ETHICAL FOREIGN POLICY?

David Cameron has said that the West has been wrong to support dictators in the Middle East. In a speech to the Kuwaiti national assembly Cameron said that Britain would back democracy campaigners now seeking greater rights across the Middle East.

He said that in the past Britain’s foreign policy has been dictated by it economic interests and that has stopped them pushing for and promoting Western democratic values.

He felt it was wrong that Britain supported Mr Mubarak and that, under Labour, had fostered relations with Col Gaddafi in Libya. He pointed out that two Labour Prime Ministers had met Gaddafi to promote British interests in their large and lucrative oil economy, paving the way for 150 British businesses to work there. Well, the Tories would never have done anything like that, would they?

He said that British interests were best served by upholding British values; freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to use internet and in the rule of law. Hmmm right, we shall see when the riots begin in England, just how we practise what we preach.

Now this all sounds to me like we are going to have an ethical foreign policy again, just like we did for the first couple of weeks of Labour’s government in 1997. It soon fell by the wayside as the need for arms sales to keep the economy afloat reared its ugly head, and then the need to follow George W Bush to hell and back in the most unethical of wars became central to Tony Blair’s plans to be a leading world figure, if only in the shadow of the great Dubya (as the junior partner of the special relationship).

You see, I can’t much remember there being any Conservative objection to our relationship with Egypt (witness the picture at the top of the page). America was Egypt’s friend; Britain could hardly be otherwise. And America decided to allow Gaddafi back into the international community after he denounced terrorism. Pour encourager les autres, as it were. Iraq wouldn’t get rid of its (non existent) WMDs, so it got war. Libya denounced terror, so it got trade. What was Britain going to do? What indeed would the Tories have done?

So speaking in a country with only limited democracy, he was good enough to tell them that he respected their right to take their own decisions.

At a press conference later, Mr Cameron was asked if his pro-reform message applied to Saudi Arabia, but he declined to answer. Hmmmm, yes, well we certainly wouldn’t want to upset Saudi Arabia, a country where you can be flogged on the street for failing to take part in prayers, and where most of the government is made up of the king’s relatives. The trouble is that they have vast oil reserves and that they spend billions every year on British arms. And, after all, Mr Cameron’s tour entourage does include several defence industry executives.

So limited ethical foreign policy then Dave?

Some magical double acts! (1) Margaret Thatcher doing business with Hosni Mubarak: (2) Mad Gaddafi and Mad Brown making business happen: (3) Moving in for the kiss... Tony and Muammar, sweet: (4) Davie boy, all alone and very moral. Creitable, but a difficult position to keep up, specially when Saudi Arabia is not going to bend for the UK.