British foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic process. It is conducted by highly qualified officials who, although often technically brilliant, have drifted away from the values of the rest of the country. There are few mechanisms to make the conduct of diplomatic relations subject to popular scrutiny; in consequence, the state machine is even less subject to democratic control in the field of international affairs direct-democracy.co.uk than in domestic matters. the Left to their own devices, diplomatists have evolved an approach to international relations that is élitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic and contemptuous of "populism". Without democratic accountability, the foreign policy establishment has failed to recognise Britain’s true national interests. With no effective 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 into line with public opinion. Specifically, it proposes: z Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, and making foreign policy subject to parliamentary control. z Holding democratic hearings for senior diplomatic postings. localist z Subjecting international treaties to annual re-ratification by the House of Commons. papers

Centre for Policy Sudies 57 Tufton Street London SW1P 3QL www.cps.org.uk www.direct-democracy.co.uk 6. Direct Diplomacy Direct democracy members The aim of the Centre for Policy Studies Adam Afriyie MP is to develop and promote policies that Richard Benyon MP provide freedom and encouragement Roger Bird for individuals to pursue the aspirations Martin Callanan MEP they have for themselves and their Douglas Carswell MP families, within the security and Paul Carter obligations of a stable and law-abiding Greg Clark MP nation. The views expressed in our Stephen Crabb MP publications are, however, the sole Philip Dunne MP responsibility of the authors. Murdo Fraser MSP Contributions are chosen for their value MP in informing public debate and should Robert Goodwill MP not be taken as representing a corporate MP view of the CPS or of its Directors. The Andrew Griffith CPS values its independence and does Robert Halfon not carry on activities with the intention Stephen Hammond MP of affecting public support for any Daniel Hannan MEP registered political party or for Mark Harper MP candidates at election, or to influence Chris Heaton-Harris MEP voters in a referendum. MP Adam Holloway MP Ed Howker MP Stewart Jackson MP Syed Kamall MEP Direct Democracy is a group of 38 Scott Kelly Conservative MPs, MEPs, MSPs and Danny Kruger activists dedicated to the principles of Kwasi Kwarteng localism and the devolution of power. Ali Miraj The Localist Papers are an examination Brian Monteith of how these principles might apply to Brooks Newmark MP specific fields of policy. They are not Jesse Norman manifestoes, and not all our supporters endorse them in full. Rather, they Mike Penning MP explore some possible ways in which Mark Reckless power could be shifted from the Henry Smith bureaucracy of the central state to local James Sproule communities and individual citizens. Theresa Villiers MP

© Centre for Policy Studies, June 2007

ISBN 978-1-905389-58-2

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

Tel: 020 7222 4488, Fax: 020 7222 4388, e-mail: mail.cps.org.uk, website: www.cps.org.uk

Printed by the Centre for Policy Studies, 57 Tufton Street, London SW1 Contents

1Summary 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 Diplomacy

1 Summary

British foreign policy is cocooned from the This paper recommends a series of democratic process. It is conducted by highly mechanisms to bring foreign policy back into qualified officials who, although often line with public opinion. Specifically, it technically brilliant, have drifted away from proposes: the values of the rest of the country. There are few mechanisms to make the conduct of ƒ Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, and diplomatic relations subject to popular making foreign policy subject to scrutiny; in consequence, the state machine is parliamentary control. even less subject to democratic control in the field of international affairs than in domestic ƒ Holding democratic hearings for senior matters. diplomatic postings.

Left to their own devices, diplomatists have ƒ Subjecting international treaties to annual evolved an approach to international re-ratification by the House of Commons. relations that is élitist, managerialist, supra- nationalist, technocratic and contemptuous of “populism”. Without democratic accountability, the foreign policy establishment has failed to recognise Britain’s true national interests. With no effective scrutiny acting to correct the institutional failings of the Foreign and Commonswealth Office (FCO) establishment, Britain’s leaders have lacked a coherent vision of Britain’s place in the world. 2 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

