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thelocalistpapers6. Direct Diplomacy

British foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic process. It is conducted byhighly qualified officials who, although often technically brilliant, have drifted awayfrom the values of the rest of the country. There are few mechanisms to make theconduct of diplomatic relations subject to popular scrutiny; in consequence, the statemachine is even less subject to democratic control in the field of international affairsthan in domestic matters.

Left to their own devices, diplomatists have evolved an approach to internationalrelations that is élitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic andcontemptuous of "populism". Without democratic accountability, the foreign policyestablishment has failed to recognise Britain’s true national interests. With noeffective scrutiny acting to correct the institutional failings of the FCO establishment,Britain’s leaders have lacked a coherent vision of Britain’s place in the world.

This paper recommends a series of mechanisms to bring foreign policy back intoline with public opinion. Specifically, it proposes:

Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, and making foreign policy subject toparliamentary control. Holding democratic hearings for senior diplomatic postings. Subjecting international treaties to annual re-ratification by the House ofCommons.

Centre for Policy Sudies57 Tufton StreetLondon SW1P 3QL

www.cps.org.ukwww.direct-democracy.co.uk

direct-democracy.co.uk

© Centre for Policy Studies, June 2007

ISBN 978-1-905389-58-2

Centre for Policy Studies, 57 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QL

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The aim of the Centre for Policy Studiesis to develop and promote policies thatprovide freedom and encouragementfor individuals to pursue the aspirationsthey have for themselves and theirfamilies, within the security andobligations of a stable and law-abidingnation. The views expressed in ourpublications are, however, the soleresponsibility of the authors.Contributions are chosen for their valuein informing public debate and shouldnot be taken as representing a corporateview of the CPS or of its Directors. TheCPS values its independence and doesnot carry on activities with the intentionof affecting public support for anyregistered political party or forcandidates at election, or to influencevoters in a referendum.

Direct Democracy is a group of 38Conservative MPs, MEPs, MSPs andactivists dedicated to the principles oflocalism and the devolution of power.The Localist Papers are an examinationof how these principles might apply tospecific fields of policy. They are notmanifestoes, and not all our supportersendorse them in full. Rather, theyexplore some possible ways in whichpower could be shifted from thebureaucracy of the central state to localcommunities and individual citizens.

Direct democracymembersAdam Afriyie MPRichard Benyon MPRoger BirdMartin Callanan MEPDouglas Carswell MPPaul CarterGreg Clark MPStephen Crabb MPPhilip Dunne MPMurdo Fraser MSPDavid Gauke MPRobert Goodwill MPMichael Gove MPAndrew GriffithRobert HalfonStephen Hammond MPDaniel Hannan MEPMark Harper MPChris Heaton-Harris MEPNick Herbert MPAdam Holloway MPEd HowkerJeremy Hunt MPStewart Jackson MPSyed Kamall MEPScott KellyDanny KrugerKwasi KwartengAli MirajBrian MonteithBrooks Newmark MPJesse NormanPriti PatelMike Penning MPMark RecklessHenry SmithJames SprouleTheresa Villiers MP

Contents

1 Summary 1

2 Introduction 2

3 Why the Foreign Office has got it wrong 2

4 Europe – your country 7

5 Punching below our weight 9

6 Putting Parliament in charge 10

Tourist on Whitehall:

“Which side is the Foreign Office on?”

Policeman:

“That’s a very good question, sir”.

The Localist Papers

6 Direct Diplomacy1 Summary

British foreign policy is cocooned from thedemocratic process. It is conducted by highlyqualified officials who, although oftentechnically brilliant, have drifted away fromthe values of the rest of the country. Thereare few mechanisms to make the conduct ofdiplomatic relations subject to popularscrutiny; in consequence, the state machine iseven less subject to democratic control in thefield of international affairs than in domesticmatters.

Left to their own devices, diplomatists haveevolved an approach to internationalrelations that is élitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic and contemptuousof “populism”. Without democraticaccountability, the foreign policyestablishment has failed to recogniseBritain’s true national interests. With noeffective scrutiny acting to correct theinstitutional failings of the Foreign andCommonswealth Office (FCO)establishment, Britain’s leaders have lacked acoherent vision of Britain’s place in theworld.

This paper recommends a series ofmechanisms to bring foreign policy back intoline with public opinion. Specifically, itproposes:

Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, andmaking foreign policy subject toparliamentary control.

Holding democratic hearings for seniordiplomatic postings.

Subjecting international treaties to annualre-ratification by the House of Commons.

2 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

2 IntroductionIt can be argued that diplomacy is differentfrom other areas of policy. It is, after all, ahighly specialised field, remote from theeveryday concerns of most voters. Itspractitioners have evolved particular skills,and a familiarity with their subject that fewlaymen can match. Yet precisely the samecan be argued, mutatis mutandis, aboutpolicing, education or virtually any otherfield of government activity.

