Written evidence from Dr Oliver Daddow,
Loughborough University
SUMMARY OF
MAIN POINTS
1. The FCO should be the principle repository
of experience, information and expertise within Whitehall on the
whole gamut of Britain's external relations.
2. The FCO became marginalised in 1997-2010 by
Prime Ministers wishing to exercise more central control over
the machinery of government from Downing Street.
3. The Foreign Office needs to be responsible
for providing a clear conceptual basis for British foreign policy,
bringing issues of "identity" and "ethics"
to the fore.
4. Britain has more means at its disposal to
shape the international agenda than perhaps it realises.
5. The enduring Churchillian notion that Britain
operates in three circles of power and influence was all very
well for 1948; it is not so useful for 2011.
6. We should be wary of William Hague's claim
to be putting the FCO "back where it belongs at the centre
of Government".
7. Hague wants to take the FCO down two paths
with policy and personal ramifications. Both present major challenges
for the department.
8. The two key departments of state, FCO and
Treasury, need to work more closely together to pursue shared
goals for Britain.
9. The FCO's network of overseas posts should
provide three things: advice, early warning and insight.
10. The challenges in explaining foreign policy
to the public are twofold: first, devising a coherent message
and second, getting the message across effectively.
11. The Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister
should jointly be tasked with presenting the government's vision
of British foreign policy.
12. The question of ethics and wider government
objectives is sometimes phrased in a way that implies that attention
to the former "gets in the way of" the latter. This
need not be the case.
BACKGROUND ON
CONTRIBUTOR
Oliver Daddow was educated in PPE at Oxford University
and took his MA (with distinction) and PhD from Nottingham University.
In 2000-05 he lectured at King's College London at the UK Defence
Academy and since 2005 he has worked at Loughborough University
where he is currently Senior Lecturer in Politics and International
Relations. In 2010-11 he was a Visiting Research Scholar at the
Center for British Studies, University of California at Berkeley.
His research interests are threefold: first, British
foreign policy, especially British-EU relations and Euroscepticism;
second, the uses of history in making policy; and third, the language
of foreign policy. He has published widely across these interests,
the most relevant being New Labour and the European Union
(Manchester University Press, 2011), Harold Wilson and European
Integration (edited, Frank Cass, 2003), Britain and Europe
since 1945 (Manchester University Press, 2004) and a co-edited
collection based on the proceedings of a two-day conference held
at the FCO in February 2010, British Foreign Policy: The New
Labour Years (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). In 2009 he co-edited
the International Affairs special issue on The War Over
Kosovo: Ten Years On, contributing the article on British foreign
policy. He is co-editing the British Journal of Politics and
International Relations 2013 special issue on new approaches
to the study of British foreign policy, based on a conference
held at Berkeley in December 2010. He has published over twenty
other book chapters and journal articles on these and related
issues.
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
1. The FCO should be the principle repository
of experience, information and expertise within Whitehall on the
whole gamut of Britain's external relations, broadly defined
in political, geostrategic and also economic terms. The difficulties
it has encountered in maintaining that role have come from two
sources. First, Prime Ministers and their Downing Street teams
have taken increasingly high profile roles in making and selling
British foreign policy abroad, often over the heads of Foreign
Secretaries, or using Foreign Secretaries as mere "ciphers"
for policies devised elsewhere within the system. Second, technological
and communications changes in a globalised world have meant the
FCO's web of embassies and contacts abroad can be by-passed by
an interventionist premier wanting to devise policy bilaterally
with other leaders, via "flying" visits, conference
telephone calls, email and so on. Both factors raise serious questions
about the FCO's role and function within the system of government
in the years ahead.
