History and the national interest | Jeremy Black

Those who do not learn from the past are liable to misunderstand Britain’s place in the world

Beloved of commentators and politicians, there is a perception of the national interest as coherent and unchanging — one that political priorities hardly alter. In reality, the perception of the national interest changes according to prevailing politics, at home and abroad.

That might appear questionable for an era in which the major political parties have been committed to Atlanticism and NATO, but the reality of the last half-millennium has been very different.

There have been major divisions both over the definition of the national interest and concerning how best to pursue it. These divisions have varied in cause, course, intensity and consequence, but have included religious, ideological, political and strategic causes, as well as very different perceptions concerning what shared concepts and issues such as the balance of power have meant in practice and how best to pursue them.

For example, political divisions very much focused on foreign policy for much of the period 1688-1815. The Whigs and Tories clearly presented themselves in that way with war with France generally seen as a Whig project.

Moreover, certainly until the 1780s, there was a link with a philosophical Tory attitude towards the limitations of human calculation and international interventionism, the latter of which was associated with Whig concepts of the balance of power and the necessity of alliance strategies. This philosophical and rhetorical contrast offered a consistency that was different from the role in the public debate of pragmatic responses to quickly-changing developments and the resultant problems.

Historians are apt to underplay debates by treating one side as representing the national interest. Thus, sympathy for William III (r. 1689-1702), antipathy towards Louis XIV, and the persuasive nature of Williamite propaganda, have led historians to concentrate favourably on the idealistic conception and presentation of his role. Such an emphasis, however, fails to address the rhetorical strategies of Williamite apologists, the scope for choice in Williamite policies including co-operation with France in the Partition Treaties of 1698 and 1700, the concerns of contemporaries about both foreign policy and strategy, and the costs of his policy.

Similarly, the degree to which later scholars, notably Michael Roberts and Hamish Scott, shaped the discussion of foreign policy for the years 1763-83 is highly instructive for it underlines the extent to which such scholarship tends to be disproportionately favourable to interventionism and, conversely, to fail to appreciate domestic issues, problems and politics, unless as blocking nuisances. This is both wrong for that period in specifics and more generally.

The Tories, in contrast to the Whigs (and indeed to modern Tories), argued that Continental interventionism was linked to corruption and the moneyed interest. The concerns of the landed interest, not least the rate of Land Tax during a prolonged agrarian depression, were a key point for Tories, who thus sought to link policy to the electorate.

Foreign policy played a major role in domestic politics, in part because of its inherent importance but also due to the relative lack of political traction, and notably so at the national level, for key elements in modern social and economic policy, such as social welfare. In contrast, foreign policy both appeared important (as it indeed was) and provided an opportunity to translate political assumptions into debate, not least because the expounding of foreign policy was a key element in the politics of government. Thus, foreign policy was a central aspect of the Royal Speech beginning each parliamentary session and of the Addresses in response from each House. Foreign policy also proved a central element in debate on leading elements of expenditure, those related to the military.

For the Tories, then, foreign policy offered an opportunity to oppose  the Whig administrations that were in power for most of the period 1708-60, and an opportunity that was greater and more frequent than that provided by most issues. That the press devoted so much attention to foreign affairs and foreign policy aided this emphasis. The press acted as a bridge between public opinion, however defined, and the high political sphere. As a result, an opportunity for political consistency across the spectrum of political activity was offered in the field of foreign policy. Yet, because the “Glorious Revolution” had largely settled the religious issue, it was no longer the case that a royal foreign policy could be presented as Catholic or crypto-Catholic. This greatly lessened the severity of disagreements over foreign policy, not least by ensuring that it was not so central to a fundamentally-divided domestic sphere.

Alongside the extent to which Tory thought and arguments on foreign policy emerged from domestic politics came the role of international relations. In the eighteenth century, these were certainly very varied and thus provided very different contexts within which British foreign policy was formulated and executed. There were cross-currents that could not be readily contained in party terms or with reference to apparently consistent ideas of the national interest.

The situation today can really be considered in light of the past for alongside significant transformation in context and approach, for example the attempt to finance a bloated welfare state at the same time as being globally important, and the pursuit of international law rather than national interest, there remain key matters such as resources and priorities. So also with the need to allow for the agency of others, not least allies, and the interaction with contingencies. Both combine to produce risk. That was misunderstood or neglected in the past, as with confrontations with Russia in 1719 and 1791, and more recently as with interventionism in the 2000s and 2010s.

A delusion about Britain’s status in the world, a shibboleth for all recent governments encourages folly, deceit, confusion and risk. That is the situation today, and an understanding of the past greatly contributes to it.

Jeremy Black’s The National Interest? (Amberley, 2026) is forthcoming.

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