2 Introduction All organisations make mistakes, of course, and it is easy to criticise with hindsight. But It can be argued that diplomacy is different the conduct of British foreign policy shows from other areas of policy. It is, after all, a certain institutional flaws. To the extent that highly specialised field, remote from the these failures derive from the way it is everyday concerns of most voters. Its structured, they ought to be remediable. practitioners have evolved particular skills, and a familiarity with their subject that few laymen can match. Yet precisely the same can be argued, mutatis mutandis, about 3 Why the Foreign Office policing, education or virtually any other field of government activity. gets it wrong Everyone involved with local or national With little direct oversight, our diplomats politics is aware of the phenomenon of have often pursued policies that are not only “officer control”: the tendency of the at odds with popular opinion, but calamitous permanent functionaries to run things in their own terms. Think, for example, of the according to their own convenience and backing that Britain has given to murderous priorities, with minimal input from the tyrants such as Nicolae Ceausescu, Idi Amin elected representatives who are notionally in and Robert Mugabe, in the belief that they charge, but who are in practice often too busy would turn out to be our friends. Or of our with their electoral activities to pay much repeated attempts to talk Teheran’s ayatollahs attention to administration. out of their nuclear ambitions by being “constructive”. Or of the failure of Certain features are common to almost all intelligence prior to Argentina’s seizure of the bureaucracies. They tend to be risk-averse and Falkland Islands. Or of the alienation of once- reactive. Those who rise to run them generally friendly colonies (a special mention should be do so by never sticking their necks out, and by made here of Malta which, in 1956, voted by reflecting whatever is the prevailing wisdom of 74% in a referendum for complete integration the moment. In consequence, they often cling with the UK; its application was rejected so to once-fashionable theories long after their high-handedly that, within eight years, Malta utility has passed. At the same time, many was completely independent and pursuing an officials feel bound to one another by the anti-British foreign policy). Think of the common nexus of their expertise. They dislike mistakes that were made by ’s being told what to do by those who, as they Government in Yugoslavia. Think, above all, see it, have no qualifications in the field. They of the determination of the FCO to pursue are hyper-sensitive to press criticism. They closer European integration. resent what they call “populism” — which is often what the rest of us call “democracy”. Many of these mistakes might have been avoided had foreign affairs more closely All these features can be found, to some reflected the layman’s views. You don’t need a extent, in the FCO. A brief survey of the degree in Arabic and Persian studies to see that conduct of British foreign policy reveals three there is nothing to be gained by cosying up to particular traits. Our diplomats are hidebound, the current Iranian regime. You don’t need to acting according to strategic assumptions that have spent two years at the College of Europe are sometimes decades old. They are élitist, in Bruges to understand why the EU is inimical their disdain for public opinion at home being to British traditions. On the contrary, an matched by a willingness to do business with excessive specialisation in these fields can despots abroad. And they are supra-nationalist, impair your vision of Britain’s true interests. both in their fondness for establishing cross- border bureaucracies and in their dislike of secessionist or national movements. The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 3

Bureaucratic stasis This is how bureaucracies usually behave. No Generals, as the old chestnut has it, are always apparatus will ever volunteer to have its role preparing to fight the last war. Rarely has this reduced. Rather, it will cast around for a new been truer than now. Seventeen years after task to justify itself. This is especially true at the the fall of the Berlin Wall, Britain’s top of the bureaucracy. Those who have risen deployment and procurement patterns remain the highest have generally been there for the trapped in the Cold War. We continue to longest. Their thinking has been schooled over maintain a garrison of 22,000 in West many years in the institution and, when Germany; the single largest item of our circumstances change in their later years, they defence spending has been the Eurofighter, can find it difficult to make the necessary an aircraft designed to dogfight Soviet MiGs; mental adjustment. Just as the “East of Suez” the naval budget is largely consumed by brigade took decades to acclimatise themselves submarines, whose chief purpose is to keep to Britain’s reduced global role, so almost open the North Atlantic sea lanes. everyone over a certain age will insist that NATO must remain the centrepiece of our Meanwhile, we have invested far too little in defence, without quite being able to explain the modern hardware suited to out-of-area why. campaigns: air- and sea-lift capacity, guided missile systems, advanced satellites and NATO does, of course, serve many useful military computers, unmanned sea-vessels purposes. Its members share common values, and aircraft drones. and it is an important guarantor of a continuing US presence outside the Western These criticisms ought, of course, to be hemisphere. But, looked at from first directed primarily at the Ministry of Defence principles, it surely cannot be as central to (MoD). But the misallocation of our defence Britain’s interests as it was during the Cold budget reflects a wider failure to have moved War. The UK ought to be developing ties with . Our strategic thinking — and, with friendly governments on every indeed, our diplomatic alignment more continent. It should pick key strategic generally — remains -centric. It is true partners in each region where it has interests. that, during the second half of the twentieth century, Britain’s interests depended chiefly Europe is now just one continent among on the security of Western Europe. But, in many. Yet our strategic thinking remains stuck the broad sweep of history, this was an in the 1980s. We are suffering unnecessary extremely unusual period. casualties in Afghanistan because we are short of helicopters. At the same time, we are The end of the Cold War ought to have spending almost unbelievable sums on Cold returned Britain to its traditional role as a War weapons systems. The Eurofighter and global and maritime nation. Our enemies the Trident replacement will cost around £20 these days are distant and sparse: Iraqi billion each. Neither can be usefully deployed insurgents, Afghan badmashes, West African against the paramilitary enemies we now face. teenagers. Yet we are fighting them with weapons, structures and alliances designed to The real problem is the absence of an overall defend West Germany against a massed strategic vision. In the days when the assault by Russian T72s. Instead of diplomatic service was small, and under direct determining our security needs and then ministerial control, such vision existed. At the furnishing ourselves with the matériel and peak of the British Empire, Lord Salisbury institutions best suited to them, we took directed 52 permanent staff in London, and a what we happened already to have – NATO handful of ambassadors overseas. – and tried to press it to a purpose for which Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain it had never been designed. had clearly understood international interests: the need to maintain a naval presence in key 4 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