With little direct oversight, our diplomatshave often pursued policies that are not onlyat odds with popular opinion, but calamitousin their own terms. Think, for example, of thebacking that Britain has given to murderoustyrants such as Nicolae Ceausescu, Idi Aminand Robert Mugabe, in the belief that theywould turn out to be our friends. Or of ourrepeated attempts to talk Teheran’s ayatollahsout of their nuclear ambitions by being“constructive”. Or of the failure ofintelligence prior to Argentina’s seizure of theFalkland Islands. Or of the alienation of once-friendly colonies (a special mention should bemade here of Malta which, in 1956, voted by74% in a referendum for complete integrationwith the UK; its application was rejected sohigh-handedly that, within eight years, Maltawas completely independent and pursuing ananti-British foreign policy). Think of themistakes that were made by John Major’sGovernment in Yugoslavia. Think, above all,of the determination of the FCO to pursuecloser European integration.

Many of these mistakes might have beenavoided had foreign affairs more closelyreflected the layman’s views. You don’t need adegree in Arabic and Persian studies to see thatthere is nothing to be gained by cosying up tothe current Iranian regime. You don’t need tohave spent two years at the College of Europein Bruges to understand why the EU is inimicalto British traditions. On the contrary, anexcessive specialisation in these fields canimpair your vision of Britain’s true interests.

All organisations make mistakes, of course,and it is easy to criticise with hindsight. Butthe conduct of British foreign policy showscertain institutional flaws. To the extent thatthese failures derive from the way it isstructured, they ought to be remediable.

3 Why the Foreign Officegets it wrongEveryone involved with local or nationalpolitics is aware of the phenomenon of“officer control”: the tendency of thepermanent functionaries to run thingsaccording to their own convenience andpriorities, with minimal input from theelected representatives who are notionally incharge, but who are in practice often too busywith their electoral activities to pay muchattention to administration.

Certain features are common to almost allbureaucracies. They tend to be risk-averse andreactive. Those who rise to run them generallydo so by never sticking their necks out, and byreflecting whatever is the prevailing wisdom ofthe moment. In consequence, they often clingto once-fashionable theories long after theirutility has passed. At the same time, manyofficials feel bound to one another by thecommon nexus of their expertise. They dislikebeing told what to do by those who, as theysee it, have no qualifications in the field. Theyare hyper-sensitive to press criticism. Theyresent what they call “populism” — which isoften what the rest of us call “democracy”.

All these features can be found, to someextent, in the FCO. A brief survey of theconduct of British foreign policy reveals threeparticular traits. Our diplomats are hidebound,acting according to strategic assumptions thatare sometimes decades old. They are élitist,their disdain for public opinion at home beingmatched by a willingness to do business withdespots abroad. And they are supra-nationalist,both in their fondness for establishing cross-border bureaucracies and in their dislike ofsecessionist or national movements.

The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 3

Bureaucratic stasisGenerals, as the old chestnut has it, are alwayspreparing to fight the last war. Rarely has thisbeen truer than now. Seventeen years afterthe fall of the Berlin Wall, Britain’sdeployment and procurement patterns remaintrapped in the Cold War. We continue tomaintain a garrison of 22,000 in WestGermany; the single largest item of ourdefence spending has been the Eurofighter,an aircraft designed to dogfight Soviet MiGs;the naval budget is largely consumed bysubmarines, whose chief purpose is to keepopen the North Atlantic sea lanes.

Meanwhile, we have invested far too little inthe modern hardware suited to out-of-areacampaigns: air- and sea-lift capacity, guidedmissile systems, advanced satellites andmilitary computers, unmanned sea-vesselsand aircraft drones.

These criticisms ought, of course, to bedirected primarily at the Ministry of Defence(MoD). But the misallocation of our defencebudget reflects a wider failure to have movedwith the times. Our strategic thinking — and,indeed, our diplomatic alignment moregenerally — remains Euro-centric. It is truethat, during the second half of the twentiethcentury, Britain’s interests depended chieflyon the security of Western Europe. But, inthe broad sweep of history, this was anextremely unusual period.

The end of the Cold War ought to havereturned Britain to its traditional role as aglobal and maritime nation. Our enemiesthese days are distant and sparse: Iraqiinsurgents, Afghan badmashes, West Africanteenagers. Yet we are fighting them withweapons, structures and alliances designed todefend West Germany against a massedassault by Russian T72s. Instead ofdetermining our security needs and thenfurnishing ourselves with the matériel andinstitutions best suited to them, we tookwhat we happened already to have – NATO– and tried to press it to a purpose for whichit had never been designed.

