How Gordon sees the world

26 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

The moral and economic strands of Brown’s foreign policy will be linked by the ‘golden thread’ of Britishness which increasingly frames all his policy pronouncements — about globalisation, terrorism or Third World poverty — in terms of distinctive British values and interests. Brown’s recent speech on security — where he used this approach to talk of a ‘British way’ of tackling terrorism — was seen by critics as a reversion to ‘Little Englandism’. One Foreign Office official, noting that he barely mentioned the Middle East, Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan, said, ‘Brown doesn’t have a foreign policy. His agenda on terror is about protecting ourselves at home by promoting Britishness, sharing intelligence and fighting money-laundering. He wants to engage the outside world through trade and aid, not diplomacy.’

But for Brown, Britishness serves as a platform for engaging with Europe and the world — not a pretext for isolationism. Speaking on the Today programme recently he said, ‘I think being more explicit as a country about what we value about being British is a very essential element of how we are part of the modern world. You can be part of the global economy and benefit from it but have a huge pride and patriotism that you feel about your own country.’ In other words, Labour prime ministers can’t win the trust to engage with the EU and the world until they have proved that they will doggedly defend British interests. Brown’s allies suggest that his brand of ‘British exceptionalism’ could lead to a foreign policy that is both less Atlanticist and less pro-European.