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February 28 2025 - 1:00pm
One of the most dramatic effects of Donald Trump’s second administration is that it has thrust the doctrine of realism to the forefront of public debate. A storied theoretical tradition rooted in the academic discipline of International Relations, realism has recently won greater public prominence through the efforts of pugnacious exponents such as Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, known for his sharp criticisms of US foreign policy over Israel and Ukraine.
Yet since Trump returned to the White House this year, realism has been used less to attack Western foreign policy than to promote it. It has now been officially endorsed by both Labor and the Conservatives in the UK. Foreign Secretary David Lammy set out his doctrine of “progressive realism” last summer, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch this week promulgated her own theory of “conservative realism”.
On the face of it, Badenoch’s version of realism sounds better than Lammy’s. She explicitly differentiates herself from those she calls neoconservatives and cosmopolitan internationalists. Unlike the Foreign Secretary’s veneration of international law, she voices her frank skepticism. She criticizes the current government’s deal with Mauritius to relinquish British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, and moots the possibility of raising national spending on defense above the 2.5% targeted by Labor. She also explicitly talks in terms of pursuing the national interest, something that Lammy abjures, predictably damning it by association with colonialism.
With British voters now having the choice of conservative realism or progressive realism, one is left wondering: why is realism itself not sufficient? In her speech on Tuesday, Badenoch argued that “progressive realism” is a contradiction in terms, but what is the reality from which she needs to shield herself by caveating realism with the word “conservative”?
Realism has been historically defined by its focus on the ruthless pursuit of the national interest. The difficulty for Badenoch is that pursuing the national interest today is not a conservative task but a radical one, going far beyond adding a few more slivers of GDP to defense. Pursuing the national interest today requires remaking the British state itself. This is something from which Badenoch shies away, as she predictably qualifies the prospect of Brexiting from the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Criminal Court, talking in terms of “disengagement” rather than departure.
The truth is that whether the chosen buffer for realism is progressive or conservative, both Lammy and Badenoch are shielding themselves from reality, while at the same time trying to domesticate realism and make it safe for a decaying Westminster elite. The logical endpoint of all this will be another hapless British politician calling in due course for a “real realism”. To claim a conservative realism as opposed to a progressive realism is only to announce that you are incapable of rising to the challenges of realism.
Talking in terms of “conservative” or “progressive” realism indicates a political elite that is thinking in terms of global culture wars rather than representing and defending the nation. Like the linen rolls clinging to a decomposed mummy, such labels are ideological strands that are intended to entwine us forever in online discourse in service of crumbling political parties. The point of the national interest is precisely that it transcends the tedious ideological polarization of the Westminster state and the ancien regime of globalism. Serving the interests of a new British nation will require a new generation of political representatives. The current crop simply won’t do.
Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently: The National Interest: Politics after Globalization.
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