This is a discussion paper prepared for Compass to try to encourage a discussion of an alternative and better foreign policy for the UK. It was overtaken by the calling an early general election and therefore sadly the discussion did not take place. It was prepared by Clare Short together with Ian Martin and Ann Grant. I hope it might lead those who read it to think afresh about UK foreign policy.
One of the consequences of the state of our politics and the poor quality of our media is that there is very little political debate about alternative ways forward for the country. Nowhere is this more true than consideration of Britain’s role in the world. This short note is an attempt to help stimulate the discussion that needs to be had if Britain is to play a constructive role in a dangerously shifting world order.
The geopolitical context has been changing rapidly, with the immediate postwar international system out-dated, polarised and increasingly challenged. We face the existential climate crisis, growing poverty and inequality, increasingly authoritarian governments, escalating wars and dangers of further conflict, including between nuclear states. Meanwhile Britain has failed to recognise how far our international influence has diminished, and to face the fact that acting as a perpetual lieutenant to the United States of America is not an honourable or useful contribution to the challenges the world now faces. It is time to consider whether the UK could not play a more constructive role in the world.
The present foreign policy of the UK, broadly supported by all the major think tanks and both major parties, is to stick closely to the US, increase defence spending, increase UK involvement in the Pacific and join the forces pushing rising tension with China. It remains to be seen how far Labour is truly committed to reversing the weakening of the commitment to international development which was a proud feature of the last Labour government and has since been devastated by Johnson and Sunak. Yet the greatest threat humanity faces is the consequence of climate change and ecological collapse, and all the conflict, human displacement and suffering to which this will lead. Tackling the climate crisis must be at the heart of our Government’s agenda. We must prioritise the climate crisis in both our domestic and international policy.
In order to make a transition to a more sustainable world order, there will need to be a stronger commitment to international development, a strengthening of the UN system and other multilateral institutions in ways which reflect today’s geopolitical realities, and an increase in the capacity to prevent and end conflict. Britain must ally itself with those seeking positive transformation of the world order. The relationship with the US will of course remain important, but we should cease to fool ourselves that we are “special”, and should rediscover the courage to disagree with the US when they are wrong.
We should combine with others to remind NATO that it was founded as a defensive Alliance and it should look to end conflicts wherever possible. We should of course also work to improve our relationships and cooperation with the European Union, but the EU stance on international affairs is increasingly disappointing, so as we look for a better relationship with the EU, we should combine with others who seek to shift the EU into a being a more consistent supporter of international law, sustainable development and conflict resolution. We should seek to build much stronger partnerships with the Global South to help meet these challenges.
Supporting more effective multilateralism
We are living in an era of fragmentation of the international system, with strong and justified demands from the Global South for greater representation and a stronger voice, intensified by their real fear that the recent crisis in prices of food and energy, debt distress and climate strains, alongside cuts in funding, threaten to reverse decades of development. The rise of China and the growth of tension with the US has led to the creation of new alignments, including new development banks. The Bridgetown Initiative, spearheaded by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, outlines a set of demands for a major overhaul of the global financial system, uniting action on climate and development and a large-scale package to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are underperforming badly. The Declaration from the G20 meeting in Delhi in September 2023 supported similar reforms. Implementation is now urgent, and is likely to be given further impetus by the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024.
The international financial institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – are like the UN part of the post-war design. The World Bank has always been headed by a US national, and the IMF by a European. This is indefensible. As articulated by Secretary-General António Guterres, the international financial architecture is “short-sighted, crisis-prone, and bears no relation to the economic reality of today”. The UK should support the transformation of the governance of international financial institutions to make them more representative, equitable and inclusive, as demanded by the Global South.
The pre-eminent forum for multilateral cooperation among governments remains the United Nations – for all its faults. It is, as Secretary-General António Guterres says, the G-193. There has been little critical thinking as to how the UK plays its role there. The dismal performance of the Security Council reflects the divisions among its five permanent members, but also their dominance of a forum which does not reflect the geopolitics of the twenty-first century. The obstacles to reforming its composition have sometimes seemed insuperable, but there is growing impatience from under-represented regions. For the great majority of member states, this is an issue of over-representation of the West and under-representation of Africa, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean. Continuing failure to reform will further diminish the authority of the UN and encourage countries of the Global South to seek other fora. A genuine commitment to reform will require the UK to accept that it might not qualify for a permanent seat on a reformed Council, but could join other middle powers in seeking election for longer, renewable terms on a more democratic and representative Council.
