Ardent Brexiteer and former Attorney general Geoffrey Cox has described the government’s decision to renege on parts of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) which Boris Johnson himself negotiated, signed and declared a fantastic deal only last November as “Unconscionable”. Writing in The Times he said:
When the Queen’s minister gives his word, on her behalf, it should be axiomatic that he will keep it, even if the consequences are unpalatable. By doing so he pledges the faith, honour and credit of this nation and it diminishes the standing and reputation of Britain in the world if it should be seen to be otherwise.[...]
We, the British government and parliament, have given our word. Our honour, our credibility, our self-respect and our future influence in the world all rest upon us keeping that word. Nothing less is worthy of Britain.
There’s no question that Geoffrey makes his case strongly and persuasively. In particular few would argue with his assertion that this show of bad British faith damages our honorable reputation. However, how much does this actually matter?
As children, most of us were taught that we should be honest at all times. It’s a very black and white kind of lesson which is reinforced by the world of grownups every day. We are taught it because, frankly, left to our own devices, the evidence is that we’re not very honest. But if we do not possess honesty as a natural instinct, why do we think it so important to teach? This is not intended as a facetious question, rather we often discover the most interesting things about ourselves when we identify and examine dearly held and earliest formed assumptions.
Multi-level Selection theory (MST) postulates that altruism is explained if natural selection occurs on the level of the group as well as the individual. The academic E. O. Wilson describes it like this:
"In a group, selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals. But, groups of altruistic individuals beat groups of selfish individuals."
For this to be true, altruistic behaviour must confer a benefit. And to be selfish must incur a penalty. The benefit of altruistic behaviour in MST terms, is that it allows for larger, more cohesive groups, and these groups then successfully out compete the smaller less cohesive groups.
Honesty and honour play their role in altruism as do their opposites. For a group to function with higher levels of altruism each individual must trust that the other members of the group will reciprocate their gestures of altruism when conditions demand. In other words what is taking place is not true altruism but a form of exchange. Backs are being scratched and in turn expect to be scratched, just maybe not straight away. Dishonesty such as stealing or cheating or even freeloading, also needs to be recognised and penalised, otherwise everyone would surely be selfish.
There is a further factor to consider. Humans like the other primates live in hierarchical societies usually with a leader at the top. In prehistoric times we can presume that a system of handed down rewards and punishments ensured the group adhered to the leader’s view of the world. In modern times we usually have some system of justice, including laws and law-enforcers, judges and punishments to penalise transgressors, and a plethora of incentives to reward good faith behaviour.
In game theory, collaboration usually offers a better reward than betrayal, but only if that collaboration can be successfully ensured. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma the police find a way to crack the collaboration of two prisoners they’ve arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, and in so doing they create a Nash equilibrium in which the optimal strategy for each prisoner is to betray the other even though this results in a less than optimal individual outcome. In this case the police break the coalition by offering a system of rewards and punishments, such that if one prisoner gives up the other he will guarantee, at worse, a penalty less severe than the most harsh he could receive, and, at best, no penalty at all. If he is betrayed however, but hasn’t in turn betrayed, he will receive the most severe penalty. Only if neither grasses on the other will both of them beat the outcome secured by mutual betrayal.
From this we see collaboration would be rewarded only if the prisoner could be sure the other won’t betray him. If the prisoners were robots and knew each was programmed to be always honest towards the other and never betray them, then nothing the police did could incentivise them to break that pact and they’d achieve a better outcome. But they’re not robots, so how should the prisoner behave to ensure the best results?
Now consider this, if only one prisoner was honest, and the other was not, which prisoner would achieve the best outcome and which the worst? And if the dishonest prisoner knew his compadre would in all circumstances be honest, then by far the best strategy would be to betray him. And if you were the honest prisoner and you knew your compadre was dishonest? You must also betray, despite your own innate honesty. An equilibrium is reached in which only one sensible choice is possible. In other words relying on collaboration by one’s own example as insurance against the other’s potential dishonesty is rank stupidity. Or put another way, a commitment to be honest in all circumstances can lead to exploitation and sub-optimal outcomes, whatever you were taught on mama's knee.
