‘Rough Winds Do Shake the Darling Buds of May’: Theresa May, British Public Diplomacy and Reputational Security in the Era of Brexit

Abstract

This chapter surveys British public diplomacy in the age of Brexit and official attempts to minimize the damage caused by the shock referendum result of 2016. It focuses on the initiatives of Theresa May’s time as Prime Minister and especially her ‘Global Britain’ frame, the counter disinformation response and the media freedom initiative of the Foreign Office. While the immediate damage to Britain’s reputation was not as severe as predicted, this piece argues that Britain (and any country in an analogous crisis) would do well to 1) listen, 2) keeping paying the ‘rent’ of good deeds on their existing reputation, 3) prepare for such crises in advance and 4) when in crisis, keep moving forward. The chapter suggests that reputation is a dimension of security and that both effective public diplomacy and a positive reality are necessary to maintain that ‘reputational security.’ Hence, Britain must more into its post Brexit existence taking care to preserve and develop the qualities that the world sees as admirable in the country.

This chapter is informed by the author’s personal experience as a consultant to the FCO evaluating UK public diplomacy in the Baltic and Western Balkans during the May period. It draws on work done while a fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University in the spring of 2019 and with the support of the Center for Communication Leadership at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.