Exclusive:Scottish arts festivals will suffer and lose 'global network' if British Council disappears

Wendy Alexander, the former Scottish Labour leader, was recently appointed deputy chair of the council, which describes itself as the UK’s international agency for cultural relations.

In an exclusive interview with The Scotsman, she said the “sophisticated architecture” provided by the British Council in 100 countries around the world helps uncover the talented artists who appear at some of the nation’s most celebrated events, such as the Edinburgh Festivals and Celtic Connections.

She warned such festivals would struggle to replicate that network if the organisation was lost or diminished.

Ms Alexander was speaking amid concern the British Council could “disappear” in a decade without new financial guarantees from the UK government.

Like many organisations, the council’s budget has been squeezed in recent years, leading to the closure of 18 offices since the pandemic, and the loss of 1,451 jobs, or 17 per cent of roles.

However, the “existential threat” it faces is linked to a £200 million loan granted during the Covid-19 pandemic, for which the UK government charges commercial interest rates, with a rolling one-year term. It means the British Council faces insolvency every year, and is unable to build up reserves or invest.

Despite the uncertainty, the future of the organisation has not been a hot topic of debate in Scotland.

Ms Alexander admits the work of the British Council may be better understood in the likes of “Mumbai or Wuhan or Accra or Lagos” than in Glasgow or Edinburgh, even though it has had an office north of the Border since 1946.

But the former Paisley North MSP said First Minister John Swinney and the Scottish Government had been supportive behind-the-scenes, as she highlighted its importance for the likes of Scotland’s festivals, with the British Council having been a co-founder of the Edinburgh International Festival.

“There is an incredibly effective and deep partnership where we have 100 countries, we look around the world, we’ve got arts and education teams in all these countries and they figure out who should come to Celtic Connections, who should come to the international festival, who should be at the book festival, who should be at the comedy festival,” she said.

“It’s the boots on the ground globally that amplifies the impact of the Scottish arts and culture sector, and creates partnerships for them.

“And were we diminished or not present, there is no way that - however great our festivals are - that Creative Scotland or Celtic Connections or the Edinburgh Festivals could identify that global network of artists that they want to work with.

“There is just a really sophisticated architecture there that works extraordinarily well. If you didn’t have it, you would need to create it.”

Ms Alexander, a former Labour minister at Holyrood who served as leader of the Scottish party in 2007 and 2008, joined the board of trustees at the British Council in 2022 and became deputy chair in December last year.

In the same month, she was also named as one of 30 new Labour peers appointed to the House of Lords. She “very amicably” gave up her role as the Scottish Government's trade and investment envoy for higher education at the same time.

Meanwhile, in November it was announced that Ms Alexander was leaving another role as vice-principal of the University of Dundee, which has since been plunged into a financial crisis.

Ms Alexander declined to answer questions about Dundee, focusing on the funding challenges at the British Council instead.

She said she believed the organisation offered taxpayers “extraordinarily good value”, worth £1 billion of soft power to the UK, of which it funds 85 per cent itself, via operations such as English teaching and exams.

This influence has never been more important for the country than it is in the era of Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin, Ms Alexander argued, saying recent global events had raised the question of “how do you uphold trust, multiculturalism, the rule of law, liberal values?”

She added: “History matters in organisations, and the British Council was created to counter fascism. It was to use cultural power to counter fascism. Again it went on to build links and maintain links during the Cold War.

“And you just have to look at today’s headlines, to say in a world of rising tensions it is needed more than ever, but it is a different British Council from many years ago.”

Broadcaster Stephen Jardine recently wrote in a column in The Scotsman that the British Council was a “feeble leftover from the days of imperialism”.

Ms Alexander argued the criticism did not reflect the reality of today’s British Council. But is it a relic of Britain’s colonial past? She said: “It was founded in the 1930s to counter fascism and I think that’s important.

“So in that sense it is not a key part of the imperial legacy, but Britain has an imperial legacy, we can’t disown it. Nobody says ‘let’s stop drinking tea’ because it wasn’t invented here and the sugar isn’t ours.

“Of course there have been examples where imperial powers historically have blocked indigenous voices, or they’ve not honoured them. But the way to honour them is to engage and build trust in new models, not to retreat, or just cease to engage.”

The organisation does not only want a resolution to the Covid-era loan from the UK government, which counts her brother Douglas among its ministers. It is also ready to discuss how its mission can support the country’s foreign policy objectives.

“We cannot have a British Council in retreat, because that is a blow to soft power in a war for global influence where we are a big player,” she said. “It is a win for Putin in every country that we downsize or lose ground.”