We haven’t heard much from George Osborne since the referendum, but that will change tomorrow morning. He’s due to make a statement, according to the Times, which also says that the Chancellor he is considering giving his backing to Boris Johnson’s leadership ambitions in exchange for being made Foreign Secretary.
I’m not so sure that this would be a good idea. In Brexit Britain, being Foreign Secretary will be perhaps the most important job in the Cabinet (other than the Prime Minister). It will involve renegotiating our relationship with Europe – not just the EU itself, but making immediate and strenuous efforts to strike a whole new series of bilateral deals. It will mean touring foreign capitals, reassuring our neighbours that Britain has not lost its head and is not turning in on itself. That we’re keen to work towards a new model of European relations, one based on liberty, respect for sovereignty and co-operation in shared endeavour. And that we’ll over-compensate: we’ll go an extra mile (or three) to prove that we’re serious about being a good ally to our European neighbours. A better ally than now, given that we won’t be getting in their way at EU summits anymore.
More importantly, there will need to be a root-and-branch review of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office itself. The FCO’s skills in understanding and negotiating trade deals have atrophied over the years, given that Britain has not had the power to strike its own agreements. That will, obviously, need to change.
But the other risk is that the FCO civil servants will instinctively seek to do a Norway: strike a deal with the EU which is as close as possible to EU membership. A great proportion of civil servants at the Foreign Office are appalled at the referendum, appalled at the result. In diplomatic circles, the very idea of the referendum is abhorred and the result viewed with shock. Brexiteers are seen as Visigoths banging at the gates of Rome. I suspect many FCO staff will now be working out how to keep us in the single market, keep us signed up to as many EU rules as possible. Over the years, the FCO 
has come to genuinely believe that Britain’s leverage and stature in the world is dependent on our being members of this dysfunctional European Union. That without it, we will soon be… well, tomorrow’s FT sums up this view rather nicely (see picture). There are a great many people who think that the sky has just fallen in.
The New York Times has been even worse. And some of the newspapers in continental Europe have portrayed this as xenophobia throughout. As a result a great many people overseas, reading such titles, may think that Brits are insular, protectionist, rather dim, and willingly voted to be made poorer because they dislike foreigners. And that this whole Brexit was a kind of emotional spasm, a vote cast by people who somehow managed to switch off Jeremy Kyle for long enough to make it to the polling booth.
This negative message about Britain needs to be countered, by an eloquent and passionate voice who understands and can explain the direction that the country has just taken. And explain how the case for Brexit is globalist in outlook; not those of Little Britain but those fed up with a Little Europe. That Brexit was not about disliking foreigners; it was just a basic thought that a country ought to be able to control its borders. That we need and welcome immigration, but shouldn’t have a system where we discriminate against non-Europeans, and end up deporting American flutists because they don’t earn £35,000. In other words: we need a Foreign Secretary who can explain, to a bewildered world, that the Brexit votes were cast in a defence of compassionate, fair-minded and outward-looking British values.
And that voice has to be Michael Gove’s. He was the best speaker in the campaign, and he also can suborn the FCO. He matches words with action, principles with accomplishments – and at Education, he showed how he can actually control a government department, rather than be controlled by it. We’d need our ambassadors (again, most of whom are aghast at the Brexit vote) to give a very clear and very different message about Britain. In effect, we’d need whole the Foreign Office rebooted – to tell our country’s story. And to start to build something that we haven’t had for a great many years: a proper, full-spectrum foreign policy.
George Osborne wasn’t joking; he genuinely thinks Brexit was an abominable idea. Fair enough: 48 per cent of Brits also voted against it, and those who supported Leave (myself included) should never forget that figure. There are a great many jobs that someone of the Chancellor’s talents could do – but being Foreign Secretary, in the current climate, is not really one of them.
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