Introducing The Red Button Club

“Would you press the red button?”

• Answer A: Yes = Strong Leader, Will Kill Millions if Necessary, Can Be Trusted on Foreign Policy

• Answer B: No = Weak Leader, Can’t Be Trusted on Foreign Policy

This question is one of the major litmus tests that shapes perceptions of a potential Prime Minister’s foreign policy during an election cycle.

But here at The Red Button Club, we believe reductive questions like this represent a failure of imagination when it comes to UK foreign policy.

The unfolding failure to prepare for - and prevent - a pandemic like the one caused by coronavirus demonstrates this. Despite warnings about likely threats, successive UK governments have failed to keep us secure.

At the same time, the impact of coronavirus is a timely reminder that despite being an island, we’re inescapably bound to the rest of the world. It shows us that our foreign policy has to be more than a Brexit policy.

But what should it look like?

We’ve launched The Red Button Club to answer this question.

We’re a new, non-partisan group for progressives looking to start a debate about what British foreign policy should like over the next decade and how we might get there.

So if you’re interested in being part of a conversation about the UK’s foreign policy, this is the only red button you should be pressing: