Five things you should know about foreign policy this election

Are we still stuck in the imperial mindset? Flickr/Boston Public Library. Some rights reserved.

1) Labour really
like Trident

Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, is desperate
to demonstrate that Labour is as tough on defence as the Tories. The
Conservatives allege that Labour is prepared to dump Trident to get a deal with
the SNP. Trident is a Scottish based submarine fleet of armed with
thermonuclear warheads that float ever-ready to avenge an attack on Britain or
its allies. 

Alexander’s stance shows the extent to which memories of the 1983
election defeat still haunt the party leadership. The then Labour leader
Michael Foot proposed in a manifesto one backbencher called "The Longest
Suicide Note in History" to get rid of all nuclear weapons, and Margaret
Thatcher won a landslide victory.

Trident is a symbol of the UK's relationship with the US. There are 28
submarines that carry Trident missiles, 24 of which are US Navy vessels.
Backtracking on cooperation treaties with America would likely strain bilateral
ties between the Pentagon and Whitehall.

Diane Abbot's point about the missile system is pertinent: "How
exactly does a submarine system designed for Cold War combat meet the threats
of international terrorism? It's surprising that no-one is talking about the
tactical arguments against renewing Trident". 

2) The Tories are
tight with Saudi Arabia

Despite an amicable deal with Iran over its civilian nuclear capacity,
the close links between the British government and Iran's sworn enemy Saudi
Arabia show no sign of flagging. As Saudi jets were taking off to bomb Yemen, a
Conservative foreign secretary had no qualms at the end of last month taking
sides in the conflict. "The Saudis are flying British built aircraft in
the campaign over Yemen"… said
Philip Hammond in remarks made in Washington on March 27th. "We have a
significant infrastructure supporting Saudi Air Force generally and if we are
requested to provide them with increased logistical support, spare parts,
technical advice resupply we will seek to do so. We will support the Saudis in
every practical way short of engaging in combat with them.”

Britain's ties with a country that is the fountainhead of Salafi
ideology espoused by ISIL are as strong as ever. Like the Labour government
under Tony Blair, Cameron's Tories are happy to flog fighter jets to a
government that flogs bloggers.

Nonetheless, the foreign office has a view on the conflict in Yemen that
goes beyond the Sunni vs Shia paradigm (the Houthi rebels are Shia militants).
Asked if the UK's support for the Abd Rabbah Mansour Hadi government put them
on the same side as Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, a source at the foreign
office said "the enemy of our enemy isn't always our friend".

3) UKIP have a
point about foreign aid

The UKIP stance on foreign aid comes from a xenophobic corner of the
English political psyche that drips with hatred for those outside its own rainy
island. But when it comes to the matter of how the Department for International
Development's spends its £12bn budget, the idea that it should be a “protected
department” starts to look a little odd, when it means that areas like local
government and welfare take massive cuts. Government spending isn't really a
zero sum game. But the cash could be better spent elsewhere.  

In 2013, 58% of the DFID budget
was spent on bilateral aid, much of which goes directly to governments. The
three main recipients of direct aid are Pakistan, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Does
giving money straight to these governments help the people in these countries,
or does it help line the pockets of corrupt political elites? The answer is
both, but it is a shame only UKIP are talking about it.

4) The Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman has hung out with Bashir al-Assad 

Tony Clarke, the Greens’ foreign policy spokesperson, is a former Labour
MP. Back in 2000, he joined a parliamentary delegation that visited the newly
appointed Syrian president. What did the Green Party's candidate for
Northampton make of the Syrian ruler? "At that point he seemed in over his
head" says Clarke, who thinks reform minded Assad was
"struggling" with the Baath party apparatus that really ran the
country. Clarke says the Greens’ current view on Syria is to "support
those that resist totalitarianism in all its forms", but he isn't
keen on military intervention. He says the Greens have decided armed
incursion by foreign powers does more harm than good and wants a philosophy of
non-violence, human rights and cooperation to lead policy.

5) No one in UK
politics really has a clue about what Britain's place in a 21st century world
looks like

Half a century ago, the US Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that
Britain “has lost its empire, but has yet to find a role”. The same is true
today. Labour policy on Trident indicates an Ed Miliband leadership is prepared
to take hawkish foreign policy positions for reasons of electoral pragmatism
and real-politic. The Coalition approach to the Middle East has been to muddle
through, Blair-lite style, on Libya and now Iraq with an air campaign. The Lib
Dems, despite garnering millions of Labour votes in post 2003 elections for the
party's opposition to the Iraq War, have been quiet on foreign policy, muscled
out of decision making, with one Lib Dem peer to nine Tory ministers in the FCO
and DFID offices.

The SNP and the Greens are clearer about where they see the UK in the
modern world: in the EU and less up for evil stuff. UKIP is clear it doesn’t
want to be in the modern world at all. British politics is set for an inward
looking era, with the existential crisis of the union taking centre stage. But
as long as conflicts in former British colonies displace people, from Palestine
and Iraq to Sudan and Yemen, civilians escaping violence will be looking to the
nation that made much of the mess for refuge.  

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