When it comes to foreign and security policy, the new British Labour government has inherited a very bad hand from its predecessors, which it would take great skill to play with any success. Unfortunately, judging by its statements so far, not only does the new administration lack such skill, it is not even sure what game it is playing.
With the partial exception of policy towards the EU, it does not in fact appear that Labour policy will differ significantly from that of the Conservatives. Nor indeed can it differ, if it is determined to go on operating within the very narrow parameters laid down by the British foreign and security establishment. The unconditional allegiance of this establishment to the United States makes even thinking about British national interests difficult, if not impossible.
The Labour government’s overall approach was set out by the new foreign secretary, David Lammy, in an essay for Foreign Affairs before the election. It begins with a refreshing acknowledgement of Britain’s relative — and to some extent absolute — decline. As Lammy says, the last time Labour was elected to form a new government, in 1997, Britain’s economy was larger than those of China and India combined. Today it is smaller than India’s and barely a fifth that of China.
Lammy says that the government will be guided by what he calls “Progressive realism”:
“Progressive realism advocates using realist means to pursue progressive ends. For the British government, that requires tough-minded honesty about the United Kingdom, the balance of power, and the state of the world. But instead of using the logic of realism solely to accumulate power, progressive realism uses it in service of just goals—for example, countering climate change, defending democracy, and advancing the world’s economic development. It is the pursuit of ideals without delusions about what is achievable.”
The problem is that at no stage in what follows does Lammy appear to understand the very basic principle of Realism: that successful foreign policy requires making some very hard and unpopular choices; and that these choices are often not only between what is practically possible and what is not, but between greater and lesser evils. The more conflicted and dangerous the environment, the harder and more unpleasant these choices are liable to become.
Thus in a rare piece of hypocrisy, in his presentation of “progressive realism,” Lammy seeks to combine the legacies of “two great British Foreign Secretaries,” Ernest Bevin, who helped to create NATO and rally the West to confront the Soviet threat; and Robin Cook, who resigned in protest against Tony Blair’s decision to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But Lammy’s boss, new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has in recent years ruthlessly purged the Labour Party of those who opposed the Iraq War, and packed it instead with Blairites who supported it.
Lammy acknowledges the “failures” of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and vows that a Labour government will not repeat these errors. He then immediately states:
“That said, the last decade has made it clear that inaction has high costs, too. The fact that the United States did not police its redline against the use of chemical weapons in Syria not only entrenched Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s monstrous regime; it also emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin. He concluded that the West no longer had the stomach to defend the rules-based order and, by annexing Crimea, applied the logic of what David Miliband, another former Labour foreign secretary, has called ‘the age of impunity.’”
In other words, instead of actually learning from the disasters of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the U.S., with Britain in tow, should have repeated those disasters in Syria, probably on an even greater scale. And while Lammy pays lip-service to the need to respect the views of the countries of the “Global South,” he continues to patronize them by repeating U.S.-style boilerplate language about a “rules based order” that most of the world outside the West (including elites who want partnership with Washington) sees as no more than a transparent propagandist cover for U.S. hegemony.
When it comes to a refusal to face hard choices, Lammy, and Labour policy, reach their apogee with his words about policy towards China: “The United Kingdom must instead adopt a more consistent strategy, one that simultaneously challenges, competes against, and cooperates with China as appropriate.”
This passage (while entirely in line with previous Conservative government statements) suggests that Lammy also has a rather poor grasp of the English language, at least when it comes to the meaning of the word “consistent.”
The core problem of British policy (not just Labour’s, but that of the entire British Blob, or Bloblet) lies in the combination of the following two passages:
“Above all else, the United Kingdom must continue supporting Ukraine. The future of European security depends on the outcome of the war there, and the British government must leave the Kremlin with no doubt that it will support Kyiv for as long as it takes to achieve victory. Once Ukraine has prevailed, the United Kingdom should play a leading role in securing Ukraine’s place in NATO. …
"European security will be the Labour Party’s foreign policy priority. But the British government cannot focus exclusively on the continent. Realism also means recognizing that the Indo-Pacific will be fundamental to global prosperity and security in the decades ahead, so the United Kingdom must strengthen its engagement with that region, as well.”
As usual with such Western statements, Lammy does not say what he means by “victory” for Ukraine, thereby depriving his readers of any opportunity to judge whether his goal is remotely achievable. The combination of these passages also involves either the delusions of British power that Lammy claims to criticize, or a cowardly refusal to make realistic choices.
For if the future of European security really depends on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and if the British government really believes that the only acceptable outcome is Ukrainian victory, then it should be obvious that to achieve this goal will require the great expansion and entire commitment of British military industry to this goal, together with the complete deployment of the British armed forces to Europe as a back-up in case this escalates to direct war with Russia.
This is all the more so because British industries and armed forces are in a truly dilapidated state. The ships keep breaking down, and there are far too few of them. The army has only one brigade available for immediate deployment. In these circumstances, to make new British security commitments in Asia would seem to verge on strategic madness.
But of course, British security policy is not really British. It is in the end made in Washington, with the near-unanimous consent of the British establishment. This has become a sort of establishment doctrine, largely independent of actual evidence or considerations of actual national interest. This in turn makes it even more difficult to mobilize the British people behind this dogma; for why should they risk their lives and sacrifice their wellbeing for goals set in Washington, over which they have not the slightest influence?
Moreover, there now appears to be a serious possibility that under the next U.S. administration, American policy will shift suddenly, even as the Trump administration’s political ideology and culture diverge radically from that of Labour. Maybe Lammy and his government colleagues have given serious thought to what Britain will do in this event, and if Britain and Europe can really support Ukraine without massive U.S. help, or without going to war with Russia themselves. If so, there is no sign of it in their statements.
If readers will forgive a sentimental note from a patriotic British subject, in recent decades I have often seen Britain as resembling the magnificent but hopelessly obsolete warship HMS Temeraire in the famous painting by Turner, towed by an American steam tug in directions determined by America. It now appears however that the steamship may be about to cast off the tow. What will then become of British foreign policy God alone knows. David Lammy certainly doesn’t.
