May's foreign policy has the contradictions, nuances and cynicism of the twentieth century and it's alienating a generation who want fair, earnest and ethical government

Demonstrators in London turnout in large numbers to show that the Trump brand of exclusion isn't welcome. Photograph: Women's March London, 21 January 2017 by David Holt (License) (Cropped)

Prime Minister Theresa May's past week looks like the scary version of life after Brexit. To Washington, to play chief diplomatic sycophant to Trump. Then off to Turkey to sell Erdogan some British manufactured arms.

Diplomacy has always been about picking friends carefully. That has often meant making unsavoury friends and condemning the more reasonable ones. But now, more than ever, striking that delicate balance must account for the public.

Diplomacy and foreign policy is an art practised as far inside the 'corridors of power', and as far away from the citizens on the street, as any element of government. That cannot continue. It needs to change.

It is no longer sustainable for the Prime Minister to jet jet off around the world to gladhand, and do deals with, leaders who have human rights questions - inadequately answered - hanging over them.

In the US, Trump has the lowest approval ratings in history (Carlsen, 2017), and has faced protests against nearly every policy he has announced in his first two weeks - not just in the US, but around the world. But May is there on business.

May wants to talk trade, wants an exclusive deal. The trouble is that any deal is likely to be disadvantageous to all but American corporations and fraught with many of the same problems as EU-US trade talks: TTIP, food quality standards, private competition in healthcare (Umunna, 2017).

And what about Erdogan? The backlash from the PM's visit to America had not settled down when she arrived in Turkey, almost unnoticed in the furore, to sign a £100m deal for fighter jets (BBC, 2017).

The UK's cynical role in the arms trade has already caused a lot of controversy, waved away with denials, bluster and the promise of jobs. The UK-Saudi relationship has been a frequent embarrassment and horror - from the suppression of women's rights (Withnall, 2016) to, and particularly apt for May's visit to Turkey, British arms being used in the ongoing war in Yemen (Graham-Harrison, 2016).

In Turkey, 140,000 people rounded up, academics fired, and journalists suppressed or arrested, in a consolidation of power following last year's attempted coup (Lowen, 2017).

That these are likely to be the UK's new and enduring friends after leaving the European Union, as the UK scrambles to accumulate trade cash, will not endear Britain's new horizon to progressives.

It will be even harder to comprehend for many of the younger people who are turning out to protest, even many into their thirties, who did not grow up amidst the nuance and cynicism of twentieth century international politics.

Their formative years were under the governments of Bush and Blair. They saw dodgy dossiers lead to invasions, lead to countries collapsing, lead to extended occupations, lead to the selfish, almost gleeful, extraction of fossil fuels while all hell broke loose - and then the subsequent rise of terrorism.

It's not a mystery what these young people, whose views on international relations were formed in the years, want: ethical government. To be represented honestly. That's why Theresa May's visits to Trump, to Erdogan, can set people aflame and launch protest movements.

When Britain preaches its values one moment, threatens to withdraw from international human rights agreements and undermines the independence of the judiciary in another, then jets off for smiles and handshakes with the oppressors of minorities in the next, it is hard to find consistency.

Trump promises America First, and May to make a success of Brexit, but that sense of narrow interest belies the reality that many people now have broader horizons and greater empathy. This national-level cognitive dissonance, between the official voice and the citizens, will be expressed today in more protests.

Across Britain, Theresa May's foreign policy will face protests in solidarity with Muslims everywhere and with refugees who flee from violence and oppression just to be labelled and shunned by official acts of exclusion. And those demonstrations will carry with them the progressive call for the idea of a government, and international relations, based on deals that are fair and ethical.

Around the World: Turkey, off the Periphery

Istanbul, once known in Europe as Constantinople, is a symbol of the historic relationship between Turkey and Europe. Photograph: Genoese built Galata Tower in Istanbul from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Over a frantic night and day in Turkey an attempted coup looked at first to threaten the country's social fabric (Kingsley & Abdul-Ahad, 2016). Western leaders rushed to denounce undemocratic power grabs, calling for respect for Turkey's democratically elected government.

In hindsight, Western leaders may look back at that night as the starting point of an important shift in the balance of Middle East politics. A moment in which Turkey, under a popular authoritarian leader, stepped off of Europe's periphery to place itself instead at the centre of the Middle East.

The Coup of 15th July

Those behind the attempted coup announced their aim to be the protection of democracy and to reinstate "constitutional order, human rights and freedoms" (Beauchamp, 2016). Whatever the truth in this claim to legitimacy, its hard not to see what has followed the coup's defeat in that light. The harshness of the reaction that has followed is enough to make it seem like there were two, not one, attempted coups on 15th July, with one coming out victorious ahead of the other.