Until the composition of the Council is changed, the UK should also support reform of its working methods. There is widespread resentment among member states at the way the five permanent members (the P5) dominate the workings of the Council. The UK has shared in the P5’s defence of the prerogatives by which they dominate the Council, extending into privileges in relation to senior appointments and influence with the Secretariat. In recent years, successive groupings of the ten non-permanent members (the E10) have emphasised the legitimacy which stems from their election by the General Assembly; they have advanced proposals for enhancing their role vis-à-vis that of the P5, some of which have been agreed by the whole Council, but are little respected in practice, most notably as regards the so-called ‘penholder’ system, under which the lead on most country issues continues to be dominated by France, the UK and the US. The UK should ally itself with the E10 on issues of Council procedure.
Similarly, the UK should be a champion within the Security Council on issues of accountability and transparency regarding the relations of the Council with the broader membership. As part of a new effort to understand and listen to the concerns of countries in the Global South, the UK should strengthen the focus and attention of senior diplomats, including its Permanent Representative, in engaging with the General Assembly and other bodies which include the wider membership, including ECOSOC. When vetoes render the Security Council incapable of responding to threats to peace and security – as with Syria, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, the UK should encourage majority initiatives in the General Assembly.
Successive Secretaries-General have allowed an independent international civil service to shrivel, in favour of appointments dominated by governments seeking posts for their own: the UK should support a reversal of this trend, rather than continuing to be part of it.
The UK should thus support reform of out-dated multilateral arrangements rather than attempt to defend its over-privileged position, and should use its participation in all UN bodies and the international financial system to work for more effective collaboration for conflict resolution, development and sustainability.
Working to end conflict
After the end of the Cold War, many conflicts were resolved and peace agreements negotiated, with implementation supported by UN peace operations. Despite the shameful failures in Rwanda and Bosnia, most peacekeeping operations were relatively successful. The number of conflict-related deaths declined markedly. But that positive trend has been reversed. Peacekeeping operations have been deployed into situations where there is no peace to keep, leading to a sense of failure in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and the Central African Republic. International interventions have been discredited, most notably by the illegal US/UK invasion of Iraq and the collapse of the NATO-supported mission in Afghanistan. Mediating conflicts has become more difficult as there are multiple internal actors, some engaging in asymmetrical warfare, and rival external actors competing to support internal factions.
Preventing and resolving conflict should become a foremost objective of UK foreign policy. Along with climate-related catastrophes, armed conflict damages development and poor countries with weak institutions are prone to conflict which in turn prevents development and contributes to displacement and outflows of refugees. We should expect all progressive parties in the UK to take a strong interest in conflict prevention and resolution and strongly support UN efforts and the promotion of human rights and international justice. We should work with others to learn the lessons of success and failure, and do all we can to increase the effectiveness of the whole system.
This is not the place to make an analysis of current conflicts in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Yemen, Sudan or elsewhere. The important point to underline is that Britain should be devoted to upholding and enforcing international law and resolving conflict. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a flagrant breach of international law which was in part provoked – but is not excused – by NATO expansion up to Russian borders. Israel’s continuing occupation of territory obtained by force and abuse of Palestinian rights in the Occupied Territories and grave, cruel and continuing breaches of humanitarian law in Gaza have been supported by the US, the UK and others, with the continuing supply of arms and vetoes of critical Security Council resolutions. The recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice spells this out clearly and requires all countries to alter their policies and cease to collude in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Part of the tragedy of this situation is that if Israel had been required to comply with international law the chances of a peace deal being reached would have been much greater. In the Ukraine case we demand that all countries should uphold international law, on the Israeli occupation we collude and look the other way. The invasion of Iraq was also a breach of international law. These double standards are a significant part of the reason why so many countries in the Global South hold back from identifying with NATO’s position on the Ukraine war.
Defence and security
The UK’s military posture is deeply problematic. At its core is an attempt to maintain a global military reach with far too limited resources UK military industries have been plagued for many years with often grotesque deficiencies, with programmes delivered late and then often faulty, the Type 45 destroyers and the two aircraft carriers being glaring examples. The combination of intended global reach with conventional systems combined with the insistence on delivering CASD (continuous at sea deterrence) with Trident is unsustainable without hugely limiting the armed forces as a whole and expanding the military budget beyond the capacity of our economy.
The UK military posture is dominated by a military industrial complex that is inward-looking, and it forms part of a cultural delusion of post-imperial grandeur. The Conservative Government’s Integrated Review reflected the dangerous and hubristic approach we challenge; a serious integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy by the new government should reflect a realistic assessment of the security needs and means of the UK and its contribution to addressing the widening global socioeconomic divide and accelerating climate breakdown.
