To paraphrase Trotsky, you may not be interested in foreign policy, but foreign policy is interested in you. National security will be an issue in the general election but thankfully Corbyn’s ambiguities have been muscled out by a tough-minded Labour approach including securonomics. We live in an age of crisis,
A senior diplomat once told me in fluent Yes Minister mandarin that countries encouraging the Irish Republic to join the Commonwealth should do so alphabetically. In short, there was little chance of the UK as the old imperial power being heeded. The impetus in the 1990s for Ireland rejoining the
Social democracy is like painting the Forth Bridge: a ceaseless task of applying progressive values to civilise capitalism. In foreign policy, these values are much harder to deploy in building bridges and challenging hostile actors.Labour’s multi-pronged policy combines securing national interests, which we define differently from the Conservatives, driving development
Leonard Cohen crooned “There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t.” If the ability to count is essential in politics so is clearly defining the drivers of war and peace.The hard-left Stop the War Coalition – the stoppers
Keir Starmer and John Healey’s visit to Estonia to meet our troops sends all the right signals. It further buried the Corbyn past, assured our allies of our present and enduring commitment to NATO, and shows the solidity of our solidarity in helping ensure the safe future of Ukraine.Labour MP
The Hamas pogrom and civilian casualties in Gaza are expanding a profound faultline between the “Kibbutzim Left” and the “Nakba Left.” The first says that the creation of Israel was legitimate and that its collectivist communes and Labour Governments were beacons of hope. The second focuses on displaced Palestinians in
It is hard to look at world events today and feel hopeful. Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Hamas orgy of violence on October 7th (again) bring to mind Irish poet WB Yeats’ words from 1919’s The Second Coming: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed
Not a lot of people know this, but Labour organised a special one day conference on Socialist Foreign Policy in 1986. It was part of Neil Kinnock’s efforts to encourage new thinking on issues that obsessed many members. Kinnock’s Labour was then gradually shifting its position from unilaterally banning the
The 19th century French writer Victor Hugo wrote that “We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present.” We have so much more information at our fingertips today that it’s increasingly difficult to see the wood for the trees.
The Labour leadership is preparing itself for the external challenges of the future with a suite of foreign policies endorsed at the National Policy Forum and outlined in speeches by David Lammy and John Healey. However, we also need to nurture more informed thinking about foreign and security policy in
