An inventive article from Ben Brogan this morning, arguing
that a new vigorously Tory foreign policy is emerging. I can be a little slow sometimes, but I haven’t noticed anything new or Tory about Britain’s foreign policy.
Brogan records that the Prime Minister has let it be known that British troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by 2015. Cameron said nothing of the sort; he said he wanted British troops out of Afghanistan by 2015, something quite different. Contrary to expectations, relations with Europe are flourishing under the coalition, as pragmatic government has superseded bellicose opposition. William Hague hopes to influence the EU closely. In a speech today, he will attempt to demarcate his stance from the previous government’s; but the previous government was very active in Europe. For reasons known only to themselves, Gordon Brown and David Miliband implanted Cathy Ashton as EU foreign minister; and Brown was successful in the simple task of convincing European governments of the need for stimulus in 2008; before that, expansion was Blair’s pet-project.
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