theatres; the security of the sea-route to A common thread links these apparently India; the spread of free trade; the balance of unrelated disputes. In each of them, the US power in Europe; sympathy for national favours democracy over stability, the EU movements in Europe provided they did not stability over democracy. Both unions are, in a threaten the balance of power; and, later, the sense, acting according to the DNA that was two-power standard. These objectives were encoded at the time of their conception. The not a random check-list: they followed US was founded out of a popular rising against logically from an appreciation of Britain’s a distant and autocratic government, and so position as a mercantile island nation. has a natural sympathy with freedom and self- government. The EU was founded following Today, there is no such holistic analysis. The the horror of the Second World War, its FCO’s official statement of our strategic patriarchs still haunted by the memory of the goals, Active Diplomacy in a Changing World, is untrammelled plebiscitary democracy that had comprised of nine unrelated objectives. In preceded it. Perhaps understandably, they the absence of an overall strategic vision, our believed that electoral majorities sometimes policy has become reactive, hand-to-mouth. had to be tempered by the good sense and We default automatically to whatever sobriety of professional administrators. happens to be in place, rather than thinking about what we should ideally like. Historical experience has given European statesmen a very different Weltanschauung from This is partly the “sunk costs” phenomenon, that of their American counterparts. When an which is by no means peculiar to British American politician looks at, for example, diplomacy. But it can lead to some terrible , he sees a country like his own: a mistakes. We backed Idi Amin until well into parliamentary democracy founded in adversity the 1970s, and Robert Mugabe until well into that elected its generals as its first leaders, and the 1990s, because we felt we had invested that maintained its commitment to so much in them. We supported the Shah of representative government and the rule of law for the same reason, with catastrophic in difficult circumstances. Israel elicits his consequences. We are now repeating the sympathy in the literal sense of fellow feeling. mistake in Saudi Arabia. At no stage have we The European, however, sees the displacement defined, from first principles, what kind of of a traditional and settled Arab society by a world we want, and who our friends are in state based on the one ideology he disdains such a world, and then reassessed our above all, that of national self-determination. priorities accordingly. Israel, after all, is the supreme embodiment of the national principle: the vindication, after Our support for various authoritarian 2,000 years, of a people’s desire to form their regimes is not just a symptom of inertia. own state. The EU, by contrast, is based on Something more unlovely is also at work. the notion that national loyalties are transient, arbitrary and ultimately discreditable. “Our kind of people” It is a similar story when it comes to Iran, or Look at the parts of the world where China or Cuba. The EU has never made a fetish Washington’s interests clash most directly out of democratic majorities, cheerfully with those of Brussels. These may be disregarding referendums when they go the grouped under five broad headings: selling “wrong” way. So, naturally enough, it applies arms to China; engaging with Iran; the same standard beyond its own borders, destabilising Cuba; funding the Palestinian making allowances for autocratic regimes which Authority; and co-operating with supra- seem at least to want to go in the right direction. national institutions, such as the UN, the Kyoto process and the International Ditto when it comes to supra-national bodies. Criminal Court. Where Washington sees unelected The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 5

technocrats seeking to overrule elected standing in the region no good and, within the national governments, most Europeans see a bounds permitted by diplomatic protocol, tried framework of rules designed to bind to push the regime towards reform. He irresponsible politicians, even if they happen concentrated on economic freedom, judging to have secured a transient popular majority. that, if recognised basic property rights, then the rule of law and, eventually, The interesting point is to observe how British political freedom would follow. His foreign policy is drifting out of the gravitational interventions delighted local human rights pull of Washington and entering into orbit activists, who believed that their association around Brussels. Although the UK is, in this as with a foreign embassy would afford them a in so much else, mid-Atlantic, there is a degree of protection. But it horrified the discernible Europeanisation of our policy in all Karimov government, which began to agitate the instances cited. British ministers have for his removal. visited Cuba and encouraged commercial links with the Castro regime. was perhaps The FCO found itself in a dilemma. It had the most prominent of all EU politicians in decided to back Karimov in the belief that he seeking to cosy up to the ayatollahs in Teheran. was an ally in the . (As it Britain is an enthusiast, too, for the various happens, this has turned out to be a international bodies that are so distrusted by monstrous miscalculation. By creating the Washington. impression that Islamism is Karimov’s chief enemy, we have in fact helped to create the Much of this tendency has to do with the very thing we fear: a revival of growing EU role in foreign policy, of which fundamentalism in a region that has never more later. But it also reflects the FCO’s own known it before.) Yet the FCO could hardly guarded attitude to democracy. An exquisitely discipline an ambassador for supporting educated mandarin, who has learned over the human rights. So, instead, it accused Mr years how to keep a series of unsophisticated Murray of personal misconduct, and urged ministers in check, might be excused for him to leave quietly. He denied the charges, evincing a certain fellow feeling for an which were later dropped. enlightened despot in another country, importuned on all sides to hold elections. Mr Murray’s case briefly became a cause célèbre, because he had supporters in Parliament and If this criticism sounds too harsh, consider in the press. But the whole episode raises the the case of , once Her Majesty’s disquieting question of how many other Ambassador to Tashkent. Mr Murray had diplomats have been discreetly removed for been posted to a vile tyranny: Uzbekistan is challenging the FCO’s steady-as-she-goes, perhaps the last place on earth where the Europhile, anti-democratic assumptions. Soviet Union survives. The former Communist leaders who run the country treat it more or less as private property, Supra-nationalism systematically looting its wealth while denying basic ownership rights to their The past 40 years have seen an unprecedented people. Islam Karimov’s regime has closed growth in international law. Previously, down independent media, silenced dissidents international law was limited to the manner in and been implicated in the torture and which states dealt with each other. It covered murder of its critics. It is also widely maritime conventions, piracy, safe conduct suspected of controlling a drugs racket. agreements, the treatment of ambassadors and, later, conventions on the prosecution of war. When Mr Murray arrived, he disliked what he These days, international law no longer stops at found. He grasped that support for the state frontiers. Treaties and conventions Karimov dictatorship was doing Britain’s regulate everything from human rights to trade 6 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

in endangered species, from the treatment of For international treaties are rarely limited to the refugees to child labour. These accords are paper on which they are signed. They also often treated by judges within the sigNATOry evolve secretariats, councils and commissions. states as part of their domestic jurisprudence. Sometimes, these are limited in scope. The In other words, a country’s adherence to an Commonwealth, for example, may issue advice international legal code offers a way for its to its members on domestic questions, but can judiciary to bypass its legislature. impose no sanction other than exclusion from its ranks. The EU, on the other hand, has It may, of course, be argued that international created a new legal order within the jurisdiction law involves no real diminution of democracy. of its sigNATOries, and given that legal order States are free to sign or withdraw from such primacy over their domestic statutes. treaties. In upholding them, judges are simply reflecting the wishes of their government in In the eyes of the mandarin, such institutions having acceded to them in the first place. The formalise collaboration among states. They trouble with this argument is that international make impossible the smouldering grievances conventions are often interpreted expansively, and secret diplomacy of the nineteenth century. to the point where they are used for purposes Above all, they are a guarantee against that most that the sigNATOries could never have dangerous of phenomena, nationalism. envisaged. Successive British governments have toyed with withdrawing both from the What, though, do we mean by nationalism? The 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and from traditional definition is the desire of a people or the European Convention on Human Rights language-group to form an independent and on precisely these grounds. unitary state. Seen like that, is it so very different from what we mean by democracy? Once again, we come to the basic tension between those who believe in the supremacy To the democratic radicals of eighteenth and of the ballot box – vox populi, vox dei – and nineteenth centuries, the two concepts were those who would rather ensure that some inseparable. To argue for government of, by spheres are left to the experts. And those who and for the people instantly raised the are most prominent in this latter cause are, question: what people? Within what unit understandably, the experts themselves. The should the electoral process be played out? international conventions by which they set The answer that the democrats came up with such store were drawn up by them, or by was the only possible answer. Democracy people very like them. These accords ensure works best within a territory whose that what they see as humane and enlightened inhabitants feel that they have enough in values are guaranteed against crowd-pleasing common one with another to accept politicians – who may, in any case, have only government from each other’s hands – in an ephemeral mandate. other words, within a nation.