2. The FCO became marginalised in 1997-2010
by Prime Ministers wishing to exercise more central control over
the machinery of government from Downing Street. Tony Blair
increasingly came to ignore the advice of the FCO because he predicted
(correctly) that its natural caution on using military means to
achieve foreign policy ends and its attention to taking a UN-sanctioned
route (eg, in Kosovo and much more seriously Iraq) was out of
step with the PM's more interventionist posture on international
affairs. Blair was regularly (and correctly) accused of by-passing
Cabinet when making key decisions, but it was his bypassing of
the Foreign Office that should be of as much concern if we see
the Foreign Office as a source of moderation of some of the potential
eccentricities of modern, leader-centred governance (the author
has written an interview-based case study on the "Kosovo
effect" on British foreign policy-making in International
Affairs vol.85, no.3, 2009; further details can be supplied
if necessary). This points up the need for the FCO to be working
as closely as possible at all times with the Prime Minister's
Office and the Cabinet Office, and for constructive dialogue on
the nature of foreign policy challenges and possible solutions
to be as open and frank as possible. Disagreement should not mean
that these offices cannot work together effectively as long as
the broad picture and desired direction is clear to both. To be
seen to be abiding by the tenets of international law can be one
way in which the FCO leads on helping Britain once more be seen
to be a "good international citizen", which rather got
lost after 2001.
3. The Foreign Office needs to be responsible
for providing a clear conceptual basis for British foreign policy,
bringing issues of "identity" and "ethics"
to the fore. These factors have been sadly and dangerously
lacking in recent years. The policy framework established by the
NSS, the creation of the NSC and the SDSR all continue trends
previously ingrained by the New Labour governments, of what appears
to be a reactive approach to foreign and defence policy-making:
define the threat and then make the policy accordingly. What happened
to devising defence policy from first foreign policy principles
(the "baseline" of the 1998 SDR)? Foreign and defence
policies now seem to be geared to combating a whole series of
"threats" which come in all forms (from international
terrorism and environmental degradation) and from all corners
of the globe. This approach, valid though it might be in identifying
fundamental challenges to the national interest, risks stretching
the limited resources at Britain's disposal to breaking point,
especially when key allies are facing the same grievous financial
constraints. A "threat" focussed approach to creating
foreign policy seems, in fact, to be rather missing the point
by using up lots of valuable resources listing things which for
any rational, thinking person are really rather obvious. It is
how Britain deals with them and why they have become perceived
as threats that now require urgent attention, and this can
only come from a thoroughgoing reconsideration of Britain's role
on the world stage.
4. Britain has more means at its disposal
to shape the international agenda than perhaps it realises,
but these means are not just military or economic; they are rooted
in British values and its sense of identity. Conventional diplomacy,
aided by pulling military and economic levers, is undoubtedly
useful. However, they need to be operated alongside a more thoroughgoing
revision of what it is Britain stands for in the world. New Labour's
"Cool Britannia" and Robin Cook's "ethical dimension"
to foreign policy (it was not an "ethical foreign policy"
per se) might have been lampooned in some quarters, but
at least they made a start in that direction. A Foreign Secretary
who held the Prime Minister's ear for longer than Cook did might
have succeeded in integrating issues of ethics more closely into
the foreign policy arena (see paragraph 12 below). His relative
failure should not mean the end of the matter for the FCOthere
was certainly something in it. Post-Iraq there is a more pressing
need than ever to refashion tired images of Britain on the global
stage as a means of forging a brighter national and global future.
Revivifying the Commonwealth will hardly get pulses racing around
the country.
5. The enduring Churchillian notion that Britain
operates in three circles of power and influence was all very
well for 1948; it is not so useful for 2011. Those "hard"
power relationships (effectively just a list of Britain's key
allies at one historical juncture) need to sit alongside subtler,
sometimes more cautious diplomacy that takes account of what identity
Britain wants to express globally, and the values it wants to
lead in promoting on the world stage. Not all academics and think
tanks produce useless "theory" divorced from the "reality"
of the world situation; much current work is in fact directly
targeted at having policy relevance. There is a certain anti-intellectualism
within British society in general that pervades also some quarters
of government; compare to the US where the doors between policy
and academia are revolving constantly. This is not a call for
policy-makers to "use" academics to put a gloss or add
fake credibility to their policy pronouncements, but for a deep
and ongoing debate about British foreign policy in the spirit
of constructive engagement on both sides. In reconsidering how
to devise practical policy at the nexus of "power",
"identity" and "ethics", the FCO could deepen
its engagement with thinkers outside the department, especially
those critical of recent trends in British foreign policy, including
academics, pressure groups and Non Governmental Organisations.