This is how bureaucracies usually behave. Noapparatus will ever volunteer to have its rolereduced. Rather, it will cast around for a newtask to justify itself. This is especially true at thetop of the bureaucracy. Those who have risenthe highest have generally been there for thelongest. Their thinking has been schooled overmany years in the institution and, whencircumstances change in their later years, theycan find it difficult to make the necessarymental adjustment. Just as the “East of Suez”brigade took decades to acclimatise themselvesto Britain’s reduced global role, so almosteveryone over a certain age will insist thatNATO must remain the centrepiece of ourdefence, without quite being able to explainwhy.

NATO does, of course, serve many usefulpurposes. Its members share common values,and it is an important guarantor of acontinuing US presence outside the Westernhemisphere. But, looked at from firstprinciples, it surely cannot be as central toBritain’s interests as it was during the ColdWar. The UK ought to be developing tieswith friendly governments on everycontinent. It should pick key strategicpartners in each region where it has interests.

Europe is now just one continent amongmany. Yet our strategic thinking remains stuckin the 1980s. We are suffering unnecessarycasualties in Afghanistan because we are shortof helicopters. At the same time, we arespending almost unbelievable sums on ColdWar weapons systems. The Eurofighter andthe Trident replacement will cost around £20billion each. Neither can be usefully deployedagainst the paramilitary enemies we now face.

The real problem is the absence of an overallstrategic vision. In the days when thediplomatic service was small, and under directministerial control, such vision existed. At thepeak of the British Empire, Lord Salisburydirected 52 permanent staff in London, and ahandful of ambassadors overseas.Throughout the nineteenth century, Britainhad clearly understood international interests:the need to maintain a naval presence in key


theatres; the security of the sea-route toIndia; the spread of free trade; the balance ofpower in Europe; sympathy for nationalmovements in Europe provided they did notthreaten the balance of power; and, later, thetwo-power standard. These objectives werenot a random check-list: they followedlogically from an appreciation of Britain’sposition as a mercantile island nation.

Today, there is no such holistic analysis. TheFCO’s official statement of our strategicgoals, Active Diplomacy in a Changing World, iscomprised of nine unrelated objectives. Inthe absence of an overall strategic vision, ourpolicy has become reactive, hand-to-mouth.We default automatically to whateverhappens to be in place, rather than thinkingabout what we should ideally like.

This is partly the “sunk costs” phenomenon,which is by no means peculiar to Britishdiplomacy. But it can lead to some terriblemistakes. We backed Idi Amin until well intothe 1970s, and Robert Mugabe until well intothe 1990s, because we felt we had investedso much in them. We supported the Shah ofIran for the same reason, with catastrophicconsequences. We are now repeating themistake in Saudi Arabia. At no stage have wedefined, from first principles, what kind ofworld we want, and who our friends are insuch a world, and then reassessed ourpriorities accordingly.

Our support for various authoritarianregimes is not just a symptom of inertia.Something more unlovely is also at work.

“Our kind of people”Look at the parts of the world whereWashington’s interests clash most directlywith those of Brussels. These may begrouped under five broad headings: sellingarms to China; engaging with Iran;destabilising Cuba; funding the PalestinianAuthority; and co-operating with supra-national institutions, such as the UN, theKyoto process and the InternationalCriminal Court.

A common thread links these apparentlyunrelated disputes. In each of them, the USfavours democracy over stability, the EUstability over democracy. Both unions are, in asense, acting according to the DNA that wasencoded at the time of their conception. TheUS was founded out of a popular rising againsta distant and autocratic government, and sohas a natural sympathy with freedom and self-government. The EU was founded followingthe horror of the Second World War, itspatriarchs still haunted by the memory of theuntrammelled plebiscitary democracy that hadpreceded it. Perhaps understandably, theybelieved that electoral majorities sometimeshad to be tempered by the good sense andsobriety of professional administrators.

Historical experience has given Europeanstatesmen a very different Weltanschauung fromthat of their American counterparts. When anAmerican politician looks at, for example,Israel, he sees a country like his own: aparliamentary democracy founded in adversitythat elected its generals as its first leaders, andthat maintained its commitment torepresentative government and the rule of lawin difficult circumstances. Israel elicits hissympathy in the literal sense of fellow feeling.The European, however, sees the displacementof a traditional and settled Arab society by astate based on the one ideology he disdainsabove all, that of national self-determination.Israel, after all, is the supreme embodiment ofthe national principle: the vindication, after2,000 years, of a people’s desire to form theirown state. The EU, by contrast, is based onthe notion that national loyalties are transient,arbitrary and ultimately discreditable.

It is a similar story when it comes to Iran, orChina or Cuba. The EU has never made a fetishout of democratic majorities, cheerfullydisregarding referendums when they go the“wrong” way. So, naturally enough, it appliesthe same standard beyond its own borders,making allowances for autocratic regimes whichseem at least to want to go in the right direction.

