The UK foreign policies are confusing. On the day when Foreign Secretary William Hague was visiting Brazil hailing the growing importance of the continent in general, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Henry Bellingham MP did not mention Latin America at all when highlighting the areas where the UK wants to play a more active role in 2012.
Instead, while talking to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on United Nations last week, Mr Bellingham emphasised the growing importance of Africa as a new market where the British trade may double over the next ten years. A bit of work here, a bit of work there.
The truth is that underneath pleasant political speeches presenting Britain as an ever-expanding and co-operative at all fronts global power ready for new challenges, there is not much substance but a lot of contradiction.
Mr Bellingham highlighted the fact that the UK advocates the UN Security Council reform and wants countries like Germany, Japan, Brazil, India and an African representative to get permanent seats there. Inevitably then, it will lead to a diminishing global importance of the UK as it also comes on top of the fracas at the EU forum late last year; an issue already discussed here (LINK).
Interestingly, the criticism of the way how the FCO is run also comes from the Tories backbenchers. (A quick anecdote: At a recent conference on the EU in London, the FCO was mistakenly introduced as the Foreign and Colonial Office in the conference documentation, much to disbelief from some delegates.) Speaking at a Young Professionals in Foreign Policy event earlier this week, Rory Stewart MP was full of passion arguing that the FCO got their principles wrong – the primarily role should be providing grassroots research on developments in other parts of the world.
As one senior academic involved in UK foreign policy-making told me, the FCO is run like a company by a manager (enough to say that the First Secretary studied at a leading European business school). In the same time, as Mr Bellingham proudly admits, the UK has one of the biggest aid budgets in the world. It is a rather awkward philanthropic fact given the domestic hardship and the implementation of further and further austerity measures.
Stewart, whose debating skills are second to none, replies to Mr Bellingham’s arguments: without the full understanding of the events on the ground, aid money tends to be mismanaged and not spent of the projects it really should fund – a common problem also at the US State Department.
Another contradiction is the role of the LibDems in the Coalition Government. Despite being the most Euro-enthusiastic party in Parliament, they do not seem to challenge the Tories over Europe. Analysts say that the situation may change closer to the next national election. The problem in that argument is simple. If the LibDems wait till late to go against the Conservatives, they may lose even more electorate by appearing as an opportunistic and greedy for power party. Indirectly that argument can be read between the lines in the latest Federal Trust report on Britain’s Op-ins and Opt-outs in the EU area of Freedom, Security and Justice. (Strangely, although I have a printed copy, there isn't an electronic one uploaded online.)
It is easy to observe that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is currently more interested in developing feel-good foreign policies rather than clearly stating its mission and aims. Unless, of course, the feel-good phenomenon is the aim itself. The Coalition Government (minus the LibDems with their internal feel-good policy) seems to be either playing for time, hoping for a better economic developments, or awaiting further external events that may reshape the current geopolitics.
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