 1 state sponsor of terror.”

May calls for global cooperation at UN and chides Trump over Iran Read more

It is not a conversation that UK officials enjoy, as they seek to show Britain can have leverage over Iran.

But in truth, the British voice on everything else at the UN counts for less than it did under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown – or even David Cameron.

May’s forays onto the international stage have been perfunctory; by contrast Brown was at the UN on Monday drawing the crowds as he banged the drum to find ways to raise extra cash for education in Africa.

But if May has any foreign policy theme, it is submerged by Brexit.

Broadcasters accompanying her to New York were each allocated four questions – and each confined themselves to Brexit – as if Iran, the UK’s aid budget, Myanmar, Yemen or even the UK military bombing of Syria were non-issues.

Such monomania leaves the impression that the UK is a country apart, involved in its own conversation, and checked out from the world debates.

That is not a true picture of British diplomatic effectiveness at the UN – but sometimes impressions become the reality.

Even if all goes to plan with Brexit, next year’s general assembly will be just as hard.

For the first time in decades, Britain will find itself as a non European Union member, forced to justify its claim to be one of the five permanent members of the UN security council – and British leaders (whoever they may be) will have to work even harder just to be heard.