Ditto when it comes to supra-national bodies.Where Washington sees unelected


technocrats seeking to overrule electednational governments, most Europeans see aframework of rules designed to bindirresponsible politicians, even if they happento have secured a transient popular majority.

The interesting point is to observe how Britishforeign policy is drifting out of the gravitationalpull of Washington and entering into orbitaround Brussels. Although the UK is, in this asin so much else, mid-Atlantic, there is adiscernible Europeanisation of our policy in allthe instances cited. British ministers havevisited Cuba and encouraged commercial linkswith the Castro regime. Jack Straw was perhapsthe most prominent of all EU politicians inseeking to cosy up to the ayatollahs in Teheran.Britain is an enthusiast, too, for the variousinternational bodies that are so distrusted byWashington.

Much of this tendency has to do with thegrowing EU role in foreign policy, of whichmore later. But it also reflects the FCO’s ownguarded attitude to democracy. An exquisitelyeducated mandarin, who has learned over theyears how to keep a series of unsophisticatedministers in check, might be excused forevincing a certain fellow feeling for anenlightened despot in another country,importuned on all sides to hold elections.

If this criticism sounds too harsh, considerthe case of Craig Murray, once Her Majesty’sAmbassador to Tashkent. Mr Murray hadbeen posted to a vile tyranny: Uzbekistan isperhaps the last place on earth where theSoviet Union survives. The formerCommunist leaders who run the countrytreat it more or less as private property,systematically looting its wealth whiledenying basic ownership rights to theirpeople. Islam Karimov’s regime has closeddown independent media, silenced dissidentsand been implicated in the torture andmurder of its critics. It is also widelysuspected of controlling a drugs racket.

When Mr Murray arrived, he disliked what hefound. He grasped that support for theKarimov dictatorship was doing Britain’s

standing in the region no good and, within thebounds permitted by diplomatic protocol, triedto push the regime towards reform. Heconcentrated on economic freedom, judgingthat, if Uzbekistan recognised basic propertyrights, then the rule of law and, eventually,political freedom would follow. Hisinterventions delighted local human rightsactivists, who believed that their associationwith a foreign embassy would afford them adegree of protection. But it horrified theKarimov government, which began to agitatefor his removal.

The FCO found itself in a dilemma. It haddecided to back Karimov in the belief that hewas an ally in the war on terror. (As ithappens, this has turned out to be amonstrous miscalculation. By creating theimpression that Islamism is Karimov’s chiefenemy, we have in fact helped to create thevery thing we fear: a revival offundamentalism in a region that has neverknown it before.) Yet the FCO could hardlydiscipline an ambassador for supportinghuman rights. So, instead, it accused MrMurray of personal misconduct, and urgedhim to leave quietly. He denied the charges,which were later dropped.

Mr Murray’s case briefly became a cause célèbre,because he had supporters in Parliament andin the press. But the whole episode raises thedisquieting question of how many otherdiplomats have been discreetly removed forchallenging the FCO’s steady-as-she-goes,Europhile, anti-democratic assumptions.

Supra-nationalismThe past 40 years have seen an unprecedentedgrowth in international law. Previously,international law was limited to the manner inwhich states dealt with each other. It coveredmaritime conventions, piracy, safe conductagreements, the treatment of ambassadors and,later, conventions on the prosecution of war.These days, international law no longer stops atstate frontiers. Treaties and conventionsregulate everything from human rights to trade


in endangered species, from the treatment ofrefugees to child labour. These accords areoften treated by judges within the sigNATOrystates as part of their domestic jurisprudence.In other words, a country’s adherence to aninternational legal code offers a way for itsjudiciary to bypass its legislature.

It may, of course, be argued that internationallaw involves no real diminution of democracy.States are free to sign or withdraw from suchtreaties. In upholding them, judges are simplyreflecting the wishes of their government inhaving acceded to them in the first place. Thetrouble with this argument is that internationalconventions are often interpreted expansively,to the point where they are used for purposesthat the sigNATOries could never haveenvisaged. Successive British governmentshave toyed with withdrawing both from the1951 UN Convention on Refugees and fromthe European Convention on Human Rightson precisely these grounds.

Once again, we come to the basic tensionbetween those who believe in the supremacyof the ballot box – vox populi, vox dei – andthose who would rather ensure that somespheres are left to the experts. And those whoare most prominent in this latter cause are,understandably, the experts themselves. Theinternational conventions by which they setsuch store were drawn up by them, or bypeople very like them. These accords ensurethat what they see as humane and enlightenedvalues are guaranteed against crowd-pleasingpoliticians – who may, in any case, have onlyan ephemeral mandate.

