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Gary Kent

Gary Kent is an international relations expert and Labour Party member. His column for PB highlights Labour's foreign policy challenges.  
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Gary Kent

The Middle East: a high-stakes moment in history

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

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Gary Kent

Fighting Goliath: The Global Stakes in Ukraine

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.

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World map in pink with UK in blue
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Gary Kent

The internationalisation of domestic policy

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

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Gary Kent

Is Labour’s foreign policy ready for the tough test of government?

Tony Benn divided politicians into the Signposts and the Weathercocks. The Signpost constantly says: “This is the way we should go” while “the Weathercock hasn’t got an opinion until they’ve looked at the polls, talked to the focus groups, discussed it with the spin doctors.” This grossly caricatures the dilemmas

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Gary Kent

Estonian theses on European security

Napoleon said that “to know a nation’s geography is to know its foreign policy” and this holds true for the Baltic nation of Estonia. Its strategically vital place on the map explains both why aggressive neighbours inflicted misery on it in the 20thcentury and why it is now a keen

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Gary Kent

Local to Global: Facing the Threats of Tomorrow

Labour should not count its chickens before any general election and especially one that will take place in highly dangerous international conditions where various vultures are preying on weaker states and making the UK vulnerable.  Jeremy Cliffe rightly says we face “…a febrile and multipolar world in which the US

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Gary Kent

Britain in a Multipolar World: Embracing Foreign Policy

Useful idiots who supported Soviet invasions, or “fraternal assistance” in the Orwellian lingo of the day, were rightly damned as “tankies.” Progressives now back genuine assistance to Ukraine including heavy metal military kit. We are all tankies now, perhaps.Russian aggression has triggered a steep learning curve on defence and foreign policy. Neutral Finland and

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Gary Kent

Struggle for Peace: The Belfast Agreement

The Labour Government’s success in securing the Belfast Agreement 25 years ago was a huge transnational effort that required close collaboration with the Irish Government, the USA, the EU, and senior international figures. It was also bipartisan. Labour pursued the work of Tony Blair’s predecessor, John Major, who advanced the

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