Foreign policy: developing a progressive alternative.
| Author | Reynolds, Emma |
| Position | Commentary |
The Labour Party has always been part of an international movement. Our irreducible core of internationalism should frame the way we apply our values of solidarity, social justice, and responsibility to protect. Our recent experience in government--in particular the decision to go to war in Iraq--demonstrates the danger of the public perceiving Labour as abandoning its values.
If we want to offer a credible opposition and alternative to the Coalition, we must reconnect with our idealist traditions while being practical and realistic about how these values can be applied in today's changing world.
The background: how the past can inform the future
Any debate about what the Labour Party's approach to foreign policy should be in opposition must take into account its recent mixed record in government. Although the previous administration enjoyed some notable early successes--such as in Kosovo and Sierra Leone--discussion of the party's time in office is still dominated by the decision to go to war in Iraq.
This article does not aim to contribute to the ongoing debate about the Iraq war, though it is interesting to note that the criticism most commonly levelled against our actions in Iraq are rarely applied to our altogether more successful interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, neither of which were based on a UN mandate (see Chalmers, 2009). Nevertheless, the spectre of the Iraq war continues to loom large and there is no getting away from the fact that, rightly or wrongly, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein by force has profoundly affected Britain's credibility on the world stage. It must therefore form the starting point for any discussion about how we are to go forward.
Hussein's refusal to cooperate with the UN weapons inspectors led many to suspect and believe that he was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The existence of WMD became the focal point of the government's justification for going to war. Alongside this, however, sat an equally deep-seated suspicion in the country, and within parts of the international community, that the government's decision to go to war was principally based on Tony Blair's desire to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States.
That perception has proved hard to shake--at home, no less than abroad. Although Blair's appetite for George W. Bush's self-declared 'war on terror' won him plaudits in the States and record levels of popularity for a foreign leader, it was disastrous for his popularity in much of the rest of the world and impacted negatively upon Britain's relations with our other important international allies. Blair came to be seen as divisive player on the world stage: somebody who had given up on Labour's core internationalist values in order to strengthen his own special relationship with the world's over-mighty superpower.
For those of us on the left it was, no doubt, deeply unsettling to see a progressive, centre-left British government bending over backwards to oblige a hawkish neo-conservative American administration. But more importantly than that, the whole approach fell woefully short of the 'ethical foreign policy' which Labour had formulated in opposition in the run-up to the 1997 general election and proclaimed during its early years in office (Cook, 1997).
Perhaps it was inevitable that the latter was always going to prove more popular in opposition than in government, where events readily throw even idealists as determined as Woodrow Wilson off course, and dreams of international harmony are necessarily soon tempered by realism about what can practically be achieved. What this illustrates has long been known: that eye-catching and attractive strap-lines are easier to promulgate in opposition than they are to carry out in practice. Labour's 'ethical foreign policy' quickly became an albatross around the new administration's neck: something that the media could beat them with whenever there was a whiff of anything less than heroic.
How then are we to go forward in this important area? While it is probably true that the negative impact of Iraq diminished as time passed and relevant cabinet positions were filled by those less tainted by the original decision, a problem of trust clearly remains--both with respect to our electorate and our allies abroad. Addressing this 'catastrophic loss of trust', as Ed Miliband recently expressed it, must be at the centre of Labour's programme of renewal in foreign affairs. Furthermore, questions about international peace and security have never been more vital and pressing.
Brave new world
Not only does our approach in opposition have to prove credible for the next few years, being based upon principle but also capable of practical application, but it must also be capable of standing the test of a future period in government. This means taking full account of the key changes which have shaped the international landscape in recent years. As the Labour Party prepares for winning back power, the world we hope to help govern is changing in deep and important ways. Three seismic shifts mark the modern age.
First, the nexus of interrelated challenges and threats which we collectively face are unprecedented: the global financial crisis, trade imbalances, food and water security and climate change, record levels of global...
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