The problem is remediable. Every foreign Those who are keenest on supra-national treaty that imposes domestic obligations on institutions are, as a rule, also suspicious of the Britain should be concluded on a temporary claims of secessionist movements within basis. It should come before Parliament every recognised states. The international year for readoption. If MPs believe that its community’s immediate response to the provisions are being misinterpreted or wrongly Slovenian independence referendum in 1991, applied, they will have the opportunity to which triggered the conflict in Yugoslavia, was demand its modification or, in extremis, its to inform all the constituent Yugoslav republics abrogation. This will prevent the constant that they would not be recognised outside the accretion of international codes, each one with federation. This policy eventually became a standing bureaucracy dedicated to its untenable, but the same principle was applied constant expansion. when it came to insisting on the unity of a The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 7

multi-ethnic Bosnia, and again when it came to First, it is, in the narrow sense, a conservative holding Macedonia together. To this day, the project, trapped in the assumptions of the UN and the EU refuse to countenance 1950s, slow to adapt to change. To this day, ethnographic frontiers in or in . supporters of deeper union talk about peace on the continent after years of war, the There is a consistency in all this. Once again, reconciliation of France and Germany and the UN, the EU and the FCO value stability the entrenchment of democracy: all rather over democracy. For the truth is that supra- passé in the twenty-first century. At the same national states tend to work only to the extent time, Euro-integrationists remain wedded to a that they deny democratic aspirations. The social and economic model which seemed USSR and Yugoslavia worked as dictatorships, cutting edge half a century ago, but which in the same way that the Habsburg and now appears ludicrously out-of-date. Ottoman empires had. The moment the subject peoples of these states were given the Second, it is a technocratic, elitist project. Jean choice, they opted for self-government. Monnet, Robert Schuman and the other fathers of Euro-federalism had a profound distrust of For Britain, the emphasis on preserving untrammelled democracy which, in their eyes, multi-national entities represents a complete had led to fascism and war. That is why they reversal of what was once the basis of our deliberately vested supreme power in an foreign policy. Traditionally, Britain was a unelected European Commission – a body friend to national liberation movements. As intended to be immune to public opinion. observed: Complaining that the EU is undemocratic is like “ has always made the cause of nations complaining that a cow is bovine, or a butterfly her own cause. She supported the national flighty: it is designed that way. movements of Germany and the Low Countries against Bonaparte. Her sympathy Third, it is based on the idea that nationalism was with Greece, Hungary and Italy, and with is the worst of all political ideals. The EU’s the South American Republics”. founding principle, repeated a hundred times a day even now, is that “nationalism causes Twice during the twentieth century, Britain war”. This is, in fact, a highly questionable would embark on ruinous wars because a proposition: the worst wars of the modern friendly country’s sovereignty had been era have been caused, not my nationalism, but violated. Indeed, the notion that the Second by trans-national ideologies: Fascism, World War was a battle on behalf of all Communism, Islamic fundamentalism. In nations would become a favourite refrain for each of these cases, national institutions and Lord Randolph’s son. patriotic loyalties have tended to be a focus of resistance against tyranny. But no matter. To What has changed? Why do we now elevate those who believe that voters are unduly the multi-ethnic state as an end in itself? excitable, and that the world is safer when run Why do we now try to push other regions of by a caste of international administrators, the world into forming regional associations human rights lawyers and diplomats, the EU in mimicry of the EU? must seem a wonderful project.

