Labour Policy Watch: Foreign Policy

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	We can deal here only with issues or principles which have persisted or arisen repeatedly over many years. The Tories valued the special relationship with the USA, and almost always supported US policy even when the rest of the EU did not. Over the Middle East both were in the minority of countries more supportive of Israel than of the Palestinians. Elsewhere they took over the role of the United Nations in their own names or that of NATO, e.g. in Iraq or Bosnia, in asymmetric wars: ones between high- and low-tech adversaries. Britain had 25% of world arms sales, often to repressive regimes and fuelling wars in the third world, and exported anti-personnel mines and torture equipment. Aid to poor countries fell to 0.26% of GDP (the UN target is 0.7%), and Britain supported the imposition of market solutions on debtor countries by the IMF although this increased their impoverishment.
	Labour policy was:
	1	On closeness to USA??
	2	To support the creation of a Palestinian state and oppose Israeli deportations, settlement-building, etc.
	3	To restore the authority of the UN in dealing with conflict situations, (?)
	4	To ban all arms exports to countries in conflict or with repressive regimes who could use them against their own civilian populations
	5	To ban the export of mines and torture equipment
	6	To set a date for achieving the 0.7% target for aid
	7	To write off third world debt unconditionally, and encourage others to do so (?)
	8	To call for fundamental reform of the World Bank and IMF and bringing them under a development council
	In fact under New Labour:
	1	We are widely lampooned as a US poodle
	2	Although these principles have been restated, there has been no practical change from the policy under the Tories
	3	Britain has taken a leading role in sidelining the UN in further asymmetric wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq
	4	There is a new code of conduct for arms sales but they continue to war zones (e.g. to all 5 armies in the Congo), to where they are used against civilians (Sri Lanka, Indonesia), to assert a territorial claim (Morocco) or for all 3 at once (Israel)
	5	These are banned, though British companies found ways around the mine ban
	6	A date of 2013 has been set - 16 years after New Labour took power
	7	Britain has taken a leading role in writing off debt at least for the poorest countries
	8	Britain has supported the IMFs imposition of market rules on poor countries and is promoting privatisation of their basic services
	In addition:
		The UK government has used the royal prerogative and rewritten the law to prevent the people of Diego Garcia from returning to their islands
		The Scott Report recommendation for parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports has still not been implemented, (Check - seems have been some changes)
		Britain now has (?)% of world arms sales, and the government subsidises them by £760 million per year
		A manifesto pledge to curb British arms dealers operating abroad has been broken
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