t is a key element of New Labour’s mythology
about itself that Tony Blair’s relationship
with his party takes the form of a binding contract,
the terms of which were clear from the outset.
Blair would deliver power, and in exchange Labour
would accept a political programme much further
to the right than its instincts would naturally
lead it to embrace. Any attempt to rewrite this
pact by arguing that the Government needs to reconnect
with Labour’s core beliefs thus constitutes
a form of bad faith.
Like all myths, this contains an element of truth.
Most Labour members in the mid-1990s understood
perfectly well that their party would need to move
towards the centre in order to build a winning
electoral coalition. What none of them anticipated,
let alone signed up to, was that their government
would continue drifting inexorably to the right
once in office. That this shift has taken place
is undeniable when you consider the very real possibility
that Labour is preparing to repeal parts of its
own Human Rights Act. Or the fact that Labour was
elected in 1997 on a pledge to end the NHS internal
market and has since reintroduced it.
In international affairs, this trend is clearer
than possibly anywhere else. Indeed, anyone returning
home having been marooned on a desert island since
the autumn of 1997 might look at the current Government’s
foreign policy record and reasonably conclude that
the Conservatives had regained power at some point
in the last nine years. The fact that this process
has happened gradually does nothing to lessen its
impact.
Labour’s international strategy in its first
term had an unmistakably progressive edge. Some
of its first acts included the signing of the EU’s
Social Chapter, the restoration of trade union
rights at GCHQ, a decision for Britain to rejoin
UNESCO, the banning of landmines and the negotiation
of the Kyoto Treaty. Tougher controls on arms exports
were adopted with the intention of preventing British
weapons being used by foreign governments for internal
repression or external aggression.
A new human rights agenda was adopted which led
to dozens of new initiatives from the publication
of an annual Human Rights Report to a decision
to use Britain’s diplomatic influence to
campaign for the global abolition of the death
penalty. This ‘ethical dimension’ informed
a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention born
of the conviction that the tragedies of Bosnia
or Rwanda should never be allowed to happen again.
The most significant consequence of this approach
was Labour’s intervention in Kosovo, a place
of no strategic value to the west, but whose Muslim
population faced the horror of ethnic cleansing.
Most of this policy programme had been developed
in opposition at a time when Blair took barely
any interest in foreign affairs and was happy to
farm out responsibility to his Shadow Foreign Secretary,
Robin Cook. But the more Blair became involved
in international diplomacy as Prime Minister, the
more Government policy began to drift from its
early progressive concerns. The issue of arms exports
provides a useful illustration. One of Blair’s
early foreign policy decisions was to overrule
Cook who wanted to revoke licences granted for
the export of Hawk jets to Indonesia. Although
not a breach of the new arms export guidelines
(the licences had been granted by the Conservatives),
it proved to be the first step on a slippery slope.
The next was a decision to grant export licenses
for the export of Hawk spares to Zimbabwe in clear
violation of the Government’s own policy.
This journey reached its logical destination in
Labour’s second term. Faced with the prospect
of upsetting America by refusing the export of
parts for F16 jets that ministers knew would be
re-exported to Israel for use in the Occupied Territories,
Blair simply changed the guidelines to permit it.
Of all the things that have impacted on Labour’s
changing foreign policy, it is the terms of this
special relationship with America that have had
the most serious and damaging effect. Despite Blair’s
closeness to Bill Clinton, there was little indication
in Labour’s first period in office of what
was later to come. The Bill and Tony show appeared
to be based on an affinity of progressive outlook,
and at that time Labour talked about Britain acting
as a ‘bridge across the Atlantic’,
a metaphor that suggested balance in its transatlantic
priorities. All of that changed in November 2000
with the election of George W Bush.
It is likely that even without 9/11 the rise of
the Republican right to power in Washington would
have exerted a negative influence on Blair’s
thinking. The Bush administration’s contempt
for the international community, along with its
toxic brand of ‘America First’ nationalism,
was always going to lead to confrontation, not
least with Europe. In this environment, Labour’s
attempt to avoid choosing between its Atlantic
and European vocations was always going to be in
vain. When 9/11 forced this choice dramatically
and suddenly onto the agenda, there was little
doubt that Blair would opt to prioritise closeness
to the White House.
