The government’s plan to slash £4bn from development spending is regressive and must be overturned
Boris Johnson does not share the liberal belief in progress. “I think that history – societies and civilizations and nations – can rise and fall, and I think that things can go backwards,” he said recently in an interview for The Atlantic, an American magazine. There could be few neater demonstrations of this acceptance of historical regression than the government’s decision to cut the UK’s aid budget by £4bn, which dominated the news just hours after the article was published.
To those who believe the aim of politics must be a brighter and more stable future, in which poverty has been eliminated and the risks of runaway global heating contained, the UK’s promise to spend 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid is a powerful symbol. It signals recognition of the obligations of rich nations and people to poorer ones, and a commitment to global cooperation. These ideas are widely shared, for reasons that range from a progressive internationalism to a belief that British “soft power” is part of its role as a former imperial power.
