Does Labour’s EU and Foreign Policy Pitch Add Up?
This week, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy set out his pitch on foreign policy and security both in Foreign Affairs and in the Guardian. But do these articles tell us much new about Labour’s pre-election stance.
Or do we learn more from Labour rushing to dismiss the European Commission suggestion on Thursday of a possible youth EU-UK mobility scheme? Labour also dismissed FT reports that it was floating the idea of the UK taking part in the EU’s foreign affairs council (a non-starter other than as an occasional invited visitor for parts of discussion where relevant).
David Lammy’s Foreign Affairs article proposed “progressive realism” (repeated throughout the piece) as his lodestone. All this actually seems to mean is a UK government under Labour will consider UK interests and values in a pragmatic way. That is not new, progressive nor enlightening. Perhaps the most notable statement in the eleven page piece is that "European security will be the Labour Party’s foreign policy priority."
We already knew that Labour is aiming for some sort of EU-UK formal security framework since none exists now – the various Tory prime ministers after Theresa May not picking up on her plans for such a structure. But Labour is picking up where May left off.
Lammy wants to negotiate a geopolitical UK-EU security pact covering "military, economic, climate, health, cyber, and energy security issues". This sounds like the kitchen sink but, of course, for Labour hard Brexit remains. So, all this has to happen outside the EU customs union, single market and without free movement. All these red lines hugely limit what Labour can do.
Brexit
Brexit is a recurring and big elephant in the room. Labour, Lammy says, wants to rebuild the UK's influence & soft power. Good idea. But, outside the EU, the UK will never get back the power it had as one of the big three EU member states pre-Brexit. Big trade barriers will remain, also making a mockery of Labour's emphasis on growth. And Labour’s aim to use UK diplomats to promote investment in the UK is not exactly new either nor can it stop the continuing impacts of Brexit. This week, Rishi Sunak recoiled yet again from introducing planned health and safety checks on food and agricultural imports for the fifth time this week. There’s no escaping Brexit as a continuing problem and cost.
Climate
Labour dropping its £28 billion a year climate pledge and replacing it with a £5 billion one is another elephant in the room. Lammy puts a welcome emphasis in his articles on the climate crisis. But the abandonment of the big green pledge is neither international leadership nor an obvious route to competing on green technology with the EU, the US or China, nor to getting to zero emissions electricity by 2030 (which Lammy states as a goal). Cooperation with the EU on climate may stop new barriers arising from the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (i.e. climate border tax). But the UK will have to align with the EU not vice versa.
Gaza
Lammy writes about rebuilding Gaza which will be vital when Israel’s destruction ever ends. But Lammy also, and outrageously, suggests Labour's Gaza stance (not calling for a ceasefire for almost 5 months) has been 'progressive'. ‘Progressive’ is a weasel word that was also much-loved by the Blairites. Lammy approvingly cites Robin Cook's ethical foreign policy, but Cook would surely not have toed Starmer's line on Gaza.
Looking back, Lammy can touch critically on the Iraq war, but he cannot face up to the fact that under Keir Starmer, Labour has chosen once again to follow the US, this time backing Israel’s murderous destruction of Gaza. Labour under Starmer will not be like France, Spain or Ireland (or Harold Wilson over Vietnam) and take a more independent and more progressive position. No, it will follow that old UK tradition of being the US’s poodle.
Lammy, while aiming at an intellectual broad foreign policy sweep in his Foreign Affairs article, cannot acknowledge the deep damage done to the 'West' by the stance of the US, UK, Germany and others on Gaza, including in supplying arms – damage that will last. So, he talks of positive relations with the global south, underlines the importance of partnership and not lecturing nor being hypocritical. But the UK’s position on Gaza has not only been disastrous for Palestine but too for relations with the rest of the world.
Lammy talks positively about backing Ukraine and its future NATO membership, since he can't talk about Ukraine's EU membership – the UK is not in the EU room and has no say on enlargement or any other aspects of EU security policies. Similarly, Labour, he says, aims to rebuild UK's development leadership, but again from outside the EU. Yet coordination is vital in development.
Labour, the EU and Foreign Policy
Where does this leave us? Labour, in government, wants a closer EU-UK relationship. But it won’t abandon the Tory red lines that it has adopted as its own. So, we will see: a new perhaps broadly-defined UK-EU security relationship (the EU has plenty of strategic partnerships after all), negotiations on a veterinary deal, on mutual recognition of professional qualifications, perhaps something minor on youth mobility or even a one-off deal on musicians touring across the UK and EU. But we won’t see much more than that.
It took the UK sixteen years to correct the mistake of not joining the then European Economic Community in 1957 and heading into EFTA instead. We are already 8 years past the Brexit vote but the UK does not look like being on any rational glidepath back to the EU any time soon, if ever.
Overall, it is, even so, good to see Labour putting some substance on its future foreign policy. But Gaza, hard Brexit, and the abandonment of the £28 billion climate pledge are and will remain three big elephants in the room of David Lammy's efforts to outline a substantive and substantial foreign & security policy.