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Downloaded from Manchesterhive.Com at 10/02/2021 11:30:00AM Via Free Access Vic08 10/15/03 10:25 PM Page 193 Vic08 10/15/03 10:25 PM Page 192 Chapter 8 Conclusion The nature of Labour’s foreign policy remains under-analysed and under-theorised. This is partly due to an academic division of labour: academics who study the Labour Party come from a domestic politics background, while International Relations scholars tend to focus on the state, and not party politics. It is also because the Labour Party itself has had great difficulty theorising and analysing the nature of its ideological stance on foreign policy. The differing ideological streams of the Labour Party, outlined in the previous chapters, have compli- cated attempts to produce overall analyses of Labour’s view of foreign policy. In addition, the Labour Party itself has tended to see particular foreign policy problems discretely.1 Thus, there is no major work by the party on the theoretical basis of its foreign policy; instead there are many speeches and documents that relate to specific responses to concrete situations, sometimes couched within the context of Labour’s view of Britain’s role in the world. However, it is possible to delineate an outline of the main theoretical perspective of a Labour Party foreign policy. To date, this has been done within the context of developing a typology of a ‘socialist’ foreign policy. The most interesting attempts to do this are by Michael Gordon in Conflict and Consensus in Labour’s Foreign Policy: 1914–1965, Kenneth Miller in Socialism and Foreign Policy, which examined the period up to 1931, and Eric Shaw, who focused on the Attlee governments.2 This study takes a different approach from that of Gordon, Miller and Shaw, and argues that as far as foreign policy was concerned, it is not clear that the Labour Party ever had any socialist ideology as such. Sections of the Labour Party did at times offer a socialist critique of some of the liberal internationalist assumptions of the party’s foreign policy perspective, which sometimes combined with the more radical Rhiannon Vickers - 9781526137807 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/02/2021 11:30:00AM via free access Vic08 10/15/03 10:25 PM Page 193 CONCLUSION 193 liberal critiques, but the socialist standpoint only usually had minority support within the party, certainly from 1937 onwards with its accept- ance of rearmament in the face of a rising European fascist threat. Labour sought to offer an alternative to the traditional, power politics or realist approach of British foreign policy, which had stressed national self-interest. This alternative was internationalism, which stressed cooperation and interdependence, and a concern with the international as well as the national interest. In this, the most important influence on Labour’s foreign policy were liberal views of international relations, but Labour’s internationalism also arises from certain meta-principles of Labour’s ideology, which have influenced Labour’s external princi- ples and policies as much as its domestic ones. These are a belief in progress and change, influenced by the Enlightenment tradition with its teleology of progress, and an optimistic view of human nature. This view of human nature has been influenced by Kant and Rousseau rather than Hobbes, and can be extrapolated to the nature of relations between states. This is that human nature is capable of positive, rational, co-operative, fraternal and moral thought and action. Man is naturally sociable, and is capable of solidarity with the rest of mankind, and this solidarity overcomes national boundaries. If people are capable of behaving rationally and co-operatively, then so too are states as they are governed by such people. Systems of production such as capitalism might encourage militarism and conflict, but this is due to the system of production rather than a system of sovereign states. The principles of Labour’s foreign policy Internationalism is the over-riding principle upon which Labour’s foreign policy has been based. The party has had a commitment to internationalism throughout its history, and internationalism has been espoused by Labour leaders from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair. Internationalism, broadly defined, is the desire to transcend national boundaries in order to find solutions to international issues. However, there are different strands of internationalism, and it is not a world- view that is the preserve of the Labour Party. Much of the party’s thinking on internationalism was shaped by radical liberal thinking, and has also been influenced by a Christian-socialist, Nonconformist streak amongst party members. Leonard Woolf noted that ‘Historically, the Labour Party inherited its foreign policy from Cobden and Bright through Gladstonian liberalism.’3 In addition, Rhiannon Vickers - 9781526137807 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/02/2021 11:30:00AM via free access Vic08 10/15/03 10:25 PM Page 194 194 THE LABOUR PARTY AND THE WORLD internationalism does not necessarily provide clear policy solutions in the face of particular policy problems. Internationalism is an impulse that can be used to prescribe non-intervention in the pursuit of peace, or intervention for military or humanitarian means. This is because as a concept, internationalism is very vague, and has sometimes meant different things at different times in history. Despite the problems of definition, for the purpose of this study it is possible to outline a frame- work that helps us analyse the nature of Labour’s foreign policy through the concept of internationalism. At the heart of this frame- work is the fundamental belief that while states are sovereign entities, the peace and stability of any one state and the peace and stability of the international system as a whole are inexorably linked. The Labour Party’s own particular brand of internationalism is largely in line with a Kantian perspective, and this has emphasised certain aspects of internationalist thought.4 These are, first, that while states operate in a system of international anarchy, fundamental reform of the system is possible because states have common interests and values. This change is only likely to be secured through the construc- tion of international institutions to regulate economic, political and military relations between states. Second, linked to this is a sense of belonging to an international community, and each state has a respon- sibility to work towards the common good of the international system, to work in the ‘international’ interest rather than purely in what it perceives to be its national interest. Third, international policy and governance should be based on democratic principles and universal moral norms. Fourth, collective security is better than secret bilateral diplomatic treaties or balance-of-power politics, which are self-defeat- ing in terms of generating conflict. Fifth, armaments and arms races can destabilise the international system, and the proliferation or arms should be limited, the arms trade regulated, and disarmament, in prin- ciple, is desirable. In addition to these five largely liberal international- ist principles is one additional socialist aspect of Labour’s international thought, and this has been a belief in international working-class soli- darity, especially with socialist states. Within the Labour Party there have always been divisions over how these principles should be interpreted, which of them should be prioritised, and which were achievable in the real world. Tensions have existed ‘between those believing in the need to transform international relationships by pursing principled positions involving cooperation and harmony between states and those observing the competitive nature of international politics and concluding that realism rather than idealism Rhiannon Vickers - 9781526137807 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/02/2021 11:30:00AM via free access Vic08 10/15/03 10:25 PM Page 195 CONCLUSION 195 must be the guide’.5 Thus, for some in the Labour Party, collective security should be sought through the United Nations, whereas for others, collective security is assured through the establishment of NATO. For some in the Labour Party, disarmament is a tenet of faith, and should be sought at all times, whereas for others, disarmament is desirable in principle but unrealisable in practice because of the potential danger of aggressor states. For some, the use of force and military intervention is to be avoided in the pursuit of peace, whereas for others, the use of force and intervention is sometimes the ‘right’ thing to do for humanitarian reasons as well as being a valuable instrument of foreign policy in the longer-term pursuit of peace. The acceptance of a near pacifist position in the early 1930s when it was still believed that the League of Nations could deter aggression; the shift in opinions about the validity of non-intervention with regard to the Spanish Civil War; to the acceptance of rearmament and military strength in the late 1930s when it became clear that the League of Nations could not deter the threat of fascism, were all different ways of interpreting the principles of Labour’s internationalism, rather than a rejection of them. The first of the two principles highlighted above are closely inter- twined; namely the belief in the reform and regulation of the system through international institutions. It was the belief in internationalism and an international community that underpinned Labour’s call for an ‘international authority to settle points of difference among the nations by compulsory conciliation and arbitration, and
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