Election 2010 - Foreign Policy And Coalitions
Monday 10 May 2010 at 02:24 The markets seem to be surprisingly untroubled by current negotiations over who will lead the next Government of the United Kingdom. They know that whoever is in charge will have to follow a programme of cuts and tax rises.
The Timetable
Whatever the different constituencies for the two sides may hope, the two main competitive options are only going to differ on nuance rather than fundamentals when it comes to economics. The same applies to foreign policy. The differences lie on political reform and the type of cuts and tax rises.
There are many potential permutations in the medium term - including another election or a minority Tory government pottering along until its first major vote of confidence - but the most likely outcomes are either a Lib-Con pact or the so-called 'progressive alliance'.
The system has around another three or four days to get itself sorted out. If there are not signs of significant progress by (say) Thursday, the markets will get jittery. No deal at all by the time the markets open next Monday could cause a more serious crisis.
What has not been commented upon a great deal is the effect on foreign policy of the final outcome. There is only a hair's breadth difference between Conservatives and New Labour so any 'nuance' must come from the emergence of the pro-European Liberal Democrats and the Scots and Welsh Nationalists.
Perceptions of Sovereignty
It is common knowledge that David Cameron has relatively little interest in foreign policy. His concern with domestic issues means that he has virtually handed over this area to the Churchillian 'post-imperial' elements like Hague who revel in statecraft as once did Tony Blair.
Both New Labour and the Tories are Atlanticist to the core. Both are persuaded towards UN reform in favour of rising powers. Both have a 'thing' about Iran and Africa. Both support the two-state solution in the Middle East. Both are committed to overseas aid as a moral principle.
The difference lies over Europe and a particular perception of sovereignty. Mandelson's vision of power is subtle and relies on influence through a trans-national elite leadership as if the country was an important subsidiary of a major conglomerate. The Tories believe in UK plc as a separate entity.
Tory euroscepticism is not now driven by the fear of English votes moving to the Right but is embedded in the rising generation of libertarians. Surely this in itself might push the Liberal Democrats into the arms of New Labour?
The Tories & Europe
The failure of UKIP, various English nationalists and the BNP to make a mark is only partly a matter of taste - the intelligent English and British nationalists have become sophisticated and retaken the Tory Party from its base. The image of Europe has also changed on the centre-right with Lisbon.
Once there was a vision, closer to Mandelson's, where national economic interests were intimately bound up with the creation of a massive single market. This enabled mainstream Toryism to embrace Maastricht but Lisbon has been an integration too far.
Appreciation of the single market model has been replaced by a greater fear that economic federalism will end up killing the goose that lays the United Kingdom's 'golden egg' (the City of London) and that integration demands will severely damage British, or rather English, culture.
This is why it remains possible for the Liberal Democrats, despite the risk of alienating much of the rest of the English population, to shift from the Tories to New Labour if they do not get a major concession that gives them a prospect of electoral reform before the next election. But will they?
Europe, The Liberal Democrats & Labour
Europe is central to the world view of the older generation of Liberal Democrats. Cameron's euroscepticism will cause them to bridle as Europe integrates under the guise of saving the Euro in a way that makes it increasingly difficult for a Tory Government to accommodate change.
New Labour is infinitely more pro-European than the Tories, seeing it not as competitor for influence within the West but integral to a West that is lead in part from London and wholly in partnership with Washington. It is just a variation on a shared Atlanticist theme but an important one.
New Labour's Manifesto was supportive of European social protection legislation (a core trades union demand), supportive of enlargement and supportive of the integration of EU anti-crime, anti-terror and defence operations with NATO. The concession of a referendum on the Euro was merely tactical.
But, other than Europe, foreign policy is less important to Liberal Democrats than to either of the other two parties who, paradoxically, given all their debates over sovereignty, are heavily beholden to the joint security arrangements with the US that make Trident such an expensive white elephant.
What the Liberal Democrats offer is a softer approach to issues of war and peace, assertive in defence of human rights and opposed to WMD but not necessarily adopting the 'hard' Western view that the exercise of forward military power is the means to guarantee rights and democracy.
Since many of the Labour Left and certainly the Scots and Welsh nationalists share these views, are more suspicious than nearly all Conservatives of Atlanticism and are more instinctively pro-European, the idea that the Liberal Democrats can 'tame' New Labour in an alliance has its attractions.
The State Carries On Regardless
The State (the Crown), after fifty years of Atlanticism, is relaxed. It is confident that 'plus ca change'. The nuances may be different but the core of the next Government will still be embedded in a vision of the West, the UK at its heart, a post-imperial vision of global influence under the wing of America.
The Liberal Democrats are scarcely revolutionaries, merely replacing America with Europe as the focus of attention within a values-driven conception of a 'progressive alliance' and softening the means to attain the same values-driven ends in either model.
