EU-Greek turmoil could influence UK foreign policy

The recent wrestling match between Greece and the European Union over the Mediterranean country's massive debts was watched at first with a certain detachment by Britons, mostly reassured by official data showing British banks had very little exposure to the battered euro.

This, they reasoned, was happening "abroad",' and didn't really have a major impact on the UK, with its island mentality. Something along the lines of "it's ok, we have our own currency, and the austerity measures taken by the government over the past six years are slowly having an effect". For many people here, there was an air of "I told you it would never work", as they watched Greece, with its struggling economy and massive debt load, try to wrest a deal from what they saw as the "merciless" German government and its allies in the EU, as well as the cold, financial reality offered by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

But as the crisis dragged on, many people started to wonder what effect it would have on the UK's still-evolving foreign policy.