This period of fragmentation of the international system could lead to beneficial reform or to more division, including conflict situations involving nuclear states. The UK as a small nuclear power should be serious in its willingness to reduce and give up its nuclear weapons if other states would join the effort. It should support efforts to push forward on non-proliferation and disarmament issues at a time of great danger of nuclear proliferation and even a nuclear exchange.
International development
As UK influence and respect across the world has shrunk, our rhetoric has become more grandiose, with constant claims of global leadership. There was however an area where the UK was a leading player and that was international development. The work of the Department for International Development (DFID) was widely respected and influential in the World Bank and regional development banks, the IMF, the UN development system and the humanitarian emergency network, and in creating partnerships for development and sustainability across the world. One of the early actions of the Johnson government was to abolish DFID, roll development responsibility into the Foreign Office, and cut the development budget, initially by £3.5 billion. In the context of the Covid emergency, affecting the whole world, when the government was spending an extra £400 billion on schemes to help the UK through the crisis, this destructive policy was clearly not led by the need to cut spending but by an ideological hostility to development. FCO’s hostility to the creation of DFID had shown a lack of understanding of the challenge of development and the appropriate role for an effective Foreign Office in the modern world, and the merger has resulted in a disastrous loss of development expertise. It is deeply disappointing that the Labour Party has failed to reestablish DFID or even to reestablish the old ODA within the Foreign Office with its own Permanent Secretary and Development expertise.
Much of the discussion of development presents it in a charitable context – part of a moral challenge to be kind to the poor. The inequalities in our world, both at home and internationally, are indeed a moral challenge, but there is also a need to improve the balance of life opportunities across the world if we are to have any chance of creating a sustainable future. The changes that are needed require much more than aid. There needs to be large-scale investment in renewable energy, public transport systems, water and sanitation, health and education structures. We also need new trade agreements, environment agreements, fairer tax arrangements, controls over money laundering, restrictions on arms sales, and a greater focus on conflict prevention and resolution. Funding is needed but it is not just a question of quantity. Money can be spent well or badly; as the UK aid budget grew and other departments were squeezed, its use was spread across departments as a consolation prize and this led to a deterioration in the quality of spending. The decision to fund refugees from the development budget meant that spending on refugees was at the expense of poor people as the funding available for spending internationally was reduced by a third. Moreover, UK funding should not primarily be distributed by UK NGOs, but wherever possible used to strengthen the systems and capacity of recipient countries themselves. There are too many actors in development; where possible, national and international systems should be strengthened and funded rather than each donor country organising its own programs around its flag, taking up enormous time of hard-pressed systems in developing countries who have to deal with a plethora of individual programs.
All the poorest countries were in the recent past colonised and exploited, and left with government structures and economic arrangements that were distorted and undermined by the demands of colonialism. Africa – the poorest continent – is projected by the UN to double its population to 2 and a half billion by 2050, which will constitute one quarter of the total world population. The continent is already suffering the ravages of climate change and this will get worse. The coming displacement of people will be massive and will increase conflict. We need a concentrated and well-organised international effort to help the continent prepare for the challenges that are coming. For the UK to play its part without the expertise of a specialist department capable of working across the international system and of persuading all parts of the UK system to rise to this challenge will weaken our contribution. It also means that there is not a strong voice in cabinet and across Whitehall focused on sustainable development against the more established trade and defence interests and there is no challenge to the FCO, MoD and intelligence agencies’ fixation and deep entanglement in their role as lieutenants to the US.
Diplomacy in the modern world
Effective diplomacy requires a coherent national purpose, based on a realistic understanding of our history. In the 21st century, we need to clarify our national purpose and interests. The current focus is primarily on defence, UK trade interests and arms sales, we need also to prioritise climate, international health cooperation and a sustainable future. Work will be needed to reach international agreement on the regulation of artificial intelligence. This work involves most if not all Government ministers and departments. Once those interests are clarified then diplomats can be motivated to use their considerable expertise to promote them.
Conclusion
This reconsideration of Britain’s role in the world should not be a vain search for past glories but an urgent need to find the best role the UK can play today in working with other countries to address the enormous challenges the world is facing. The urgent need to build a more sustainable and equitable world order is daunting, but failure will endanger all of humanity. Britain could play a useful role which we could all support and take pride in. We hope that the ideas outlined in this paper will help build a momentum towards a more constructive and effective role for Britain in the world.
Clare Short
August 2024
