Alongside the Strategic Defence and Security Review, UK
airstrikes in Syria may be a signal of renewed British involvement in
international affairs – but the continued risk of Brexit hangs over the
country’s relations with its allies.
Last month in
Washington, a former senior US official said privately that people like
him were weeping over the state of the 'special relationship' with the
UK. Another, from the opposite political party, spoke of American
"disdain" for the current state of UK foreign policy. Officials in the
Obama administration were no more diplomatic: one asked "What the hell
is the UK doing, going from a referendum on Scotland to a referendum on
the EU?". In Europe, French officials have grumbled for months about France's "strategic solitude" and Britain's absence from European foreign policy decision-making.
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