Blairism is first and foremost a doctrine of power
and one of its principal tenets is that Labour
should never find itself at odds with the powerful
Anglo-American conservative establishment personified
most visibly by Rupert Murdoch. Whatever damage
the Iraq war did to Blair’s influence in
Europe and his popularity at home, it was in his
view, as nothing compared to consequences of a
permanent rift with a section of opinion that had
done more than any other to shut Labour out of
office for eighteen years. There was no comparable
centre of power pulling in the other direction,
and Blair was certainly not in the business of
trying to create one. Blair’s risk averseness
in the face of wealth and power has been one of
his few constants. The foreign policy consequences
of Blair’s alliance with George Bush have
been threefold. The first is that Labour’s
strategy of ending Britain’s isolation in
Europe now lies in tatters, while Europe itself
has been left enfeebled by political division.
The project for developing Europe as a force for
promoting a more progressive and democratic model
of global governance and economic development was
a serious one, but it required Britain under Labour
to stay the course by joining the single currency
and promoting the European Constitution. Instead
of helping to restore greater balance in the international
community by strengthening Europe, Blair chose
to celebrate American unipolarity and dismiss those
who question it as ‘anti-American’.
The result is that global power relations remain
distorted in favour of the right.
A second consequence is that the idea of a rules-based
international order has been supplanted by a neoconservative
doctrine of power politics. This suits America
at a time when it enjoys a preponderance of power,
but as we shift inevitably from a unipolar to a
multipolar world order, we may soon have cause
to regret the missed opportunity to create the
rules and institutions required to manage it peacefully
and equitably. By the time America realises that
it no longer enjoys a comparative advantage, it
may already be too late. A more united Europe was
perhaps our last best chance to achieve a transition
to multipolarity in a spirit of cooperation rather
than nation state rivalry. The opportunity hasn’t
gone yet, but it is vanishing before our eyes.
The final consequence is that the doctrine of
humanitarian intervention is fatally discredited,
and likely to remain so for a generation, with
appalling consequences for some of the most vulnerable
people in the world. The model of intervention
developed by progressives in the 1990s, although
not perfect, disavowed the cynical policy of national
interest in favour of universalism. The effect
of the Iraq war, and Blair’s misuse of humanitarian
arguments to pursue realist objectives, is that
an important strand of liberal internationalism
has been contaminated by association with American
power interests. The people of Darfur may only
be the first of many to pay the price.
With Blair preparing to depart from Downing Street,
the question arises of whether Gordon Brown’s
foreign policy would be any different. His recent
posturing on nuclear weapons suggests few grounds
for optimism. While the policy significance of
what he said remains unclear, the fact that he
felt the need to genuflect to the right in this
way was depressingly familiar. Against this there
is a very clear imperative for Brown to distance
himself from the most unpopular parts of Blair’s
legacy, the most obvious of which is Iraq. The
Chancellor must surely know that many of those
who have abandoned the party in the last three
years will need more than a change of face at the
top if they are to be persuaded to return. With
Bush a lame duck for the remainder of his term
in office, there may be very little for Brown to
lose in taking a more independent path.
The issue is whether this can be allied to a more
coherent strategy for rebalancing global power.
For anyone who sees this as an important objective
of British policy, Europe remains the only serious
game in town. Those who know Brown say he is less
of an instinctive Eurosceptic than he often seems,
and it is certainly true that his attitude to Brussels
was very positive until the mid 1990s. With eurozone
growth rates potentially exceeding Britain’s
again in the not too distant future and a new generation
of leaders assuming power in the large EU member
states, it is just possible that Brown might be
forced to reassess some of his more recent positions.
But these are only hopes based on second hand
impressions and educated guesswork. So much of
what Brown stands for in foreign policy remains
unknown and will only become clear after he becomes
Prime Minister. In this sense his election as Labour
leader will be a leap of faith. It depends ultimately
on whether he understands that a change of direction
on foreign policy is essential if he is to renew
Labour in office and reconnect with Labour’s
lost voters. One salutary factor is that a failure
to do so would be his loss as well as ours.
David Clark is a former adviser to Robin Cook |
This
month
Archive
of past articles