How Gordon sees the world

Mark Leonard

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

Brown’s rhetoric suggests he will abandon the Foreign Office view that Britain needs to take part in European projects — even if they are flawed — in order to influence them from the inside. At the Treasury he has often relied more on the brute force of his ideas and the threat of a veto to influence his European partners (although this approach is less effective in policy areas that are decided by majority voting). One famous battle over a Commission proposal for a ‘withholding tax’ saw Brown argue his way from being in a minority of one in 1999, to securing majority support for his approach in 2003. Brown’s allies expect him to use similar tactics to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). One explains, ‘There was incandescence in the Treasury when Blair settled on the EU budget in 2005 without sorting out the CAP. Total incomprehension. The damage it did to public finances; to world trade talks and the chances of France and Germany shifting in the Doha round.’ One concession that Blair did win was an agreement that the European budget will be reviewed in 2008 or 2009. A Labour adviser predicts that Brown will use the opportunity for a showdown with the French: ‘Brown has more appetite for a fight than Blair. Blair wants to be liked and have other leaders on the phone. Gordon would be much more comfortable being isolated in Brussels, lapping up the praise from the press back home.’