Being "critical" does not mean that these "outsiders"
are hostile or opposed to "government". They are critical
because they care.
6. We should be wary of William Hague's claim
to be putting the FCO "back where it belongs at the centre
of Government" if it implies an attempt to recreate the
Victorian heyday of Empire via a revivified Commonwealth. Does
it matter if the FCO is not at the "centre of government"
(whatever that means) if it is helping Britain achieve its national
and international objectives? The British obsession with being
"central" to everything is starting to seem more than
passé, but outright anachronistic. Times have moved on
and new thinking is called for; not the solutions of the past.
The paradox in making such a claim is that Hague is simultaneously
parroting the government's obsession with the "network revolution",
picking up all the technological changes discussed in paragraph
1, above. Either things have changed, or they have not. And if
they have: what has changedand how? The nature of the changes
need spelling out because they will help us identify possible
solutions, and how the FCO can help. And if Hague believes they
have changed, then new ways of managing the FCO's role in contemporary
government are called for. Hague needs to spell out more clearly,
therefore, what he means by "where it belongs". It is
not obvious to me what he means by this.
7. Hague wants to take the FCO down two paths
with policy and personal ramifications. Both present major challenges
for the department. From a detailed reading of his speeches
since 2009 it appears that Hague first of all wants to involve
the FCO in supposedly "forgotten" areas of foreign policy,
notably relations with China, Russia, India, Brazil and so on
(the BRIC powers). I would venture that these were not forgotten
at all by New Labour, it is just that attention naturally came
to settle on the US, Iraq and other "flashpoints" in
Britain's external relations after 2001; note for instance the
landmark China Strategy document that was published near the end
of the New Labour years. Some organisational memory could help
Hague appreciate where New Labour took Britain and then the FCO
could, with him, discuss where best to go next and, critically,
think about why. Second, Hague wants to create a more equal
and effective partnership between Foreign Secretary and Prime
Minister. An admirable objective as far as he personally is concerned,
he also has the political weight and leadership experience to
pull it off. Something to consider for the future will be how
foreign secretaries with less political "clout" fare
when faced by an activist PM wanting to dabble in foreign policy
across the board. How can the FCO recognise this propensity in
a leader and maintain a constructive input to foreign policy decision-making
when faced with that scenario?
8. The two key departments of state, FCO and
Treasury, need to work more closely together to pursue shared
goals for Britain, especially as its trade relationships are
concerned. Brown's years at the Treasury effectively wrested control
over Britain's Euro policy from the PM and the FCO, severely curtailing
what might have been a more genuinely pro-European policy on the
part of the New Labour governments. Friction, mutual suspicion
and tension appear to have been the order of the day and this
damaged the government's ability to build a national consensus
around a European-focussed foreign policy. The FCO seems to work
well with DFID, so the two key points of focus for it now should
be to get its views heard earlier within Downing Street and greater,
more constructive dialogue going with the Treasury on matters
of shared importance. Within the FCO, meanwhile, junior ministers
should be given the opportunity to genuinely influence the debate.
It seems that this was not always the case under New Labour. For
example, how much impact did Ministers for Europe have on British
EU policy? Were they listened to, or just ignored? If someone
is worth a post of that significance, they are surely worth listening
to, and being asked to justify foreign policy in their realm of
expertise (see paragraph 11 below).
9. The FCO's network of overseas posts should
provide three things. First, advice and updates on the political
situation in the respective countries as they affect the British
national interest, materially or otherwise. Second, early warning
on specific policy challenges that may need meeting in the immediate
future in the country or region. Finally, insight into opportunities
for greater British involvement in the respective country, but
only in so far as that involvement will enhance Britain's clearly
conceptualised national interest via its foreign policy goals.
