David Clark
BY David Clark
Ed Miliband’s guest appearance at this week’s meeting of the National Security Council raises an interesting question: what kind of foreign policy could we expect if he becomes prime minister? The Labour leader has said relatively little about international affairs so far: a few comments made during his leadership campaign, a handful of responses to government statements in the House of Commons, but not yet a set-piece speech or major policy intervention.
Of course, prioritising domestic politics is a golden rule of opposition. Tony Blair, whose legacy was ultimately defined by foreign policy, didn’t make his first major speech on the subject until the start of the 1997 election campaign.
If anything, Miliband has a clearer sense of where he stands on the major international issues than Blair did at the same point in his leadership. He also has more experience. As a former environment secretary, Miliband has already handled major international negotiations on behalf of Britain.
That’s something very few leaders of the opposition can claim: not Blair, not Cameron, not even Thatcher. Inevitably, much of Labour’s thinking about foreign policy is framed by the experience of Iraq.
When Miliband used his first leader’s speech to say that Labour had been “wrong” to take Britain to war in 2003, he wasn’t just referring to its illegitimacy.
He was also making an important point about the purpose and utility of military force. As he wrote a few months later: “the neocons were wrong to think we could impose democracy at the point of a gun”.
Miliband certainly isn’t opposed to military intervention as a matter of principle – he supported the use of air power in Libya, for example.
But he is clear-minded about the conditions that ought to apply. Force should be a last resort.
There should be clear multilateral authority and achievable military goals. And the purpose should be to save lives and alleviate suffering, not further the geopolitical interests of the intervening powers.
He dismisses the enthusiasm of neoconservatives and liberal imperialists for using Western military power to “remake” the world as dangerously utopian.
This has obvious implications for the transatlantic relationship. Miliband admires America, but not blindly so. He has often said, with reference to Iraq, that our alliances should be shaped by our values, not the other way round.
This poses little difficulty as long as Barack Obama is in the White House. But the issue could easily become a live one if a Republican with neocon leanings succeeded him in 2017.
He has already shown a willingness to take a different line from Washington by advocating recognition of a Palestinian state, so I expect that Miliband would choose to be a Wilson rather than a Blair.
Miliband’s project to reform democratic capitalism has an important external dimension in another sense as well.
Its success will require significant changes to the structure of globalisation as we have come to know it.
New rules are needed to stamp out tax havens and other abuses that have allowed multinational companies to shift tax burdens from the rich to the rest.
Finally, the significance Miliband attaches to reaching agreement on issues such as climate change, energy security and global economic reform means that he will retain a strong preference for multilateral diplomacy over narrow bilateralism.
Miliband may not have set out his big international vision yet, but it’s already possible to see the building blocks of what his foreign policy is likely to consist of: judicious and realistic in the use of military power; Atlanticist without being subservient to the US; values-based and strong on human rights; multilaterally engaged in the pursuit of common solutions to global problems; and pragmatically pro-European.
It will certainly be distinctive in reflecting his outlook and experience.
THE GUARDIAN
BY David Clark
Ed Miliband’s guest appearance at this week’s meeting of the National Security Council raises an interesting question: what kind of foreign policy could we expect if he becomes prime minister? The Labour leader has said relatively little about international affairs so far: a few comments made during his leadership campaign, a handful of responses to government statements in the House of Commons, but not yet a set-piece speech or major policy intervention.
Of course, prioritising domestic politics is a golden rule of opposition. Tony Blair, whose legacy was ultimately defined by foreign policy, didn’t make his first major speech on the subject until the start of the 1997 election campaign.
If anything, Miliband has a clearer sense of where he stands on the major international issues than Blair did at the same point in his leadership. He also has more experience. As a former environment secretary, Miliband has already handled major international negotiations on behalf of Britain.
That’s something very few leaders of the opposition can claim: not Blair, not Cameron, not even Thatcher. Inevitably, much of Labour’s thinking about foreign policy is framed by the experience of Iraq.
When Miliband used his first leader’s speech to say that Labour had been “wrong” to take Britain to war in 2003, he wasn’t just referring to its illegitimacy.
He was also making an important point about the purpose and utility of military force. As he wrote a few months later: “the neocons were wrong to think we could impose democracy at the point of a gun”.
Miliband certainly isn’t opposed to military intervention as a matter of principle – he supported the use of air power in Libya, for example.
But he is clear-minded about the conditions that ought to apply. Force should be a last resort.
There should be clear multilateral authority and achievable military goals. And the purpose should be to save lives and alleviate suffering, not further the geopolitical interests of the intervening powers.
He dismisses the enthusiasm of neoconservatives and liberal imperialists for using Western military power to “remake” the world as dangerously utopian.
This has obvious implications for the transatlantic relationship. Miliband admires America, but not blindly so. He has often said, with reference to Iraq, that our alliances should be shaped by our values, not the other way round.
This poses little difficulty as long as Barack Obama is in the White House. But the issue could easily become a live one if a Republican with neocon leanings succeeded him in 2017.
He has already shown a willingness to take a different line from Washington by advocating recognition of a Palestinian state, so I expect that Miliband would choose to be a Wilson rather than a Blair.
Miliband’s project to reform democratic capitalism has an important external dimension in another sense as well.
Its success will require significant changes to the structure of globalisation as we have come to know it.
New rules are needed to stamp out tax havens and other abuses that have allowed multinational companies to shift tax burdens from the rich to the rest.
Finally, the significance Miliband attaches to reaching agreement on issues such as climate change, energy security and global economic reform means that he will retain a strong preference for multilateral diplomacy over narrow bilateralism.
Miliband may not have set out his big international vision yet, but it’s already possible to see the building blocks of what his foreign policy is likely to consist of: judicious and realistic in the use of military power; Atlanticist without being subservient to the US; values-based and strong on human rights; multilaterally engaged in the pursuit of common solutions to global problems; and pragmatically pro-European.
It will certainly be distinctive in reflecting his outlook and experience.
THE GUARDIAN
