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Is the British Council worth saving?

This once globally respected institution is now a husk of its former self.

Mary Dejevsky

Topics Politics UK

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Promoting Britain’s ‘soft power’ has become central to the Labour government’s foreign-policy agenda. Yet it now seems that Britain’s oldest and arguably original proponent of using culture as a tool of foreign policy could be squeezed out entirely. Testifying before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) earlier this month, Scott McDonald, boss of the 90-year old British Council, warned that his organisation was facing difficult times. It could even disappear within ‘a year or two’, he cautioned, unless placed on sounder financial footing.

The talk of soft power is now unavoidable in Whitehall. The hearing on the role of the British Council came a week after the FAC announced an inquiry to ‘examine the government’s upcoming soft-power strategy’. Just two days after his FAC testimony, McDonald attended the official launch of a new body called the UK Soft Power Council, as one of 26 board members. This is a joint venture between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with the stated remit of advising the Labour government on a new soft-power strategy. Foreign secretary David Lammy hopes that ‘harnessing soft power effectively can help to build relationships, deepen trust, enhance our security and’, wait for it, ‘drive economic growth’.

As if this wasn’t enough soft power to be going on with, government-friendly think-tank Labour Together published its own report this month. It laments what it describes as the ‘downward trajectory’ of UK soft power over the past 10 years, partly because of a lack of ‘an overarching national narrative’. As such, it calls for a forward-looking rethink of the UK’s strategy, with more emphasis on science and sport.

Now, all these different strands could become useful contributions to a wider debate on the role of soft power in achieving Britain’s goals on the international stage. But they could also be seen as attempts to lay claim to an area of policy that appears dear to Lammy’s heart. Nor is it hard to see why. The UK has a strong record in projecting soft power (it consistently comes in the top three in global surveys), so there is something to build on. Soft power will also appeal to a government wanting to banish two decades of expensive and largely misfired applications of hard power.

All hail, then, the BBC World Service; the English language; British universities, ancient and modern; culture, from Shakespeare via the Beatles to Tracey Emin; science, from Isaac Newton to the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, via splitting the atom; and, of course, football. But there is less enthusiasm in Whitehall for the organisation that has, in the past, helped quite a lot with the projection of the UK’s soft power abroad – namely, the British Council.

Far from steering the new UK Soft Power Council, the British Council finds itself with just one seat on the board. It is apparently expected to slot into what seems to be conceived as an ideas factory, as a representative of ‘culture’. It is not at all clear how this is supposed to work. But for the time being, everyone seems to be putting a positive gloss on it, couched in emollient bureaucratese.

At this point, let me declare a small interest. I was one of the British undergraduates who benefited from a 10-month studentship at a Soviet university, arranged under the auspices of the British Council in the depths of the Cold War. Around 40 or so students took part in this scheme every year, with a similar number going the other way. Many more took shorter courses. The year gave us a command of the Russian language and an insight into Soviet daily life that was highly unusual in those days. It was also, I would argue, not valued as much by UK governments as similar schemes were by the US and some other European governments.

That, though, is by the by. A lot has changed in global politics, in communications and the way things are generally done by governments. But it would be fair to say that the British Council, whose representatives abroad then had full diplomatic status and in many cases doubled as cultural attachés, has increasingly become a poor relation to other foreign-policy bodies. And now it is quite literally poor.

Scott McDonald told the FAC that the British Council was being just about kept afloat by a £200million loan advanced by the Foreign Office to keep things going after Covid, but this had to be repaid. With the Foreign Office unwilling to write it off, the British Council is looking at shutting down dozens more of its operations, selling off more premises and auctioning what it can from its art collection. It is all rather desperate stuff, reminiscent of gentry fallen upon hard times.

Perhaps McDonald is just an institutional head playing hardball in pursuit of more money. It would certainly not be a good look for the pioneer of UK soft power to be forced into bankruptcy. But the numbers clearly do not add up, and not just as a result of Covid and a one-off loan. The plight of the British Council today reflects the erosion of its position, over three decades or more. This began with the decision to spin it off, almost wholly, from government and taxpayer funding. It now receives only 15 per cent of its funding directly from government and must raise the rest where it can. This comes sometimes from contracts from government departments, but mainly by charging for its services, such as English-language teaching, exam fees and the like.

From inside government, that may have seemed a good idea with little downside. Naturally, this would be good for the Treasury. Besides, if there is a commercial value to what the British Council does, which there is, and if people are willing to pay, which they are, why shouldn’t the state have cut it loose? Outside government, however, this started to look less good as an idea, as English classes became open only to those who could pay. The British Council was soon viewed as a business first and UK institution second. Many employees lost their diplomatic status, making them, their local employees and their buildings vulnerable to pressure at times of diplomatic tension.

The British Council came to have the worst of both worlds. It was universally seen as a branch of government, but also as mercenary in intent. It has now become viewed as weak, as lacking diplomatic clout and strapped for cash. Most comparable countries provide far more support, of all kinds, to their cultural representations. In cash alone, as McDonald set out to the FAC, the British Council receives £165million from the government annually. Its German, Spanish, French and Japanese equivalents receive as much as five times more than that. The unresolved Covid loan issue brings matters to a head.

Given that the status quo is not tenable, the UK government faces a straight choice. It must decide either to make the British Council a full arm of government for soft-power projection, and fund it as our European competitors do their equivalents. Or perhaps, just perhaps, call it a day. The US manages much of its cultural diplomacy through the public-affairs sections of its embassies, leaving educational, cultural and sports bodies to arrange their own foreign activities, often through non-profit organisations. The UK’s cultural offering would be strong enough to follow that model, too.

A decision has to be made one way or the other. Either give the British Council proper funding and recognition as the official arm of UK soft power, on a par with its European equivalents, or declare it an anachronism and put it out of its misery. The current arrangements don’t work – either for the British Council or for Britain’s foreign policy.

Mary Dejevsky is a writer and broadcaster. She was Moscow correspondent for The Times between 1988 and 1992. She has also been a correspondent from Paris, Washington and China.

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