It’s time to “recolonise” Africa

By Pete North - March 24, 2021

Following our departure form the EU, Britain has been in search of a new role internationally. We could do no worse than look to France for inspiration – which never gave gave up its imperial role – and has not given into the nihilistic self-annihilation ideas of the left.

Prior to Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain saw itself as a partner with America as the global policeman and defender of the global post-war order. This was almost certainly a delusion and one which our collective defeats have put an end to. But Britain can’t afford to turn inwards to lick its wounds – especially now we’ve left the EU. Having left the EU we need to beef up our overseas engagement.

This is where the drawdown of aid and development funding is a mistake. Such funding needs refocussing, not reducing. It needs to move away from NGO humanitarianism and into the realms of more tangible trade and development.

But it is also twofold. Any government attempting to solve the migration crisis at the borders is one that will fail every single time. We have long said that if you want to stop the boats crossing the Med then you need a sub-Saharan Africa policy – and that’s going to involve trade, aid, development and security.

Starting off with the principle that development is impossible to maintain without security, there is an immediate role for our armed forces. Building roads, securing ports and airports, policing trade routes, and eliminating insurgent forces such as Boko Haram helping to stabilise struggling countries. On that score, it’s time to rediscover a little of that “British imperial brutality”.

That immediately solves the incoherence of our defence procurement. Presently we’re buying all things for all eventualities but too small in number to be of any use, wasting a fortune on a willy-waving carrier group that is more of a liability than an asset. If we’re serious about overseas engagement we need to strengthen African nations in terms of governance and security.

On these pages we have often outlined how EU, Chinese and US trade policy undermines emerging African economies, creating many of the problems we face at our own borders. Britain, having an independent trade policy, should now be thinking in terms of development partnerships, building production capacity in Africa and using its influence in global organisations to build coalitions against aggressive trade policies.

We have outlined how investment in ports and trade facilitation measures can African goods reach global markets, but ultimately it cannot be sustained without tackling the endemic corruption and security instability. Nigeria, for instance, is constantly fending off threats in the North of the country, now investing in turboprop attack aircraft and specialising in counterinsurgency tactics.

This is where the UK could not only find a market for its own defence exports, there is no reason why we can’t take a more active role in destroying the likes of Boko Haram.

I’m not by any means proposing retaking the empire, but there is a lot in practical and diplomatic terms we can do alongside international measures to block tax evasion that erode African governance. Britain is good at exporting good governance even if we’ve struggled to maintain it at home.

Ultimately our humanitarian aid efforts are of limited use and are really just a flag flying exercise and a career path for NGOcrats – but it is of questionable tangible value to the British people. Humanitarian aid often causes as many problems as it solves and cannot be sustained over the long term, and concentrates on the symptoms of bad governance in Africa rather than the causes.

Our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq failed because our brass thought that kind of operation was a blip rather than the new normal and didn’t want to equip for it. Spending money configuring our forces for counter insurgency took money away from the kinds of shiny expensive (and largely useless) toys they like to play with.

In both theatres we were chronically short of effective air support and helicopters because the air force didn’t want to be lumbered with COIN turboprops when it likes fast jets, and when it comes to helicopters we always end up with far fewer because we always go with the massively more expensive option.

Were we to put ourselves on a more colonial footing, specialising in counter insurgency to support our development aims, we would have the lift and strike capability we need to make a real difference, without having our arses handed to us by skinnies with RPGs.

Presently we’re looking at destabilisation of east Africa, no doubt leading to another wave of displaced peoples, and more death in the Sahara as they attempt to reach the people smugglers on the Libyan coast. As much as we need to do more to rebuild Libya (which we played a part in destroying) we need to pick sides in African conflicts and maintain a presence so that we don’t see entire cities displaced, causing further unrest as it spills over into neighbouring countries.

Britain has a choice. It can either choose to be non-combatant with only modest defence forces, relying on the NATO umbrella, freeloading the way our European “partners” do, or we can recognise that we are still a force for good in the world and that an active foreign policy is in the national interest.

So pervasive has our self-doubt become, we were even squeamish about mounting operations against ISIS. After Iraq, in part responsible for the rise of ISIS, and after creating a power vacuum in Libya, we no longer had the stomach for interventions. But in both instances, we took the view that the job could be done by airpower alone, not putting boots on the ground and not getting our hands dirty.

This, in part, is because the left is all to eager to accuse the West of imperialism. Such criticism is seldom levelled at France. It seems only Britain and America are keen on self-denigration. The result of such squeamishness is half baked interventions and military failure – further eroding the national morale.

By way of its schizophrenic nature, the EU is both unwilling and unable to extend itself overseas the way a nation state can, but the UK, possibly in partnership with France and others, can work toward supporting and stabilisation African nations with a view to ending the cycle of war, displacement and famine for good.

By choosing to take up a global role and committing to it militarily, we then give ourselves some national direction. Without such a direction we can only fester in our post-EU malaise. Our so-called pivot to the indo-china region is meaningless in terms of both trade and security. We are incapable of military deterrence in the region even with a fully socked carrier group, and though CPTPP is not without merit, there are few concerns with direct relevance to the UK – while African displacement of people presents a challenge for all of Europe, now and in the long term.

All of Africa and be an important market for the UK in terms of goods and services exports, and particularly as a market for our national expertise in a number of key areas. But that can’t happen without security, stabilisation and investment in development. Moreover, without long term political and diplomatic commitment, we’re only playing at it. We need to pick an objective, stick with it and see it through.