The government of Turkey, headed by President Recep Erdogan, swept away what turned out to be only a minor attempt by a small faction. But that was not where the reaction ended. A purge was under way almost immediately with arrests and expulsions in the thousands (BBC, 2016). Human Rights have been suppressed in a state of emergency (Shaheen & Bowcott, 2016). There has even been much criticised talk of bringing back the death penalty (Verhofstadt, 2016).

Erdogan's government swiftly claimed exiled former ally now opponent Fethullah Gulen to be the ring-leader demanding of the United States his extradition (BBC, 2016{2}). Gulen in turn suggested that the coup was a false flag operation, set up by Erdogan to justify his increasingly authoritarian stance and allowed for a witch hunt to follow (Fontanella-Khan, 2016; Plett Usher, 2016).

The US response to claims against Gulen, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania, has been unhurried and tempered. That seems only to antagonised the Erdogan government, which stepped up the rhetoric (Withnall & Osborne, 2016). Accusations flew that the West was harbouring terrorists and even that the West was supporting them.

In the last decade Turkey seemed to be heading ever more towards liberal democracy and membership of the European Union. Its future membership was a much discussed factor of the Brexit referendum. It was a key ally to both the EU and NATO. The steps taken in the last month suggest, sadly, that progress has been halted.

A Change of Step

Turkey has become a lesson in the fragility of liberal democracy. A symbol of how easily even a well settled constitutional order might be destabilised by economic and political tides, or even by the drive of ambition and grip of authoritarianism.

Recep Erdogan's Presidency had already seen the free press suppressed long before the coup (Shaheen, 2016) and was thought to be working towards changing the country's political system into a strong executive presidency (Finkel, 2016).

Whatever the purpose behind the attempted coup, and however the ramshackle attempt on power came about, it seems to have triggered - or afforded an opportunity for - Erdogan's party to clean house of political and intellectual opposition, inflaming Turkey and accelerating its embrace of popular authoritarianism (Tugal, 2016).

As power is centralised and the opposition suppressed, it is worth asking: What is it that Erdogan's party wants?

Even with stronger opposition at the last election, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won decisively - AKP took 50% of the vote, ahead of Secular Republican and Kurdish Nationalist opposition. It doesn't seem like the party has much trouble staying in power under constitutional and democratic conditions.

And Erdogan himself was Prime Minister for eleven years, before his subsequent election as President in 2014 - for a total of thirteen years at the peak of Turkish politics. During that time Erdogan and the AKP were thought to be prioritising ascension to the European Union as the country's primary objective.

Yet the party is also propelled by other ideas. A party of conservative democracy, and now increasingly a party of popular authoritarianism, Erdogan's AKP seek to create a 'New Turkey', based on a revival of cultural and traditional values from the Ottoman Empire and the rejection of pro-western modernisation (Cagaptay, 2016) - symbolised in three pillars of glorification of the Ottoman Empire, suspicion of the West and anti-Kemalism, that opposes the constitutional secularism of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic.

Upon those pillars, Erdogan has strengthened central authority in Turkey even as chaos rages at the border - and pours over onto Turkish streets - with at the least Iraq, Syria and Lebanon engulfed in violence.

From Weakness, Opportunity

The strengthening of central authority in Turkey stands in stark contrast with its European neighbour. The crisis in the Middle East, the desperate mass of refugees - fleeing death at the hands of a paramilitary cult of mercenary terrorists - have exposed the weakness of the European federal project. European unity has been tested on foreign affairs, on refugees, and found wanting.

In Europe's weakness Erdogan may see the opportunity to implement his vision of Turkey. Erdogan certainly has the backing for such a move, stoked by resentment of Western interference. A deep ill-will towards the Western mandated break-up of Turkish power in the region a century ago and has long been a theme.

Seeing the region as it is now, mired by the fallout of a Western intervention that left a power vacuum - which was occupied by a terrorist cult that has even struck on Turkish streets - could easily seem like confirmation or justification of Pro-Ottoman, anti-Western sentiments. It certainly makes it easy to see why a change of policy, away from the periphery of the West to the central power of the Middle East, might seem to Erdogan like an opportunity.

With neighbours both East and West seemingly paralysed with crisis, a political vacuum has opened. It isn't a leap to imagine a popular authoritarian leader, espousing an Ottoman Revival, wants to pivot his country into the central role in the region, at a time when planning for the foundations of its future have to be at least starting.