Liam Fox is wrong to suggest that the EU controls the Foreign Office

Former Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox told an audience at the Royal United Services Institute last week that the Foreign Office had been reduced to “little more than the EU embassy in Whitehall”. He is not the first person to accuse the FCO of promoting the interests of foreigners above those of Britain. But his analysis is way off target.

Full disclosure: I am a recovering diplomat. I know the Foreign Office’s shortcomings – including its tendency to sit on the fence in a crisis until it is too late; and its habit (now changing, at last) of moving staff with expertise to deal with countries in which they are not an expert. I agree with Dr Fox’s criticism of successive governments for cuts to the FCO, which have left parts of it seriously overstretched at a time of international turmoil.

He is absolutely wrong, however, to suggest that what he calls “the relentless pursuit of a pan-EU diplomatic service” means that the EU runs Britain’s foreign policy, or to imply that the UK should invest less in Europe’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS).