Home       About       Contact
Foreign Policy

Chapters

  1. Salaries and Taxation
  2. Pensions
  3. Benefits
  4. Health and Care
  5. Education
  6. Housing
  7. Employment
  8. Trades Unions and Labour Laws
  9. Trade and Industry
  10. Transport
  11. Energy
  12. Environment
  13. Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Rural Life
  14. Crime
  15. Legal System
  16. Immigration and Asylum
  17. Local Government
  18. Devolution and Regional Government
  19. Parliament and Democracy
  20. Media
  21. Freedom of Information and Privacy
  22. Northern Ireland
  23. European Union
  24. Foreign Policy
  25. Defence and Disarmament
  26. Conclusions
 Preamble

Chapters

  1. Salaries and Taxation
  2. Pensions
  3. Benefits
  4. Health and Care
  5. Education
  6. Housing
  7. Employment
  8. Trades Unions and Labour Laws
  9. Trade and Industry
  10. Transport
  11. Energy
  12. Environment
  13. Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Rural Life
  14. Crime
  15. Legal System
  16. Immigration and Asylum
  17. Local Government
  18. Devolution and Regional Government
  19. Parliament and Democracy
  20. Media
  21. Freedom of Information and Privacy
  22. Northern Ireland
  23. European Union
  24. Foreign Policy
  25. Defence and Disarmament
  26. Conclusions
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 were widely lampooned as a US poodle, particularly for supporting US wars and our involvement in US rendition and torture Left as under the Conservatives
2 Although these principles were restated, there was no practical change from the policy under the Tories Left as under the Conservatives
3 Britain took a leading role in sidelining the UN in further asymmetric wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq Policy shift to right of old Conservatives
4 There was a new code of conduct for arms sales but they continued 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) Pledge partially carried out
5 These were banned, reluctantly in the case of "smart" cluster bombs, though British companies found ways around the mine ban Pledge carried out
6 A date of 2013 was set - 16 years after New Labour took power Pledge carried out
7 Britain is writing off sovereign debt from the poorest countries, led calls for others to do so and Brown called for help from a Tobin tax on financial transactions Pledge carried out
8 Britain supported the IMF's imposition of market rules on poor countries and promoted privatisation of their basic services Left as under the Conservatives
In addition:
Bullet point The UK government used the royal prerogative and rewrote the law to prevent the people of Diego Garcia from returning to their islands  
Bullet point The Scott Report recommendation for parliamentary scrutiny of arms exports was not implemented, (Check - seems were some changes)  
Bullet point Britain was the world's top arms exporter in 2007, and sales were subsidised by £760 million per year  
Bullet point A manifesto pledge to curb British arms dealers operating abroad was broken  
Bullet point 

MI5 officers were found to have "facilitated" foreign torture and ministers would not say whether they had immunity in the UK for crimes committed overseas 

 

Home       About       Contact