Foreign Affairs: Global Role, Emerging Powers and New Markets

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Swynnerton]

My Lords, I, too, express my regret at the passing of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, who has given a good example to us all; of passing from power, that is to say. I think I first met him 50 years ago in Washington at the time of the missile crisis. I cannot now remember whether it was before or after 13 October, but it was certainly at that time.

I sometimes think that we would all be served if the Government were obliged to make an annual statement on foreign policy, along the lines of the command papers characterising our defence, which for many years we looked forward to receiving. The Foreign Office would have to consider carefully exactly what it was doing and why. The statement would point out, perhaps, that Britain’s foreign policy is the experience of someone who has membership of about six clubs. No other country in the world, not even France, has such a diversity of loyalty.

We are members of the UN and of course of the Security Council. We are the essential brooch in the chain of the Commonwealth countries. We are a member of NATO, whose charter was drafted by British public servants. Fourthly, we are a member—if now a rather reluctant member in many cases—of the European Union, which promises to turn eventually into something like a federal state; a new Holy Roman Empire. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, pointed out in a fine speech in October, that likely development demands careful consideration as to our right course by both sceptics and by enthusiasts such as myself. Fifthly, we have separate, deep friendships with a number of countries: the United States of course, France, Portugal and many countries of Latin America, which very often glow with enthusiasm at the thought of us, because of the assistance we gave them during the 19th century. It is true that we fought Argentina in the late 20th century, but it remains in most people’s minds as:

“The purple land that England lost”,

in the words of the great writer WH Hudson. That we have to balance so many commitments partly explains our occasional difficulties. There are moments when that balance seems impossible, such as when Mr Blair decided to support the United States in the war in Iraq.

We know that our membership of all these great clubs assists us in selling our products but there is one aim in foreign policy that is probably more important than anything else, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has pointed out on several occasions. That is to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons and, if we fail to secure that, at least ensure that they are not used. What we are currently seeing in respect of the civil war in Syria perhaps gives some lessons as to how we should conduct ourselves. The use of nuclear, not chemical, weapons—horrible though the latter undoubtedly are also—would lead to a catastrophe of unprecedented dimensions, and there is no more important aim facing humanity than to prevent such a thing at all costs.

A third preoccupation, naturally, is to prevent local problems such as might occur at any time in the near East or Middle East from becoming a war that could draw us in, either by the extension of terrorism or by some ramification of it.

Fourthly, we should promote the emulation of our democratic political system, as opposed to the oriental despotism that still characterises so much of Asia and Africa, although the experience of Germany in 1933 shows that the rule of law is just as important as the right to vote.

Fifthly, we should tell the world that the only economic system that works well, in our opinion, is one where the state leaves a lot of economics to itself. That is what Hernando de Soto, the brilliant Peruvian, preaches in his famous book, The Other Path, as well as what was done by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, all her life.

Sixthly, we should recall—and not be shy about it—that our literature is overall our greatest export, especially, I think, our poetry. Once the governor of Oaxaca in Mexico asked for my approval in advance for a speech that he was about to make at a lunch in honour of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. The governor wanted to say, “We admire England for two reasons: Portland Cement and John Milton”. “Yes,” I said, “but put it the other way around”. “You are right,” said the governor, and he did so.