Liam Fox sparked a row with a former diplomat today after accusing the Foreign Office of an institutional bias towards greater integration with the European Union.
The former Defence Secretary is building up a reputation for himself as a rallying figure for the eurosceptic right wing of the Conservative party with a series of speeches on Britain’s relationship with Europe, and today he attacked the civil service for having a weak spot for the continent. He told an Open Europe event at the Royal United Services Institute that the government’s desire to renegotiate its EU position was impaired as a result of the FCO being ‘totally wedded to the concept of ever-closer union, for whom integration into the EU is virtually an article of faith’. Fox said:
‘I think it is the conventional wisdom, and has been for some considerable time, in the Foreign office that integration is largely Britain’s foreign policy.
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