The problem is remediable. Every foreigntreaty that imposes domestic obligations onBritain should be concluded on a temporarybasis. It should come before Parliament everyyear for readoption. If MPs believe that itsprovisions are being misinterpreted or wronglyapplied, they will have the opportunity todemand its modification or, in extremis, itsabrogation. This will prevent the constantaccretion of international codes, each one witha standing bureaucracy dedicated to itsconstant expansion.

For international treaties are rarely limited to thepaper on which they are signed. They alsoevolve secretariats, councils and commissions.Sometimes, these are limited in scope. TheCommonwealth, for example, may issue adviceto its members on domestic questions, but canimpose no sanction other than exclusion fromits ranks. The EU, on the other hand, hascreated a new legal order within the jurisdictionof its sigNATOries, and given that legal orderprimacy over their domestic statutes.

In the eyes of the mandarin, such institutionsformalise collaboration among states. Theymake impossible the smouldering grievancesand secret diplomacy of the nineteenth century.Above all, they are a guarantee against that mostdangerous of phenomena, nationalism.

What, though, do we mean by nationalism? Thetraditional definition is the desire of a people orlanguage-group to form an independent andunitary state. Seen like that, is it so very differentfrom what we mean by democracy?

To the democratic radicals of eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, the two concepts wereinseparable. To argue for government of, byand for the people instantly raised thequestion: what people? Within what unitshould the electoral process be played out?The answer that the democrats came up withwas the only possible answer. Democracyworks best within a territory whoseinhabitants feel that they have enough incommon one with another to acceptgovernment from each other’s hands – inother words, within a nation.

Those who are keenest on supra-nationalinstitutions are, as a rule, also suspicious of theclaims of secessionist movements withinrecognised states. The internationalcommunity’s immediate response to theSlovenian independence referendum in 1991,which triggered the conflict in Yugoslavia, wasto inform all the constituent Yugoslav republicsthat they would not be recognised outside thefederation. This policy eventually becameuntenable, but the same principle was appliedwhen it came to insisting on the unity of a


multi-ethnic Bosnia, and again when it came toholding Macedonia together. To this day, theUN and the EU refuse to countenanceethnographic frontiers in Kosovo or in Iraq.

There is a consistency in all this. Once again,the UN, the EU and the FCO value stabilityover democracy. For the truth is that supra-national states tend to work only to the extentthat they deny democratic aspirations. TheUSSR and Yugoslavia worked as dictatorships,in the same way that the Habsburg andOttoman empires had. The moment thesubject peoples of these states were given thechoice, they opted for self-government.

For Britain, the emphasis on preservingmulti-national entities represents a completereversal of what was once the basis of ourforeign policy. Traditionally, Britain was afriend to national liberation movements. AsLord Randolph Churchill observed:“England has always made the cause of nationsher own cause. She supported the nationalmovements of Germany and the LowCountries against Bonaparte. Her sympathywas with Greece, Hungary and Italy, and withthe South American Republics”.

Twice during the twentieth century, Britainwould embark on ruinous wars because afriendly country’s sovereignty had beenviolated. Indeed, the notion that the SecondWorld War was a battle on behalf of allnations would become a favourite refrain forLord Randolph’s son.

What has changed? Why do we now elevatethe multi-ethnic state as an end in itself?Why do we now try to push other regions ofthe world into forming regional associationsin mimicry of the EU?

4 Europe – your countryThe bureaucratic stasis, elitism and supra-nationalism that characterise the ForeignOffice explain the FCO’s obsession with thepolicy of European integration. The EU isperhaps the supreme exemplar and beneficiaryof the three characteristics identified above.

First, it is, in the narrow sense, a conservativeproject, trapped in the assumptions of the1950s, slow to adapt to change. To this day,supporters of deeper union talk about peaceon the continent after years of war, thereconciliation of France and Germany andthe entrenchment of democracy: all ratherpassé in the twenty-first century. At the sametime, Euro-integrationists remain wedded to asocial and economic model which seemedcutting edge half a century ago, but whichnow appears ludicrously out-of-date.

Second, it is a technocratic, elitist project. JeanMonnet, Robert Schuman and the other fathersof Euro-federalism had a profound distrust ofuntrammelled democracy which, in their eyes,had led to fascism and war. That is why theydeliberately vested supreme power in anunelected European Commission – a bodyintended to be immune to public opinion.Complaining that the EU is undemocratic is likecomplaining that a cow is bovine, or a butterflyflighty: it is designed that way.

Third, it is based on the idea that nationalismis the worst of all political ideals. The EU’sfounding principle, repeated a hundred timesa day even now, is that “nationalism causeswar”. This is, in fact, a highly questionableproposition: the worst wars of the modernera have been caused, not my nationalism, butby trans-national ideologies: Fascism,Communism, Islamic fundamentalism. Ineach of these cases, national institutions andpatriotic loyalties have tended to be a focus ofresistance against tyranny. But no matter. Tothose who believe that voters are undulyexcitable, and that the world is safer when runby a caste of international administrators,human rights lawyers and diplomats, the EUmust seem a wonderful project.