Small wonder that, during the 1960s, the 4 Europe – your country FCO began to agitate for British membership The bureaucratic stasis, elitism and supra- of the then EEC. More than this, a group of nationalism that characterise the Foreign motivated diplomats were determined to keep Office explain the FCO’s obsession with the the application on course, regardless of the policy of European integration. The EU is stated wishes of their elected ministers. perhaps the supreme exemplar and beneficiary of the three characteristics identified above. 8 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

Their achievement is chronicled at length in it also encourages them within its constituent This Blessed Plot, published in 1998 by the late states. It does so partly by removing decision- Guardian journalist Hugo Young. Young was making one tier further from the public, and perhaps the most solidly Europhile writer of thus providing a sense of insulation to national his day, and his book rehearses most of the politicians. But it does so more immediately by usual arguments for the EU, notably that directing the foreign policies of its members. Britain is forever losing out by being stand- offish and joining too late. Yet he was also an Many British politicians in both parties continue exceptionally honest reporter, and was not too to talk quaintly about the need to resist a grand to roll up his sleeves and do some common European foreign policy. In fact, such primary research. In particular, he tracked a foreign policy is already operative. Go to any down many of the FCO officials who had non-European capital and you will find that the mounted Britain’s three applications for EU mission dwarfs the national embassies. And membership. Now retired (usually to the South why not? What used to be the chief business of of France) these men spoke frankly about how national embassies has already been ceded to they had, on occasion, acted directly contrary Brussels. 100% of trade policy, and 99% of to the stated wishes of the government in development aid is controlled by the EU, order to pursue what they regarded as the leaving the national missions with little to do national interest. Young, of course, regards beyond promoting tourism and hosting visiting their attitude with approval, but the general ministers from their home states. reader is left gasping. This is how he summarised what took place during the 1960s: Go back to the five areas which were identified as the main causes of friction between Brussels “An elite regiment was taking shape [in and Washington: the Chinese arms embargo, the FCO]. Europe wasn’t yet the path of the Iranian nuclear programme, the future of choice for every ambitious diplomat, but Cuba, the treatment of Hamas and the status of it promised to be much more interesting supra-national institutions. In all these areas, a than the Commonwealth, and offered a common European foreign policy applies. prospect of influence greater than Member states may theoretically have the right anything else available to a second-order to pursue different approaches in these areas; in power. By 1963, a corps of diplomats was practice, it would never occur to their foreign present in and around the Foreign Office services to do so. who saw the future for both themselves and their country inside Europe. The And what is the most important aim of interests of their country and their careers European foreign policy? To foster integration coincided. It was an appealing symbiosis.” on the EU model in other continents. It is little appreciated how much the various regional Of course diplomats approve of the EU: it associations – the Central American Union, was built by and for people like them. The ASEAN, the African Union and the rest – owe Norwegian and Swiss diplomatic corps are as to the EU. From the first, the EU has financed desperate to join now as the FCO was 40 and promoted regional integration campaigns. years ago. What is staggering about Young’s It even makes its trade and aid deals meticulously researched book is the conditional on a state’s participation in such insouciance with which these men – for associations. And this, by default, also reasons which, as he admits, were as much becomes the chief goal of the 27 member personal as ideological – were able to pursue states. Ask, say, the British Ambassador to their agenda independently of what the Montevideo to define the UK’s key strategic country had decided at the ballot box. goal in Uruguay, and he will talk about turning Mercosur into a proper political union. Our The EU is not just a consequence of the national interests are redefined to reflect, not tendencies identified in the previous chapter; just the ambitions of the European The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 9

Commission, but the prejudices of our We depend on the flow of trade, and need diplomatic corps. As Hugo Young might say, open sea lanes and open air routes. Our it is an appealing symbiosis. economy is fuelled by what we import. Having been a net exporter of fossil fuels, today we are The EU has allowed many Whitehall an importer. Britain has a strong vested departments, not just the FCO, to make interest in the growth of global trade and in policy with minimal political interference. In international stability underpinned by consequence, Britain is ceasing to think of economic growth. So too do we have a vested itself as an independent power. It may have interest in the spread of stable liberal the world’s fifth largest economy and fourth democracies. Yet trade and democracy have most powerful Armed Forces, but it has lost spread further and faster in the past 30 years the habit of autonomous action. than at any previous time in history.

