4th July 2022

Here is a tweet from the Chinese Embassy in Ireland:

Well.

What did the government of the United Kingdom expect?

This is not to say there is equivalence between the two situations – and many may say that a false equivalence is being made.

And this is not to say that the government of China – with its often horrific record on human rights, including in respect of the Uyghurs – are somehow the ‘good guys’ for tweeting in this way.

Certainly not.

But.

Again: what did the government of the United Kingdom expect?

The government’s reckless determination to legislate so that it can unilaterally breach the Northern Irish protocol was always going to provoke responses like this.

A government that openly and expressly wants to breach international law – especially its own recently negotiated agreements – cannot credibly insist on other nations complying with their international agreements.

Similarly, the sustained attack on ‘European’ human rights law by this government also makes it difficult for the United Kingdom to insist on international human rights standards by others.

(This is a point I make today in more detail over at Al Jazeera – where I post regularly putting forward a liberal constitutionalist perspective.)

The United Kingdom now also appears to be considering breaking World Trade Organisation rules on steel subsidies.

The United Kingdom government is showing the same lack of respect to international rules-based regimes as it does to domestic rules.

But the more we denounce or deride or disregard international agreements and instruments, the more we are creating a needless moral hazard.

It is all so daft – and so dangerous.

*

In another universe, where the United Kingdom has also departed the European Union, a far more prudent government than the one we have currently would have spent the last few years building up its credibility as a party to international agreements and instruments.

After all, new international agreements are what the United Kingdom will need to rely on, now that it all alone on the world stage.

(Of course, such a prudent government may not have left the European Union in the first place.)

But instead of doing everything we can to build up our credibility as a potential partner to international agreements, we seem to have done everything we can to trash our international reputation as a serious party to international agreements.

And this was the worst possible time for us to convey such an insolent – almost infantile – attitude.

This is why we are now being trolled by the Chinese on social media.

And the United Kingdom government only has itself to blame.

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