Small wonder that, during the 1960s, theFCO began to agitate for British membershipof the then EEC. More than this, a group ofmotivated diplomats were determined to keepthe application on course, regardless of thestated wishes of their elected ministers.


Their achievement is chronicled at length inThis Blessed Plot, published in 1998 by the lateGuardian journalist Hugo Young. Young wasperhaps the most solidly Europhile writer ofhis day, and his book rehearses most of theusual arguments for the EU, notably thatBritain is forever losing out by being stand-offish and joining too late. Yet he was also anexceptionally honest reporter, and was not toogrand to roll up his sleeves and do someprimary research. In particular, he trackeddown many of the FCO officials who hadmounted Britain’s three applications formembership. Now retired (usually to the Southof France) these men spoke frankly about howthey had, on occasion, acted directly contraryto the stated wishes of the government inorder to pursue what they regarded as thenational interest. Young, of course, regardstheir attitude with approval, but the generalreader is left gasping. This is how hesummarised what took place during the 1960s:

“An elite regiment was taking shape [inthe FCO]. Europe wasn’t yet the path ofchoice for every ambitious diplomat, butit promised to be much more interestingthan the Commonwealth, and offered aprospect of influence greater thananything else available to a second-orderpower. By 1963, a corps of diplomats waspresent in and around the Foreign Officewho saw the future for both themselvesand their country inside Europe. Theinterests of their country and their careerscoincided. It was an appealing symbiosis.”

Of course diplomats approve of the EU: itwas built by and for people like them. TheNorwegian and Swiss diplomatic corps are asdesperate to join now as the FCO was 40years ago. What is staggering about Young’smeticulously researched book is theinsouciance with which these men – forreasons which, as he admits, were as muchpersonal as ideological – were able to pursuetheir agenda independently of what thecountry had decided at the ballot box.

The EU is not just a consequence of thetendencies identified in the previous chapter;

it also encourages them within its constituentstates. It does so partly by removing decision-making one tier further from the public, andthus providing a sense of insulation to nationalpoliticians. But it does so more immediately bydirecting the foreign policies of its members.

Many British politicians in both parties continueto talk quaintly about the need to resist acommon European foreign policy. In fact, sucha foreign policy is already operative. Go to anynon-European capital and you will find that theEU mission dwarfs the national embassies. Andwhy not? What used to be the chief business ofnational embassies has already been ceded toBrussels. 100% of trade policy, and 99% ofdevelopment aid is controlled by the EU,leaving the national missions with little to dobeyond promoting tourism and hosting visitingministers from their home states.

Go back to the five areas which were identifiedas the main causes of friction between Brusselsand Washington: the Chinese arms embargo,the Iranian nuclear programme, the future ofCuba, the treatment of Hamas and the status ofsupra-national institutions. In all these areas, acommon European foreign policy applies.Member states may theoretically have the rightto pursue different approaches in these areas; inpractice, it would never occur to their foreignservices to do so.

And what is the most important aim ofEuropean foreign policy? To foster integrationon the EU model in other continents. It is littleappreciated how much the various regionalassociations – the Central American Union,ASEAN, the African Union and the rest – oweto the EU. From the first, the EU has financedand promoted regional integration campaigns.It even makes its trade and aid dealsconditional on a state’s participation in suchassociations. And this, by default, alsobecomes the chief goal of the 27 memberstates. Ask, say, the British Ambassador toMontevideo to define the UK’s key strategicgoal in Uruguay, and he will talk about turningMercosur into a proper political union. Ournational interests are redefined to reflect, notjust the ambitions of the European


Commission, but the prejudices of ourdiplomatic corps. As Hugo Young might say,it is an appealing symbiosis.

The EU has allowed many Whitehalldepartments, not just the FCO, to makepolicy with minimal political interference. Inconsequence, Britain is ceasing to think ofitself as an independent power. It may havethe world’s fifth largest economy and fourthmost powerful Armed Forces, but it has lostthe habit of autonomous action.

5 Punching below ourweightBritain has the potential to be a world power.Britain is the fifth largest economy in theworld. Although recently overtaken byChina, two decades of growing consistentlyfaster than France, Germany and Japan meanthat our relative economic standing in theworld has grown. London is the world’sfinancial capital. Militarily, Britain is one ofthe few nations capable of projecting militaryforce worldwide. We have a nuclearcapability and there are few armed forces inthe world today with Britain’s strength,versatility, experience and reach.Diplomatically, we hold one of the fivepermanent seats at the United NationsSecurity Council, and we sit on the board ofthe World Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund. If we speak, we are heard.