In fact we see this very clearly at the national level in our system of laws and punishment, where we don’t rely on our own honesty to keep others equally honest, but instead we set the rules of collaboration, and penalise transgressors. For this to work however, the penalties need to be credible and enforceable. You need a prosecutor, a referee and a court of law. At the level of the intra-national state we have that, but at the level of international states we do not.
Now let us return to Geoffrey Robinson’s claim that:
“Our honour, our credibility, our self-respect and our future influence in the world all rest upon us keeping that word.”
What he is in fact asserting here is that only by being honest at all times, by obeying the rule of international law, will we, as a nation, successfully persuade others to enter into and honour agreements with us. It is the argument for collaboration by example. But as we have shown, in theory at least, this is not the optimal strategy to follow. So let’s test the theory in reality. Is Robinson correct that only by behaving impeccably can we ensure others behave the same way towards us? And is he right in his fear that by breaking this international agreement we trash our reputation for honesty and so make it difficult if not impossible for others to enter into collaborations with us?
First and crucially, where international law is concerned we are missing a system of enforcement. Yes we have international laws as well as some courts with judges who sit in them, but their power to prosecute is of limited scope, and to penalise even less. There are also no professional law-enforcers. In fact, when Russia attempted to murder a dissident and his daughter on these shores a couple of years ago, the UK made no attempt to take Russia to any international court, rather they appealed directly to other nations to punish them. There was no trial, no judge, only the balance of evidence we produced. Furthermore, that they succeeded had more to do with Britain’s power and status near the top of the international hierarchy than any power inherent to the laws themselves. Don’t believe me, consider what happened to Russia when it invaded Georgia a few years ago? Virtually nothing. Look how they are punished for their actions in Chechnya. When it is a smaller, less strategically important nation which is transgressed against, international law on its own has few if any teeth with which to bite.
You may claim that nevertheless Russia is pariah; it is punished for its actions. But is it? In recent years Russia has had the Winter Olympics and the World Cup come to visit. Even now Germany pushes for the Nord Stream Gas pipeline - a project of enormous strategic importance to the Russians - to go ahead, not least because of the economic benefits it will bring to Germany and in particular the region Frau Merkel represents. Similarly, Italy and Greece argue for the normalisation of relations between the EU and Russia, why? Because Russia promises rewards to the politicians and parties who support them. Finally, who would argue that in geopolitical terms and from a Russia chauvinistic point of view Russia’s stature and power in the world has decreased under Putin. Quite the opposite in fact.
In other words, what this demonstrates, is there is no effective international system of justice. There are laws, but they are not universally upheld. Rather there tends to be the law of the jungle - might is right - with international law a nice to have post hoc justification for doing what we thought was in the best strategic interest of our nation.
This of course, is quite a depressing realisation, especially for folk who believe the world should be run along the lines of cricket, but just because it is depressing does not mean we should avoid it.
Of course Britain is not rogue, like Russia. We do not want to end up in constant, muscular diplomacy, having to prove our strength endlessly and everyone assuming we are bad actors. We would like to ally with other like-minded nations, not only to increase our prosperity but because by doing so we buttress ourselves against the likes of Russia and China.
So if we call out the notion that we should be honourable just because well, it’s right, and rather, we realise that we should act the way we do to maximise benefit to our group, but also acknowledge that we believe the best way to achieve maximum benefit is by forming solid and long lasting alliances with like-minded nations so better to increase prosperity and together stand up to nations who would bully us, the question to answer is whether our recent actions have harmed our ability to do so?
If you were Japan, Australia, Canada or the USA, what would you think? You might think leaving the EU was a net harm to the UK, but thereafter, would you think the UK/EU squabbles had bearing on your relationship with either group? Would you decide to think twice before dealing with the UK? Or would you understand that unless or until relations became strained and there were serious differences over questions of sovereignty, then the UK will generally be a good and dependable actor? Perhaps if allying with the UK offered little benefit, you would spurn them as a sign to the rest of the world, but the UK of course has much to offer, it has strength and treasure in abundance. Indeed another lesson you might take, is that despite their fine talking about cricket and fair play, the UK is not afraid to get its hands dirty. I would contend that if you are the UK then this is a useful thing for them to have understood. For the truth is you wish to collaborate but not in some naive - upholding the rules of the game are more important than everything else just because - fashion, but in a savvy, self-interested, looking at the lay of the land kind of way. It is part of being a grown up member of the international community, and it’s about time we lost our childish notions and understood it.
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