Brexit and the UK‐Africa Caribbean and Pacific Aid Relationship
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Author | Sophia Price |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12558 |
Brexit and the UK-Africa Caribbean and Pacific
Aid Relationship
Sophia Price
Leeds Beckett University
Abstract
Debates about Brexit draw on powerful discursive mechanisms that have important implications for the UK–Africa, Caribbean
and Pacific aid relationship. Some of these narratives can be characterized in the following ways: first, that Brexit is an oppor-
tunity to recreate a Global Britain after a period of EU membership that saw the UK neglect its former partners, particularly
the Commonwealth. Second, the costs of EU membership are profligate and these funds could be better utilized by the
national government. Third the Brexit ‘divorce bill’is a penalty exacted by the EU for the UK’s decision to leave. This article
explores these claims via the EU-ACP relationship, and proposes three counter arguments. First, the discourse of ‘neglect’over-
looks the external relationships the UK has maintained through EU membership. Second, these relationships have provided
‘value for money’for the UK. Third, these contributions represent a significant proportion of the Brexit ‘divorce bill’and are
on-going financial commitments that the UK was central in establishing. The article then reviews the potential impact of Brexit
on UK aid, arguing that rather than reinvigorating Global Britain Brexit threatens to undermine the UK’s position in global
development, current levels of aid and longstanding commitments to eradicate poverty.
The Brexit referendum and the subsequent negotiations
have given rise to powerful discursive mechanisms that
are both directly and indirectly linked to the UK’s devel-
opment policy and aid provision. The first of these is that
due to its membership of the EU the UK has neglected
its relationship with the Commonwealth (Price, 2016). This
discourse however neglects the longstanding relationship
that the UK has maintained with the Commonwealth and
other states across the Global South through its member-
ship of the EU. The ‘partnership’between the EU and the
Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group has long been
the centrepiece of the EU’s development cooperation rela-
tions. Of the 53 Commonwealth states, only 11 are not
part of the EU-ACP relationship. The pre-referendum dis-
course therefore represents a ‘myth of betrayal’(Murray-
Evans, 2016) which underestimates the significance of the
range of the EU’s external relations, and the UK’s role
within these.
The second powerful discourse relates to the costs of UK
membership, which formed a key strand in the Leave Cam-
paign. Controversially this was calculated as a cost to the
UK of £350 million per week, which it was argued, was a
wasteful contribution to a profligate centralized bureau-
cracy that could be more effectively spent by the national
government in the interest of the British public. The calcu-
lation of this sum has been contested (and subsequently
denied by its one-time promoters). However, the UK’s
financial contribution to the EU has been a source of ten-
sion in the Brexit negotiations and a key point in the
ongoing pro-Brexit debate. In contrast to this, the argu-
ment here is that the UK’s contribution to the EU aid bud-
get has represented good ‘value for money’for the UK
government and allowed it to leverage UK aid while
affording the UK a central role in the management of glo-
bal development and the alignment of development policy
and practice at the global, regional and national levels.
This is particularly the case in relation to the EU’s key
development cooperation relations with 79 states of the
Global South that form the ACP group. The UK has been
an important actor in this relationship, since its accession
to the EU in early 1970s.
Finally, in the Brexit negotiations the question of the
amount the UK could be required to pay as part of its
arrangements to leave the EU has been characterized as a
‘divorce bill’through which the EU has attempted to exact a
harsh penalty in revenge for the UK’s decision to leave.
Through a focus on UK contributions to EU aid mechanisms,
such as the European Development Fund (EDF), this article
will argue instead that the ‘divorce bill’represents long-
standing and on-going financial commitments that, in the
case of aid provision at least, the UK has played a leading
role in establishing.
After exploring each of these three Brexit claims in the
first section of this article, the second section will review the
potential impact of Brexit on UK Aid relations. It will suggest
that withdrawal of the UK from the EU is likely not only to
be a costly and uncertain process, but also one that threat-
ens to undermine the UK’s position in global development,
current levels and sources of development funding and
existing and nascent trade relations. It will explore the possi-
ble aid provision strategies the UK could adopt on departure
from the EU, and suggests that continued engagement with
the EU-ACP partnership would be a possible and perhaps
optimal outcome.
©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2018) 9:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12558
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 3 . September 2018
420
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