In February 2020, the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, delivered a speech at the Old Royal Naval College in London. In it, he offered a vision of the country’s future beyond the EU: global in nature and built on Britain championing free trade and open markets. His choice of location — the baroque splendour of the Royal Navy’s former training academy — was telling, many thought. For the prime minister’s critics, it smacked of the imperial nostalgia permeating his administration; for his supporters, it underscored the country’s need to tap into its maritime, internationalist instincts to secure its future.
In the intervening months, the devastation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic has focused minds on the UK’s immediate problems. The country is grappling with an economic contraction of –11.2% for 2020 — its worst slump in 300 years. Unemployment is spiking and poverty levels are rising sharply. “The UK has been among the worst affected economies. This is no surprise, given the longer and more severe nature of its national shutdowns,” says James Smith, developed markets economist at ING.