The questions this week are whether these differing nuances in foreign policy are going to be at all central to the decision whether to take one path rather than another in the formation of the next Government and what each 'model' may mean in practice.
Our view is that they will play a role in the negotiations but they are far from central. The big economic decisions (including Trident and the Eurofighter) are going to be driven by market factors and it is probable that Tories and New Labour would combine to save the central core of Atlanticist policies.
The Liberal Democrats know that they cannot do anything about the Tory position on Europe and the best that can be done is to fight the big battles through referenda rather than on the floor of the House.
Similarly, the Liberal Democrats can make a lot of noise about right-wing posturing on sovereignty on matters of detail and principle and might combine with the 'progressives' to block a particularly obnoxious bit of nationalism (as they would see it) but this need not cause a Government to fall.
Outcomes
At the end of the day, the prize for the Liberal Democrats has little to do with Britain's place in the world and a great deal to do with political reform.
If you add in the chance to influence the Tories towards their own avowed 'compassionate' conservatism and a shared agenda on the restoration of civil liberties, there is a lot to be said for a Liberal-Conservative alliance until the next election.
On the surface, the Liberal Democrats may have much more in common with the 'progressive coalition' in foreign affairs than they do with the Tories but we need to dig under the surface of what is going on here.
The two nationalist parties have opportunistically sought to out-flank New Labour to the Left. Their package of measures has included the attack on Trident and on post-imperial interventions overseas but this radicalism is really only skin-deep.
The nationalist parties are simply against the 'Empire' and they want to continue its break-up whereas the Liberal Democrats have only ever wanted to liberalise and humanise it. Indeed, liberal enthusiasm would often extend Empire where pragmatic Tories might justifiably only see the costs.
So what influence would the Liberal Democrats actually have on New Labour's policies in office (in foreign policy)? We would suspect - despite the best wishes of what remains of the Labour Left and the progressive grassroots - very little indeed.
Foreign policy is central to New Labour's positioning and many Liberal Democrats are happier with its general thrust in terms of forward promotion of Western values than they like to admit. The 'real' Left had a more revolutionary take, wanting to liberate the world by liberating the British working classes.
New Labour Right assumptions are not so very different from Liberal Democrat instincts. Both New Labour and Liberal Democrats like big things the country can belong to! They both want them to have some basis in universal values rather than mere statecraft.
The Labour Left, on the other hand, is on its knees. Its progressive elements are very little different from Liberal Democrats and its radical elements are crushed with no hold on either Party or State. The collapse of RESPECT in East London matched the crushing failures of the Radical Right.
The addition of Liberal Democrats and Nationalists to New Labour would be an occasional irritant rather than the cause of major change. If the Liberal Democrats joined the 'progressives, it would be for political reform, electoral advantage and civil liberties - not for a sea-change in the British State.
In other words, here, as with the Tories, foreign policy is a second order consideration in any negotiations. The Liberal Democrats in office with New Labour are unlikely to be at the heart of external State policy unless given greater prominence in Europe.
The current negotiations, like the election itself, are primarily about domestic reform and domestic crisis - how to rebuild confidence in the system to weather major cuts and tax rises. They are not about foreign policy. In that area, expect business as usual constrained by lack of cash.
Reader Comments (3)
Although the Tories are committed to foreign aid, haven't they a policy that calls for a more explicit linking of aid to military intervention, to the discomfort of some NGOs? A far from academic question, if you are an aid worker/military target.
I think Larry raises an interesting point. What are the parties positions on foregin aid and its relationship to foreign policy? This will be discussed in a debate chaired by Jeremy Bowen on May 17th. Edward Davey - Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary, Mary Riddel - Daily Telegraph columnist, Peter Oborne - Daily Mail Political columnist and David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster will be debating 'British foreign policy that protects civilians from armed conflict is good for them - and good for Britain.' Kings Place, London, May 17th, Free tickers and info ... http://bit.ly/b80Bfn
Apologies for apparently shameless promtion - seems very relevant though.
I don't think you are right, Larry.
Their policy is at http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/International_Development.aspx and could have been that of any of the two main parties. There is a broad consensus on aid - probably more than in any other area of external affairs except membership of the Atlantic system and support for free trade.
Elsewhere it was noted that I had not mentioned globalisation but I defended myself there and here by saying that all parties are committed to collective security and to free trade and so my two theses - that there is no substantive difference between the three parties merely ones of nuance and that foreign policy is of secondary importance in the current negotiations - stands.
There is a difference, of course, in willingness to contemplate external regulation of globalisation (to make it 'work better not challenge it) between internationalist 'progressives' and national Tories but globalisation itself is not at issue!
@Ged - That is appropriate shameless promotion - had you mentioned viagra, you would have been deleted!