Speaking in the House of Commons,(Tuesday 15 May) Rotherham MP Denis MacShane described the Government’s foreign policy as “unsplendid isolation” and said the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary sought “to lose friends and dis-influence people whenever they can”. The former Europe Minister cited the report by the Atlantic Council written by the respected US diplomat, Nick Burns, which said that Cameron had no foreign policy strategy and a Business for New Europe pamphlet written by Tory MP Jo Johnson which said European nations were better at export promotion than the UK even though increasing trade was a key foreign policy priority announced by William Hague.
The speech is below.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): Britain’s foreign policy can be summed up in two words: unsplendid isolation. The Foreign Secretary is an observer of world events, rather than a shaper of them. He talked about new embassies being opened, but they will not be staffed by trained British diplomats who come back here after a short term abroad as a young diplomat to help inform our community of foreign policy. Instead, we now have portakabin foreign policy, with small sheds being opened all over the world, but without augmenting our foreign presence. The number of diplomatic posts staffed by British citizens is being cut by up to 250 as a result of the Foreign Secretary’s personnel policies.
The Foreign Secretary set out his world vision in an interview with The Economist last week. It is based on promoting trade, promoting the broad national interest and protecting British citizens overseas, as he confirmed in his speech earlier. I expect that every holder of his great office from Charles James Fox onward would subscribe to those aims. Every one of Her Majesty’s ambassadors promotes trade, but to do so we need an economy that is growing, open and supported by Ministers. Instead, the Foreign Secretary insulted every exporter over the weekend by telling them to work hard. My business friends in his home town of Rotherham, which I have the honour of representing, have worked harder than any generation of business leaders in our history. They do not need to be patronised and told to work hard. What they need is support so that the cuts to the UK trade promotion work, which Lord Digby Jones discussed with the BBC yesterday, are reversed, because every day that the Foreign Secretary has been in office has seen Britain’s trade balance worsen.
The Foreign Secretary makes much of the idea that Britain can turn away from our traditional trading partners and engage with emerging powers, yet we export more to Ireland than we do to China, Russia, India and Brazil combined. He is the leader of the Eurosceptic faction in the Cabinet and never misses an opportunity to make a crack about the EU or the problems of the eurozone, as if the double-dip recession pound zone was an example to follow.
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