We have the distinct advantage of being at thehub of the Anglosphere – that fast growinggroup of nations with which we have much incommon and which appear to be benefitingmost from the processes of globalisation.

At the same time, our geopolitical burdensare not unmanageable. We are not in theshadow of some larger, aggressive neighbouras we have been within living memory.Unlike that other island democracy, Japan,on the other side of the Eurasian landmass,our near neighbours are not North Korea orChina. Unlike Singapore, we do not have agiant like Indonesia to contend with.

We depend on the flow of trade, and needopen sea lanes and open air routes. Oureconomy is fuelled by what we import. Havingbeen a net exporter of fossil fuels, today we arean importer. Britain has a strong vestedinterest in the growth of global trade and ininternational stability underpinned byeconomic growth. So too do we have a vestedinterest in the spread of stable liberaldemocracies. Yet trade and democracy havespread further and faster in the past 30 yearsthan at any previous time in history.

However, without a clear strategy, Britain isfollowing the foreign policy of aninternational lightweight.

Back in the days of the Cold War, ourstrategy must have seemed straightforward.From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, ColdWar considerations were paramount.Everything – more or less – fitted in aroundour Cold War strategy. Britain had a clearrole, a purpose supporting the free world, viaNATO and under US leadership, against theSoviets. With half a dozen notable exceptions,that, too, was the view from the ForeignOffice.

Since the neatly bi-polar world crumbled withthe Berlin Wall, many of the key elementsbehind our Cold War thinking have beenretained. Yet there has been no freshthinking. Foreign policy makers have noteffectively considered major trends in worldaffairs, and what challenges and opportunitiesthey offer Britain. Instead they have clung onto old assumptions and habits of mind.

A decade ago, the incoming LabourGovernment espoused something called an“ethical foreign policy”. Precisely what thismeant – other than not being Tory foreignpolicy – was never clear. Robin Cook showedan enthusiasm for supra-national institutionsand a belief that supra-nationalism coulduphold human rights and resolveinternational disputes. In contrast to suchfaith in supra-nationalism and multilateralism,however, Tony Blair has pursued a foreignpolicy based more on idealistic


interventionism. Long before Iraq, Blair wasthe driving force behind NATO interventionagainst the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999. InChicago, in that same year, Blair advocated“a new doctrine of international community”based on interventions against countrieswhen “we cannot turn our backs on conflictand the violation of human rights if we wantstill to be secure”.

In opposition for the past decade, theConservatives have undertaken almost nodeep-level thinking about foreign policy, andremain trapped in a Cold War mind frame.Ask almost any Conservative MP and theywill tell you that NATO is “A Good Thing”.Ask them why, and the answer will be a littleless certain. Ask a Tory front bench teamabout trade, and they will parrot the lineabout the importance of free trade. Tell themwe now have neither free trade nor theability to make our own trade policy, andthey will eye you with suspicion. On defence,you will hear a sermon about how much theparty believes in it. Ask them if this article offaith means we will continue to squanderbillions of tax pounds on the useless Eurofighter aircraft, and you will be viewed as aheretic. The old Cold War mantras are nosubstitute for real thinking. Our foreignpolicy is much the poorer for it.

6 Putting Parliament inchargeOur Parliament is unusually weak in the fieldof foreign affairs. Through a quirk of history,the Prime Minister has inherited more or lessintact the executive powers that onceattached to the monarchy. Diplomaticappointments, the contracting of treaties andnational defence are all controlled byDowning Street under Crown Prerogativepowers.

The peculiar feebleness of our legislature,even relative to other EU states, is illustratedwhenever a European treaty needs to beimplemented. Whereas most of the other

members have constitutions that requireparliamentary ratification or, in some cases,referendums, British MPs find that largechunks of the treaties can be approved withoutpassing through the House of Commons. Thesignature of the Foreign Secretary, acting onbehalf of the Sovereign, is all that is required.

For a long time, this state of affairs wasregarded as indefensible in theory, butacceptable in practice. Perhaps because oftheir doubts about its fairness, successiveprime ministers tended to exercise theirCrown Prerogative powers with discretion.Criticism of the dispensation was more or lesslimited to Tony Benn.

The Crown Prerogative has today, however,become increasingly indefensible in practice aswell as in theory. There has been a shift inpower away from the legislature to the otherbranches of government. Under the aegis ofthe Prime Minister’s appointment powers, anetwork of agencies and quangoes has grownup, removing administration further from theelected chamber and, thus, from the peoplewho vote for it.

In June 2005, in Direct Democracy, we proposedthat the appointment powers exercised underCrown Prerogative be transferred toParliament. Three months later, to TonyBenn’s surprise and delight, David Cameroncommitted a future Conservative Governmentto the policy.

