How Gordon sees the world

23 August 2006

Mark Leonard, an authority on Labour foreign policy with strong connections to the government, has spoken to those close to the Chancellor in search of Brown’s notoriously opaque views on international affairs. This is what he discovered

Though none of the ministers, MPs or advisers to whom I talked in preparing this piece has suggested this is likely to happen, it is the fantasy that is inspiring sections of the Left who are gunning for a Brown premiership. Some commentators — such as the Times’s Anatole Kaletsky — have argued that withdrawing from Iraq could provide a ‘Bank of England moment’ for the new Prime Minister. In the same way that the shock decision to grant independence to the Bank of England signalled that a new Labour government had broken free from its legacy of inflation and currency devaluations, a decision to withdraw troops could allow it to move out of the shadow of Iraq. But are they right to think that a Brown foreign policy would be so different from Blair’s?

Would Gordon have handled Lebanon differently if he had been running British diplomacy rather than bonding with his new-born baby son? A recent article by Ed Balls — the Chancellor’s closest political confidant — in the left-wing Fabian Review has been seen by some as evidence that Brown would be less loyal to Washington than the incumbent. Its emphasis on economic development rather than ‘draining the swamp’ of Islamic terrorism is seen as a vital clue to Brown’s vision for peace in the Middle East. But the truth is that Gordon — as he has done in each of the international crises to afflict New Labour — is keeping his own counsel.

A recent blizzard of Brownite media stunts — posing with foreign leaders, sitting in fighter-planes, embracing Trident — tells us more about Brown the politician than Brown the statesman. It has more to do with projecting gravitas — and highlighting David Cameron’s lack of it — than mapping out a coherent approach to the world. Indeed, for a politician whose political phil-osophy has shaped every nook and cranny of domestic policy, Brown’s foreign policy remains a conspicuous black hole. Even his closest advisers admit that they have very little idea what Brown the prime minister will do when he (finally) gets the keys to No. 10.

Brown’s silence on foreign policy is partly a consequence of the so-called ‘Granita deal’, which divided policy between the two founders of ‘New Labour’, giving Brown unprecedented sway over domestic issues, but no say on international ones. It is also because a prime minister’s foreign policy — a combustible mixture of instincts and events — is notoriously hard to predict. No one thought that Tony Blair — who allegedly used his first meeting with Nelson Mandela to ask for an autograph for his children — would lead his country to war six times in seven years.