Post-Brexit Britain starts search for new global role

LONDON (HRNW) – Britain will begin trying to define the new role it wants to play in global politics, the government said on Tuesday, launching a review of foreign policy, defense, security and international aid.

Britain technically completed its protracted exit from the European Union on Jan. 31, ending more than four decades of alignment with the European project. However, it remains bound by EU rules until the end of 2020 while a new trade deal is thrashed out.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is eager to move on from three years of division over Brexit that toppled his two predecessors, tested the limits of Britain’s constitution, and still threatens to tear apart the United Kingdom’s constituent countries.

The government said it would conduct the largest review of its kind since the end of the Cold War three decades ago to overhaul Britain’s approach to foreign policy. Its findings would set UK priorities and objectives and how to achieve them.