10. The challenges in explaining foreign policy
to the public are twofold: first, devising a coherent message
and second, getting the message across effectively. Ultimately,
however, it will be the government as a whole, not the FCO specifically,
that discharges an effective message about Britain's external
relations in their entirety; this requires careful co-ordination
across departments and crucially with the Communications unit
in Downing Street. Basically, most media attention is focussed
on what the PM says, followedalbeit a way behindby
what the Foreign Secretary and Chancellor say. New Labour badly
mixed its messages on foreign policy. It presented Britain as
a global player but did not define clearly what that meant. It
said it was a pro-European government but pandered to the Eurosceptical
press in denigrating many key aspects of the EU. It did not present
a clear appreciation of the history of the British national story
after 1945 and lacked the guts to present a European version consistently
and coherently. Fatally, it lost trust on the Iraq issue, particularly
after the "dodgy dossier" which undermined the public's
faith in the communications machinery. Had that been a first year
student undergraduate essay it would have failed, not least on
the grounds of part-plagiarism! Achieving a coherent message about
British foreign policy can only come when the FCO, Downing Street
and other interested parties have thought critically about the
conceptual basis of foreign policy, and where the government wants
to take Britain in the years ahead. The Churchill model will not
do.
11. The Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister
should jointly be tasked with presenting the government's vision
of British foreign policy, for example in keynote foreign
policy speeches in and around the time of the annual Lord Mayor's
Banquet speeches. They should be aided by the relevant junior
ministers where necessary (on that: does the public understand
the role of junior ministers? Raising their profile might show
more collective decision-making at work, as long as it is genuine
and not merely for show). On a technical note, in research for
my New Labour and the EU book the Foreign Office website during
the New Labour years was found to be very badly managed and difficult
to navigate. It proved almost impossible to locate speeches by
the Foreign Secretary compared to the ease with which they could
be located on the Treasury and Downing Street sites. The FCO website
should be much less "clunky". It is through the speeches
that the visions are communicated, mainly via the media and academics,
but also direct to the interested public. Set piece communications
events for targeted audiences in and outside the FCO only hit
a handful of people; it is the website that most people will encounter
on a day to day basis.
12. The question of ethics and wider government
objectives is sometimes phrased in a way that implies that attention
to the former "gets in the way of" the latter. This
need not be the case, and deeper attention to the conceptual
basis of foreign policy can act as a corrective to this simplistic
view of the place of ethics in contemporary foreign policy-making.
I quote here from the introduction (co-authored with Jamie Gaskarth)
to our forthcoming co-edited collection on British foreign policy
1997-2010: "If policymakers are going to pursue policies,
from measures against climate change and global terrorism to preventing
genocide and supporting economic development, they will have to
cooperate with a range of actors beyond the Commonwealth, Europe
and the Anglophone states. Some of these actors will have poor
human rights records, a different conception of world order and
society than the UK, and may be much more powerful than the UK,
militarily, economically and politically. Incorporating identity,
ethics and power into the decision-making process will allow the
decider to appreciate the full implications of policy both domestically
and internationally. Each will interact to allow a larger sense
of what the costs and benefits are of allying with powerful states
that do not share Britain's values, of pursuing 'ethical' interventions
abroad, of constructing a role for the UK in the world that places
it in a position of leadership and responsibility." In sum,
what we are saying in that book is that greater attention to the
ethical component of foreign policy is not a distraction from
the "real" issues of trade and security, but are fundamental
to Britain's ability to pursue its global objectives. Thinking
of ethics and the national interest in zero-sum terms does a disservice
to the synergistic relations between them and therefore obscures
the undoubtedly vital role Britain can play in leading on global
values. The problem for the FCO is making that case in an era
since Iraq and when the expenses scandal has further damaged the
faith of the public in what politicians say and do. Restoring
the public's "trust" in public servants could certainly
be aided by an upgrading of the ethical component as a driver
of British foreign policy because it could help generate a new
consensus around Britain's role in the world and help put some
of the shine back on Britain's tarnished image on the global stage.
A "good international citizen" has more credit in the
bank than a "bad" one, and such reputations can be won
and lost very easily, as the New Labour years demonstrated all
too effectively.
18 November 2010
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