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As geopolitics takes an increasingly ominous turn in the age of Trump, the government has been focusing on what has been seen as a traditional British diplomatic strength. Earlier this month, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, announced the creation of a “soft power council”, aimed at boosting the UK’s reach and reputation abroad.
At a time of growing global insecurity and mistrust, it makes sense to mobilise influential figures from industries such as sport and music to help deepen relationships and forge partnerships abroad. Far more difficult to understand is the simultaneous neglect of an institution that has been a world leader in the soft power game for nine decades. Set up to promote understanding of Britain through cultural and educational cooperation with countries all over the world, the British Council has doubled as a powerful ambassador for liberal and democratic values. Yet at a time when these are under renewed threat globally, its depth of expertise and range of connections risk being squandered.
Interviewed by this newspaper, the council’s chief executive, Scott McDonald, has warned that without more generous funding guarantees by Westminster, it could go under within a decade. The loss of English‑language teaching income during Covid has left the council burdened by a £200m government loan, which it is struggling to pay back at commercial rates that the Foreign Office says it is obliged to enforce. As a consequence, Mr McDonald is faced with the prospect of implementing swingeing budget cuts and ending the council’s presence in up to 40 countries.
The contingent financial legacy of the pandemic should not be allowed to kill off a long-running national success story. Maximising the UK’s soft power is one way to describe the raison d’etre of the British Council. But the deeper value of its presence on the ground has been to foster mutual understanding and reciprocal links.
The author and poet Lemn Sissay, for example, once described a British Council-sponsored visit to South Africa as a learning curve for himself rather than his audiences, as the perspectives of local artists confounded his expectations. In Kyiv, the three-year-old Theatre of Playwrights – a remarkable showcase for new writers, including war veterans – was partly inspired by the example of London’s Royal Court, thanks to connections facilitated by the council in the 1990s.
Replicated in 100 countries across the globe, the forging of such long-term links is an invaluable source of goodwill and esteem. The cultural and educational outreach also delivers a knock-on boost in vital economic sectors such as tourism and international student recruitment.
As the chill winds of Maga-style nationalism blow across borders, such institutions should be cherished. Germany’s Goethe-Institut and France’s Alliance Française both enjoy far more generous funding arrangements for pursuing the same line of work. In a speech celebrating the 50th anniversary of the British Council in 1984, Margaret Thatcher said of its then chairman, Sir Charles Troughton: “He has the enviable reputation of being one of the few men who have come to me asking for more money and got what he asked for!” Times may be tough at the Treasury, but Mr McDonald’s pleas for some financial latitude should receive a similar response.
