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David Cameron speaks at London Gateway near Tilbury
David Cameron delivers his key speech on Britain's place in the world at London Gateway near Tilbury. Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images
David Cameron delivers his key speech on Britain's place in the world at London Gateway near Tilbury. Photograph: Wpa Pool/Getty Images

UK success not in blindly embracing globalisation nor in going it alone – PM

This article is more than 10 years old
Renewal depends on increasing competitiveness at home while engaging with world's fastest-growing countries, says Cameron in key speech

Britain will be on the path to national renewal, with a big global footprint, so long as it becomes more competitive at home, engages with the fastest growing countries in the world and projects its values abroad in the EU, the G8 and the UN, David Cameron has said.

In a set-piece speech on Britain's role in the world before next week's G8 summit, Cameron on Monday tried to offer a vision in which the country rejects an unthinking embrace of globalisation, exemplified by New Labour, or the timid alternative of go-it-alone Little Englandism.

He also tried to present his domestic reforms to welfare and education in the context of the global race for jobs and competitiveness, adding that Britain, so long as it did not lapse into denial, could still make the choices that would determine its own fate.

He claimed: "This is the generation that hasn't passed the buck. Where there has been a fork in the road between doing what is easy and doing what is right, we have chosen what is right."

Cameron chose the dramatic setting of the London Gateway, near Tilbury, the largest private sector infrastructure investment in the UK, being overseen by the Dubai-based DP World. The speech itself was months in preparation and is seen as the most important statement of his vision for Britain outside the party conference season.

He said the need for domestic reform was being driven by the pace of global competition. "Those who defend the case for an ever bigger state and ever bigger spending, or those who say we don't need to radically reform welfare or education, they're fundamentally saying we can ignore these leaner, fitter countries who are breathing down our neck.

"And then there are those who say we should turn our backs on the world and on our wider obligations, that we should cut ourselves off from influential organisations in the belief that we can go it alone."

He said both arguments were appealing but amounted to denial – "denial of a world where our young people are competing for jobs with graduates from California to Tokyo, where a revolution thousands of miles away can affect the guy filling up his van at a service station. Denial that we are a premier trading nation whose prosperity depends upon the maintenance of global peace and security – in which we play such an important role."

But he also rejected those who "embrace globalisation so enthusiastically that they lose sight of the national interest – 'Open your borders. National sovereignty is obsolete. Multilateral relationships are the only ones that matter, bilateral ones are so 20th century'."

Cameron said both approaches represented a form of national timidity – too wary of engaging with the modern world or too afraid to stand up for national interests.

He said his plan for national renewal had already identified "our key areas of potential national weakness compared to the rest of the world. One, our debt-fuelled, unbalanced economy. Two, our bloated welfare system. Three, our underperforming education system."

He said Britain had been "a 20th-century economy wheezing and limping into the 21st century".

The UK was already in the top 10 countries in the world to do business, he said, and he predicted that the reforms he had introduced, from corporation tax to infrastructure, would make Britain rise in the next three years to being "in the top five places in the world to do business and as the number one country to do business in Europe".

He also tried to make his plea for reform in the EU in the context of the global race for competitiveness. He pointed out: "Europe today accounts for just over 7% of the world's population, produces around 25% of global GDP and has to finance 50% of global social spending. To the vast majority of the emerging economies, the idea of a welfare system that incentivised people not to take a job would be regarded as national stupidity."

He also attacked the British education system, saying it had been "increasingly comfortable with failure while grade inflation robbed our qualifications of rigour and respect". He said the education secretary, Michael Gove, would set out his plans for reform to the GCSE exams on Tuesday.

Giving a foretaste, he said: "We spent two years analysing what they teach in the world's best school systems, from Hong Kong and Singapore to Massachusetts in the US, so we can import the best of their curricula into our own.

"We're proposing more arithmetic and algebra in maths, more detail in science, more clarity on punctuation and spelling in English, more emphasis on modern methods of computing like coding."

But he rejected an entirely insular approach. He said: "When your prosperity is won in far-flung places, when your fortunes are disproportionately affected by what happens beyond your borders, then your national interest is not just about standing up for yourself – but standing up for what's right, and standing for something more."

He said: "Over the past three years, we have been steadily transforming the entire outward-facing effort of the United Kingdom into a coherent plan to make sure Britain succeeds in a more competitive world. A big part of that plan is connecting up with the fastest-growing parts of our planet, re-forging friendships where they were forgotten.

"This policy of engagement, of connecting with the fastest-growing parts of the world – it is paying off. Over the past three years our exported goods to Brazil have gone up by half; to India by more than half; to China, almost doubled; to Russia, up by 133%. This is how British foreign policy is making the world work for us."

Cameron defended Britain's involvement in large international bodies, saying: "When a country like ours is affected profoundly by those rules, I want us to have a say on them. That doesn't mean supinely going with the flow of multilateral opinion – the lowest common denominator approach to democracy, as we've seen in the past."

He also promised the same ambition – and practical results – for his G8 summit next week – "not for us some turgid communiques with little purpose".

He said his key ambitions were:

The free trade agreement between the US and EU – which could add as much as £10bn to the UK economy.

Getting behind African efforts to tear down the bureaucracy and red tape that prevents people from trading freely with one another.

An international agreement on tax evasion – "because we can't just clamp down on this in the UK, the cash would simply move elsewhere".

Transparency in mining, oil and gas so that people in developing countries can see how their mineral wealth is being used.

He concluded: "This is how our country thrives – when we lead, when we strive to be more than the sum of our parts, the small island with the big footprint in the world – and that's the way it must stay."

More on this story

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