However, without a clear strategy, Britain is 5 Punching below our following the foreign policy of an weight international lightweight. Britain has the potential to be a world power. Britain is the fifth largest economy in the Back in the days of the Cold War, our world. Although recently overtaken by strategy must have seemed straightforward. China, two decades of growing consistently From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, Cold faster than France, Germany and Japan mean War considerations were paramount. that our relative economic standing in the Everything – more or less – fitted in around world has grown. London is the world’s our Cold War strategy. Britain had a clear financial capital. Militarily, Britain is one of role, a purpose supporting the free world, via the few nations capable of projecting military NATO and under US leadership, against the force worldwide. We have a nuclear Soviets. With half a dozen notable exceptions, capability and there are few armed forces in that, too, was the view from the Foreign the world today with Britain’s strength, Office. versatility, experience and reach. Diplomatically, we hold one of the five Since the neatly bi-polar world crumbled with permanent seats at the the Berlin Wall, many of the key elements Security Council, and we sit on the board of behind our Cold War thinking have been the World Bank and the International retained. Yet there has been no fresh Monetary Fund. If we speak, we are heard. thinking. Foreign policy makers have not effectively considered major trends in world We have the distinct advantage of being at the affairs, and what challenges and opportunities hub of the Anglosphere – that fast growing they offer Britain. Instead they have clung on group of nations with which we have much in to old assumptions and habits of mind. common and which appear to be benefiting most from the processes of globalisation. A decade ago, the incoming Labour Government espoused something called an At the same time, our geopolitical burdens “ethical foreign policy”. Precisely what this are not unmanageable. We are not in the meant – other than not being Tory foreign shadow of some larger, aggressive neighbour policy – was never clear. showed as we have been within living memory. an enthusiasm for supra-national institutions Unlike that other island democracy, Japan, and a belief that supra-nationalism could on the other side of the Eurasian landmass, uphold human rights and resolve our near neighbours are not North Korea or international disputes. In contrast to such China. Unlike Singapore, we do not have a faith in supra-nationalism and multilateralism, giant like Indonesia to contend with. however, has pursued a foreign policy based more on idealistic 10 The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy

interventionism. Long before Iraq, Blair was members have constitutions that require the driving force behind NATO intervention parliamentary ratification or, in some cases, against the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999. In referendums, British MPs find that large Chicago, in that same year, Blair advocated chunks of the treaties can be approved without “a new doctrine of international community” passing through the House of Commons. The based on interventions against countries signature of the , acting on when “we cannot turn our backs on conflict behalf of the Sovereign, is all that is required. and the violation of human rights if we want still to be secure”. For a long time, this state of affairs was regarded as indefensible in theory, but In opposition for the past decade, the acceptable in practice. Perhaps because of Conservatives have undertaken almost no their doubts about its fairness, successive deep-level thinking about foreign policy, and prime ministers tended to exercise their remain trapped in a Cold War mind frame. Crown Prerogative powers with discretion. Ask almost any Conservative MP and they Criticism of the dispensation was more or less will tell you that NATO is “A Good Thing”. limited to . Ask them why, and the answer will be a little less certain. Ask a Tory front bench team The Crown Prerogative has today, however, about trade, and they will parrot the line become increasingly indefensible in practice as about the importance of free trade. Tell them well as in theory. There has been a shift in we now have neither free trade nor the power away from the legislature to the other ability to make our own trade policy, and branches of government. Under the aegis of they will eye you with suspicion. On defence, the Prime Minister’s appointment powers, a you will hear a sermon about how much the network of agencies and quangoes has grown party believes in it. Ask them if this article of up, removing administration further from the faith means we will continue to squander elected chamber and, thus, from the people billions of tax pounds on the useless Euro who vote for it. fighter aircraft, and you will be viewed as a heretic. The old Cold War mantras are no In June 2005, in Direct Democracy, we proposed substitute for real thinking. Our foreign that the appointment powers exercised under policy is much the poorer for it. Crown Prerogative be transferred to Parliament. Three months later, to Tony Benn’s surprise and delight, David Cameron committed a future Conservative Government 6 Putting Parliament in to the policy. charge Applied to the field of foreign affairs, this Our Parliament is unusually weak in the field would have two consequences. First, it would of foreign affairs. Through a quirk of history, give the House of Commons treaty-making the Prime Minister has inherited more or less powers, similar to those enjoyed by the US intact the executive powers that once Senate and by several other parliamentary attached to the monarchy. Diplomatic chambers around the world. On the principle appointments, the contracting of treaties and that no parliament may bind its successor, such national defence are all controlled by treaties would no longer be contracted Downing Street under Crown Prerogative indefinitely. Rather, they would be placed powers. regularly before the Chamber – ideally on an annual basis – for readoption. If they were not The peculiar feebleness of our legislature, specifically endorsed, they would lapse. even relative to other EU states, is illustrated whenever a European treaty needs to be The idea of time-limited Acts – “sunset implemented. Whereas most of the other clauses”– is not a new one. The Prevention of The Localist Papers: Direct Diplomacy 11