Applied to the field of foreign affairs, thiswould have two consequences. First, it wouldgive the House of Commons treaty-makingpowers, similar to those enjoyed by the USSenate and by several other parliamentarychambers around the world. On the principlethat no parliament may bind its successor, suchtreaties would no longer be contractedindefinitely. Rather, they would be placedregularly before the Chamber – ideally on anannual basis – for readoption. If they were notspecifically endorsed, they would lapse.

The idea of time-limited Acts – “sunsetclauses”– is not a new one. The Prevention of


Terrorism Act was voted on every yearthroughout most of the 1970s and 1980s.Nor should the principle be limited toforeign policy. A more widespread use of thesunset clauses would constrain the otherwiseever-growing corpus of legislation. But theapplication of the doctrine to the field ofinternational relations would have oneespecially happy consequence: it wouldremind the agencies and secretariatsestablished by international accords that theyhad a limited mandate and that expandingtheir powers beyond those envisaged by thesigNATOry states might lead to at least oneof those states withdrawing from the accord.

It would also act as a check on one of themore curious of political phenomena, namelythe way in which national ministers crave theapproval of their foreign counterparts.Almost all national parliaments complainthat their ministers “go native” whennegotiating international deals, and exceedthe mandate bestowed on them by theirMPs. This would plainly be less likely tooccur if ministers knew that whatever theyagreed would have to be approved byParliament, not just once, but in perpetuity.

The second major consequence of theabolition of Crown Prerogative would be anend to the appointment and promotion ofdiplomats without political scrutiny. Thesituation described by Hugo Young in ThisBlessed Plot would simply not arise; or, if itdid, it could be instantly remedied.

When George Shultz was US Secretary ofState in the 1980s, he had a routine forappointing American ambassadors. He wouldask them to point to their country on a largemap in his office. They would duly point to,say, Ecuador. “Nope”, he would tell them,tapping the US, “this is your country, anddon’t forget it.”

It is perhaps no coincidence that the US, whichhas always had a degree of legislative controlover both appointments and treaties, has sucha clearly defined strategic vision and such areadiness to deploy force in defence of its

interests. Nor can it be entirely coincidentalthat, when Britain’s parliament was supreme,and its diplomatic service small, it too waswilling to project its interests.

Some of the greatest of our foreign policyinitiatives were undertaken as a direct result ofpopular pressure, expressed throughparliamentary representation. The extirpation ofthe slave trade was led by public opinion. Thesupport for liberal regimes abroad, too, waspopulist in origin. Foreign policy could, indeed,become the major electoral question of the day,as during Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign.

The democratisation of diplomacy ought to beespecially attractive for Conservatives. In therest of the world, and especially in otherAnglosphere countries, parties of the centre-right derive a substantial measure of theirelectoral appeal from being the more trusted onforeign affairs. In Britain, by contrast, politicianshave contracted out large chunks ofinternational relations to the permanentfunctionaries in Whitehall and, especially,Brussels. In consequence, the issue has slippedfrom the electoral agenda.

We should rediscover our sympathy fornational movements. We should prefercountries to be united by trade than by politicalstructures. We should sponsor the spread ofindividual liberty and property rights, andthereby guarantee our own prosperity as acommercial nation. We should work withfriends and allies around the world instead ofnarrowing our horizons to the EU. We shouldput our faith in elected national politiciansrather than remote supra-nationalbureaucracies.

None of these things is possible, however,until foreign policy is wrenched back out ofthe grasp of EU officials and their Britishauxiliaries. We must make the question ofhow Britain relates to other nations aquestion for the British people, either throughtheir elected representatives or, directly,through referendums. Grant this and muchwill follow.

thelocalistpapers5. Foreign policy

British foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic process. It is conducted byhighly qualified officials who, although often technically brilliant, have drifted awayfrom the values of the rest of the country. There are few mechanisms to make theconduct of diplomatic relations subject to popular scrutiny; in consequence, the statemachine is even less subject to democratic control in the field of international affairsthan in domestic matters.

Left to their own devices, diplomatists have evolved an approach to internationalrelations that is élitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic andcontemptuous of "populism". Without democratic accountability, the foreign policyestablishment has failed to recognise Britain’s true national interests. With noeffective scrutiny acting to correct the institutional failings of the FCO establishment,Britain’s leaders have lacked a coherent vision of Britain’s place in the world.

This paper recommends a series of mechanisms to bring foreign policy back intoline with public opinion. Specifically, it proposes:

Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, and making foreign policy subject toparliamentary control. Holding democratic hearings for senior diplomatic postings. Subjecting international treaties to annual re-ratification by the House ofCommons.

Centre for Policy Sudies57 Tufton StreetLondon SW1P 3QL

www.cps.org.ukwww.direct-democracy.co.uk

direct-democracy.co.uk

foreign policy - tim's first edit · british foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic...

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