Who does the PM side with in the Brown-Miliband dispute?
James Forsyth 6:00pm
The Conservatives have jumped on the confusion in the government’s foreign policy revealed by Nick Brown’s outburst on Comment is Freee (see Fraser’s post), with William Hague asking the Prime Minister to clarify who speaks for the government on foreign policy—the Foreign Secretary or the Deputy Chief Whip?
Gordon Brown has to get a grip. He needs to tell his attacks dogs—who are by all accounts straining at the leash—that foreign policy is off limits. British foreign policy can’t be turned into a battleground for the Labour party’s factional fighting.
The full letter from Hague to the PM after the jump:
Dear Prime Minister,
I am sure you will agree that in responding to the crisis in Georgia it is imperative that Britain should speak with a united and clear voice.
It is therefore extraordinary that Nick Brown, your Deputy Chief Whip, has written for the Guardian today that he does not favour NATO membership for Georgia, and he “doesn’t know anyone who does”.
This flatly contradicts the view of the British Government, which has been clearly expressed by the Foreign Secretary, most recently at the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Brussels yesterday, when he said:
“I think in respect of Georgia it's very significant that in May NATO committed not just to Georgia but also to the Ukraine that they would join other formerly, so-called, captive states of the former Warsaw Pact in NATO. And what we're going to agree today is a special mechanism that will bind NATO and Georgia together, a NATO and Georgia commission that will take forward that commitment to Georgian membership”.
This position has been fully supported by the Conservative Party, as David Cameron made clear during his visit to Tbilisi, and in the Sunday Times where he wrote: “We must make clear that Georgia’s aspiration to be a member of NATO remains alive and well. The Alliance should offer Georgia a clear pathway to membership”. During his visit to Tbilisi on Saturday, David Cameron made clear that he strongly supported the position set out by you and David Miliband.
It is essential, not least on the day that he is in Tbilisi where he has underlined Britain’s commitment to Georgia’s membership of NATO, that the Foreign Secretary is clearly speaking on behalf of the British Government.
This is a time for rapid and decisive leadership. This damaging confusion in the midst of an international crisis – with one Minister saying one thing, and another saying completely the opposite – must be immediately cleared up.
Will you therefore make clear straight away that your Deputy Chief Whip was not speaking on behalf of the British Government and that you, like the Opposition, firmly support Georgia’s pathway to NATO membership?
And will you also take action to ensure that there is proper discipline within the Government on important foreign policy issues and that Foreign Office Ministers can speak on foreign policy without being contradicted by other senior members of the Government?
Yours ever
The Rt Hon William Hague MP
Shadow Foreign Secretary
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Walt Whitman
August 20th, 2008 6:23pm Report this commentIn Downing Street, I heard a grunt
It came from Brown, the useless...
mitch
August 20th, 2008 6:28pm Report this commentDoes William Hague own shares in Nokia?
J H Holloway
August 20th, 2008 6:43pm Report this commentI'm currently abroad reading Tom Bowyer's book on Brown. It seems Brown's tactics of using his mates to smear internal political opponents, have not changed one iota in 11 years of government.
Brown must be the most disfunctional PM of modern times.
Paul Williams
August 20th, 2008 7:25pm Report this commentI'm not particularly a supporter of any political party but it's clear that our country is rapidly becoming a laughing stock internationally.
Have we really got two more years of this bollocks? Are Labour MPs careers more important than Britain’s interests? I'm almost ashamed to say I'm going to cry - is this what we as a country are reduced to – thank god for the Olympics if only for some tiny shred of pride.
Max Kaye
August 20th, 2008 7:25pm Report this commentBrown must go.
(Which one? Both of them, actually).
mckenzie
August 20th, 2008 7:51pm Report this commentThis 'government' is a total embarrassment.
"Please Gordon, in the name of common decency, go away somewhere and die."
Carrie
August 20th, 2008 8:26pm Report this commentThe Government has gone to war with itself, but it's we the people who will suffer.
Nicholas
August 20th, 2008 8:44pm Report this commentDire. Tough on intelligence, tough on the causes of intelligence. Morons.
Would the military please step in and rid our country of these bumbling idiots.
Dr Blue
August 20th, 2008 8:47pm Report this commentHague's fork- However Gordon Brown answers the letter he looks daft...as only one trying to lead two halves of a pantomime horse can.
Well written Mr Hague
anthony a
August 20th, 2008 8:58pm Report this commentIt's in the DNA of Brown and his supporters to attack any and all enemies.
They couldn't stop even if they wanted to.
David Gerard
August 20th, 2008 10:09pm Report this commentIt's not entirely clear that it would make any difference which one answered, as that would require being able to tell them apart.
Pete, Scotland
August 20th, 2008 10:27pm Report this commentThis isn't a subject for political football. There are lives at risk.
We need grown up, serious diplomats to sort this out.
After the Labour years, are there any left?
Austin Barry
August 20th, 2008 11:20pm Report this comment"Gordon Brown has to get a grip." Exactly. Where is this leader? Where is this so-called Prime Minister? We have a man lost in office, drowning in responsibilities he can neither understand nor manage. He wanders through our time like a semi-comatose amnesiac muttering about "re-launches" and being "on the job" while the second-raters who conspired to hoist him into this particular gibbet, are too gutless to cut his tormented inadequate carcass down. The cabinet resembles a collection of jellyfish: wet, spineless and ultimately poisonous to the health of the country.
Truth Seeker
August 20th, 2008 11:24pm Report this commentHa! That's hilarious. No doubt a sanctioned move to undermine Milliband, that has, like all others, spectacularly backfired!
chris
August 21st, 2008 5:43am Report this commentBronwn's a "conviction politician", or so he tells us. His only conviction is to keep power and divide his enemies wherever they be Labour or Tory. The result is that we have a completely directionless government. Brown knows this, but is too addicted to power and keeping it to care. This was honed over 25 years, based on his clannish scottish political insticts and brought to fruition by a pathetic Labour Party that let him destabilise
Blair for so long. They deserve each other!
Hereford
August 21st, 2008 8:53am Report this commentAre Labour MPs careers more important than Britain’s interests?
Answers on a postcard please :o)
Tiberius
August 21st, 2008 10:50am Report this commentI would imagine Brown is now in the most frenzied but decisive dither of his entire non-premiership.
Roger Thornhill
August 21st, 2008 12:18pm Report this commentMao had permanent revolution. Brown has permanent relaunch. A relaunch for a PM is like a CEO redecorating head office.
Ian C
August 21st, 2008 12:40pm Report this commentTiberius and Austin Barry - as ever, said with sense, feeling and truth.... oh so much truth!
David C
August 21st, 2008 1:11pm Report this commentBrown will dismiss the letter as coming from a failed Conservative Leader who refuses to deal with important International events seriously, and only seeks to exploit the consequences of such grave matters for narrow Party Political advantage.
Brown has much more important business to attend to - like hanging on to the keys of No.10
TrevorH
August 21st, 2008 2:18pm Report this commentBrown, Brown and Browne should go.
And someone help me please ...
Just what does 'yours ever' stand for?
"Yours ever so maliciously"? It always pops up in these letters between politicians.
I am ashamed of my lack of grasp of the niceties in life.
Ted Tedford
August 21st, 2008 5:11pm Report this commentTrevorH: Re 'Yours ever'. I cannot really help, but offer a vignette.
There is a habit in the Army - possibly across the Services - of signing correspondence 'yours aye'. I believe it was adopted because it is a 'traditional' Scots style, and the less-socially adept regiments, corps and services retain that Victorian-Edwardian English weakness for Scots affectations.
When I was a young officer in an ancient Highland regiment, we were discouraged from using this style, in spite of its supposed Scots roots, because it was deemed by the Colonel of the Regment to be a pretentious corruption of 'yours ever'. We were therefore encouraged to use 'yours ever' in its stead.
I suspect this was purely a personal preference on the eminent General's part, but it has been enforced with enthusiasm ever since - rather like the apocryphal experiment with monkeys, bananas and electric shocks. Woe betide the subaltern who signs a thank you letter 'yours aye' - but those censoring him will have no idea at all why it is held to be bad form.
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