Brown has outsourced foreign policy
Brown has outsourced British foreign policy
The special relationship is between Washington and Brussels
Instead of America being Britain’s most important ally, it became ‘our most important bilateral relationship’. Since Britain’s relationship with the 27-state EU is not ‘bilateral’, this leaves Brown room to elevate Britain’s relationship with Europe to prime position — a bit of linguistic now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t of which the Foreign Office is particularly proud. Yes, Brown confessed himself ‘a lifelong admirer of America’, but those who know him well know that that admiration is reserved for American entrepreneurship, Americans’ sense that anything is possible with hard work and risk-taking. It has never extended to American foreign policy.
Careful readers of the speech note that after that one reference to America as a sufficiently splendid place to make it Britain’s most important ‘bilateral relationship’, all references are to the relationship between the US and — not Britain — but Europe. The world is a dangerous place when ‘Europe and America are distant from one another’; ‘Europe and America [can] achieve historic progress [by] working ever more closely together’. So that’s to be the new special relationship — not between the United States and Great Britain, but between the United States and Europe. The route from Washington to Downing Street is now to be through EU headquarters in Brussels — or through Paris or Berlin if the Bush-friendly leaders in those countries have their way.
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Celeste
November 24th, 2007 3:00amThank you Irwin, for telling it like it is. Gordon Brown's selective vision on the'SpecialRelationship'provides a great opportunity for the Tories. Will they make the most of it?
Ian
November 24th, 2007 11:58amAnd with his vision he will find his exit from office. This is exactly the sort of damage a left of centre government does to Britain. In a globalised world we cannot survive by redistributing ever larger quantities of a diminishing share of world trade to an increasing underclass who are more and more workshy and drug addled the more benefits we re-distribute.
wilson
November 28th, 2007 10:34pmNo wonder Gordon Brown is happy to get approval of the EU's Amending Treaty through the House of Commons. He's become a Europe and is content to surrender our sovereigty to the emerging superstate. Once that Treaty is signed, member states won't be consulted any more. The Commission will decide Europe's future. Brown's Britishness is a lie. He's a closet Europhile.