Terrorism Act was voted on every year interests. Nor can it be entirely coincidental throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s. that, when Britain’s parliament was supreme, Nor should the principle be limited to and its diplomatic service small, it too was foreign policy. A more widespread use of the willing to project its interests. sunset clauses would constrain the otherwise ever-growing corpus of legislation. But the Some of the greatest of our foreign policy application of the doctrine to the field of initiatives were undertaken as a direct result of international relations would have one popular pressure, expressed through especially happy consequence: it would parliamentary representation. The extirpation of remind the agencies and secretariats the slave trade was led by public opinion. The established by international accords that they support for liberal regimes abroad, too, was had a limited mandate and that expanding populist in origin. Foreign policy could, indeed, their powers beyond those envisaged by the become the major electoral question of the day, sigNATOry states might lead to at least one as during Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign. of those states withdrawing from the accord. The democratisation of diplomacy ought to be It would also act as a check on one of the especially attractive for Conservatives. In the more curious of political phenomena, namely rest of the world, and especially in other the way in which national ministers crave the Anglosphere countries, parties of the centre- approval of their foreign counterparts. right derive a substantial measure of their Almost all national parliaments complain electoral appeal from being the more trusted on that their ministers “go native” when foreign affairs. In Britain, by contrast, politicians negotiating international deals, and exceed have contracted out large chunks of the mandate bestowed on them by their international relations to the permanent MPs. This would plainly be less likely to functionaries in Whitehall and, especially, occur if ministers knew that whatever they Brussels. In consequence, the issue has slipped agreed would have to be approved by from the electoral agenda. Parliament, not just once, but in perpetuity. We should rediscover our sympathy for The second major consequence of the national movements. We should prefer abolition of Crown Prerogative would be an countries to be united by trade than by political end to the appointment and promotion of structures. We should sponsor the spread of diplomats without political scrutiny. The individual liberty and property rights, and situation described by Hugo Young in This thereby guarantee our own prosperity as a Blessed Plot would simply not arise; or, if it commercial nation. We should work with did, it could be instantly remedied. friends and allies around the world instead of narrowing our horizons to the EU. We should When George Shultz was US Secretary of put our faith in elected national politicians State in the 1980s, he had a routine for rather than remote supra-national appointing American ambassadors. He would bureaucracies. ask them to point to their country on a large map in his office. They would duly point to, None of these things is possible, however, say, Ecuador. “Nope”, he would tell them, until foreign policy is wrenched back out of tapping the US, “this is your country, and the grasp of EU officials and their British don’t forget it.” auxiliaries. We must make the question of how Britain relates to other nations a It is perhaps no coincidence that the US, which question for the British people, either through has always had a degree of legislative control their elected representatives or, directly, over both appointments and treaties, has such through referendums. Grant this and much a clearly defined strategic vision and such a will follow. readiness to deploy force in defence of its British foreign policy is cocooned from the democratic process. It is conducted by highly qualified officials who, although often technically brilliant, have drifted away from the values of the rest of the country. There are few mechanisms to make the conduct of diplomatic relations subject to popular scrutiny; in consequence, the state machine is even less subject to democratic control in the field of international affairs direct-democracy.co.uk than in domestic matters. the Left to their own devices, diplomatists have evolved an approach to international relations that is élitist, managerialist, supra-nationalist, technocratic and contemptuous of "populism". Without democratic accountability, the foreign policy establishment has failed to recognise Britain’s true national interests. With no effective 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 into line with public opinion. Specifically, it proposes:

z Scrapping Crown Prerogative powers, and making foreign policy subject to parliamentary control. z Holding democratic hearings for senior diplomatic postings. localist z Subjecting international treaties to annual re-ratification by the House of Commons. papers

Centre for Policy Sudies 57 Tufton Street London SW1P 3QL www.cps.org.uk www.direct-democracy.co.uk 5. Foreign policy