Ashley's Eye


Exeposed - The Truth Behind...Ethical Foreign Policy
by Ashley Amos

Back to Seddonism

Think back to the electoral manifesto of New Labour and numerous policy labels spring to mind. John Masefield once said a good poet composed a sonnet before breakfast, and for all good Blairites, a diet of readily prepared sound-bites should be on tap before lunch. One such example was an ethical foreign policy.

In light of the 'Arms to Iraq' scandals of the Major government, the then Labour opposition formulated a radical alternative whereby brutal self-interest would be tempered by moral standards. But just how firm has the moral high ground proved in government?

Anyone proudly sporting their New Labour pledge card will talk of Kosovo when our government went into battle against the Serb military machine of Slobodan Milosovic, and Operation Desert Fox launched against Saddam Hussein's Iraq amongst others.



However, when sent snooping around the houses of the rich and (hopefully) famous to see what lies Through the Keyhole, Lloyd Grossman tells us in his ridiculous mid-Atlantic tones to 'consider the evidence'. Treating New Labour's foreign policy record like a piece of British real estate, does the inside match the outward appearance of strict ethics?

Entering the hallway we find plenty of Chinese ornamentation. This suggests a strong interest in the affairs of the world's most populous nation, and most powerful remaining Communist power. President Jiang Zemin, who was the first Chinese leader to make a state visit to Britain last autumn. As expected, Mr. Jiang was shadowed by members of the 'Free Tibet Movement'. Unexpected though, was just how 'unethical' Robin Cook's department was prepared to be in making the Chinese Premier feel as 'comfortable as possible'.

During Mr. Jiang's visit, Tibetan flags were confiscated, and demonstrators kept out of sight; suppression of opinion followed the Chinese Premier across Britain. The Foreign Office claimed they were merely protecting the 'dignity' of the Chinese President. The dignity of the countless people who have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the gangsters lurking in the Great Hall of the People was of little concern. Perhaps Mr. Cook should come to Exeter, and see the Tianenmen Square sculpture that reminds students here of those ground-breaking days in June 1989 when the masters in Beijing sent in the tanks against unarmed demonstrators whose prevailing wish was to have a say in who governed them. In Britain, we pride ourselves on being steeped in a rich democratic tradition; strange indeed that officialdom decided to ditch such traditions the very day a human rights extraordinaire abuser touched down on our shores.

Or is it? The last governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten railed against attempts within the Foreign Office and the DTI to stifle his reforms that brought democratic, accountable government to the colony before the 1997 hand-over. China attempted to veto such measures by threatening lucrative trade openings for British companies. The Chinese Communists may still be blaming us for the Opium Wars, but wave some money at them and they're all ears. Patten's successfully implemented democratic reforms ended a British tradition of giving in to China over everything for the economic Aladdin's cave of ever more rampant market forces. Sadly, under Robin Cook's tenure, kow-towing to maintain �1 billion worth of trade is what British policy still amounts to. It's serve the business lobby at all costs; even freedom.

Moving on into the lounge, we can tread on the sumptuous leopard rugs from Libya, courtesy of a certain Colonel Gadaffi. Our ethical Foreign Secretary reopened trade with Libya last year after a fifteen year embargo following the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher by a bullet fired from the Libyan embassy in London. The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland a decade ago reminded us that Gadaffi is not a man we should be doing business with.

Robin Cook appears to believe the 'Leopard of Libya' capable of changing his spots because Libya have finally handed over the two suspected Lockerbie terrorists for trial in Holland, and admitted that an operative in their embassy was responsible for the Fletcher murder. By any standards, a very poor return for a resumption of UK trade. Only the irresistible smell of money can make up the shortfall in the sphere of principle; surely as ethical as selling the grandmother.

Progressing into the kitchen, chilli peppers spell Pinochet and 18 months in a Wentworth luxury home before being whisked out of the country faster than most VIPs - clearly a warning to dictators everywhere!

And if you were a Chechen who had been shelled out of Grozny by Russian forces, you might think our Prime Minister was less principled than he claims if your saw him shaking hands with the new Russian President Vladimir Putin - political embodiment of the Chechen War. A year ago, Mr. Blair was standing in the middle of a NATO camp for Kosovan refugees announcing the air assault against Serbia as a 'just war'.

Surely, if that were true, it must be a trifle unjust not to take similar action in Chechenya; the circumstances are very similar with a province of a much larger federation fighting to form an independent state. However, there are also fundamental differences. In Kosovo, Messrs Blair and Clinton were dealing with an isolated Serb nation with poor military resources, and a President still seen in the West as one of the Bosnian war's biggest butchers. An easy target. With Chechenya we are dealing with a military Goliath, complete with a nuclear arsenal and many western fortunes resting on the continued exploitation of formerly isolated Russian markets. Mr. Blair's already had a war tom boost his leadership image, and doing anything more than mention the problem when passing the sugar to Mr. Putin would be political suicide.

This case reflects the larger picture reiterated here. Who would live in a house like this? - the same old Foreign Secretary as before who puts the national interest above all others. The ethical foreign policy is an example of New Labour repackaging the same old horse, before flogging it at twice the price. The British public would surely respect the government a lot more if they came clean about what really goes on in our real and unjust world. The West is no moral model, and neither should people be seduced into thinking so by the political candy-floss lapped up by the authors of electoral manifestos.

By Ashley Amos. Previously published in Exepose.