Gulf States: Human Rights

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We have mentioned Bahrain, but I have been focused personally on the issue of human rights defenders, particularly in the area of press freedoms, in another country, which is Turkey. I can reassure the noble Lord that we have been working very closely with organisations such as Amnesty International to ensure that the important principle of press freedom is very clearly understood as part of the human rights priorities that the UK Government articulate across the world.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, Bahrain is the major British base in the Gulf now. The Government of Bahrain have paid for the expansion of that base. I must say that I think it is a rather odd relationship, which makes Britain, in many ways, dependent on the Government of Bahrain. How far does that inhibit our Government in criticising the Government of Bahrain for the way they treat the majority of their population?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We have, as the noble Lord knows, a range of relationships and we build alliances. On Bahrain, I think that relationship is strong. Yes, we do have a defence alliance with Bahrain, and it is an ally in the Gulf, but because of the strength of that relationship we are not deterred from raising the issues of human rights, whatever the abuses may be, candidly, very clearly and in a very honest manner with our Bahraini counterparts.

United States: Foreign Policy

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting and constructive debate with remarkable consensus across the House. Almost everyone agrees with what the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Robertson, said about Iran, for example. I hope it does not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that we are very much of one view on that.

There are three interconnected themes: first, the changes in the United States and the impact of President Trump; secondly, how we maintain the threatened liberal international order; and thirdly, the implications for British foreign policy. On the United States, I think most of us agree that the changes to which we have to adjust are longer term than President Trump and that Trump highlights and, we hope, exaggerates some of the underlying trends.

When I first went to the United States in 1962, I began to learn that the Atlantic community was between the east coast of the United States and Britain and western Europe. In those days Texas was not so important; Massachusetts and Pennsylvania mattered much more. Now, California, Texas and Florida are fundamental to American foreign policy and Asian-Americans and Latin-Americans are as important as the old, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were. The discontented white Anglo-Saxon Protestants form part of Trump’s core vote.

The special relationship is a great deal less special than it was. I remember in 1967 taking my then-girlfriend, now wife, around Washington with her list of people who had worked with her parents in the war. They all turned out to be senior people either in intelligence agencies or the State Department. For that American generation, that was part of their formation. They had spent four years in European war. That has gone. People in the United States are much more likely now to have travelled somewhere else. They do not instinctively look to Europe. Our consensus, however, is that in spite of President Trump and all these trends, the United States remains the indispensable power for a liberal international order and we need to maintain our governmental and political exchanges with the United States in spite of the blizzard of dreadful Twitter messages.

On a liberal international order, I congratulate the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, on his maiden speech and the number of very insightful things that he said such as,

“stability and a rule-based global order do not occur naturally”.

We have to fight for them. We have to keep them going. We have to have an active foreign policy with others to maintain it against all the efforts of authoritarian states to undermine it. He also said that a liberal international order has to be a more inclusive world community.

When I hear US Republicans talking about the importance of Winston Churchill, I remember that the Atlantic charter, the basis for a liberal international order, was mainly written by Roosevelt and his assistants and signed by Churchill. US Republicans have scrubbed Roosevelt completely out of the picture. They like Churchill as a great world leader but want to shunt Roosevelt off because he believed that welfare and freedom from want—other dimensions of democracy—were equally important.

It is important that we remember that because globalisation, as we have discovered in the past 30 years, spreads inequality into our countries and therefore fuels populism. I remember reading an excellent book by the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, in which he says that globalisation may not be compatible in the long run with democracy and, if we have to choose, we have to choose democracy.

That is a matter for another debate but it raises some very awkward questions for those such as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who are quite fond of a network world. When many of those who use the network come from corrupt and authoritarian regimes and launder their money through London and elsewhere, it is not easy for us to maintain our liberal values, let alone spread them further out.

Then we come to the implications for British foreign policy. I feel a degree of underlying uncertainty as to what British foreign policy is. In his best diplomatic way, the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, suggested that he was not entirely sure what “global Britain” means. That confusion is shared by all of us. It is rather like “deep and special” and “strong and stable”. It is a very convenient phrase to use when you do not want to explain what you mean, and that is part of the problem with British foreign policy today.

The underlying concern was expressed strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. He mentioned the,

“savage amputation of our international diplomatic capacity”,

cutbacks in the Foreign Office, our embassies and the Diplomatic Service, and a loss of direction in our foreign policy as such.

Winston Churchill, after all, defined British foreign policy as being based on three circles—the transatlantic, the European and the Commonwealth. We are presently disengaging from the European circle, without yet any information from the Government as to how we will maintain that relationship after we leave the European Union. We operate our diplomacy through 40 working groups underneath European common foreign and security policy. I am told that during the Arab spring the Political and Security Committee, in which we take a major part in Brussels, met almost daily for several weeks and the number of Foreign Ministers’ Councils was sharply raised.

I am also told that the British and the Germans are the ones who most regularly send diplomatic messages round within the European Union. We will cut ourselves out of that unless we come to some other arrangement. The Government have so far said nothing on that, except that we had a position paper last September which in detail told us how much we had gained in foreign policy and defence co-operation over the last 30 years precisely from this co-operation with our European partners. On the importance of British-French defence co-operation, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, that when I was in the coalition Government, I was well aware that Liam Fox was making active efforts to ensure that as few people as possible knew how important Franco-British defence co-operation was. That was not very helpful and part of the problem that we face. There is a gap between public understanding and the analysis of where we are.

For the past 40 years, we have worked through all that. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, remarked on the importance of EU3 on Iran. It was extremely effective, together with the high representative—the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton—and it is not clear how we will maintain that either. We will not meet our opposite numbers as easily, regularly and naturally as before, so we will have to find some new arrangement that is so far undefined.

The day before yesterday, a number of noble Lords complained that they had not understood that Europe was a political project. Of course it was a political project. It came out of the last major war. It was a project to provide European security and—as Mrs Thatcher used to say, including in her Bruges speech—to extend democracy. We have extended it successfully across eastern Europe.

The uncertainties of British foreign policy should concern us all. I listened to Boris Johnson’s speech in Chatham House in December 2016 in which he announced that it was the first of a series of speeches that he would make on the redefinition of the strategy of British foreign policy. I have searched several times since then—I asked the Library to assist me—to discover which speeches he had since made on the strategy of British foreign policy. I regret to tell the Minister that I have been unable to discover them, and so has the Library. Perhaps he could help me and even provide a list of those speeches for other noble Lords who have contributed to these debates.

The consensus across the House about British foreign policy seems to be entirely clear. The United States remains important. France, Germany and other European actors are also vital. The Commonwealth is an asset, although we should not overplay what sort of an asset the Commonwealth is. But we do not quite know what the Government think on all this, least of all how they will maintain the European circle alongside the American circle after we leave the European Union.

Georgia

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord may well be aware—I have already alluded to it—of a recent bilateral meeting between our Prime Minister and the Georgian Prime Minister. We continue to support Georgian efforts within Georgia itself on the specific issues he raised on enhancing and securing the democracy that is currently in play. We want to further ensure its sustainability. Indeed, we are providing additional funding in the region of £5.5 million to support it. We stand behind Georgian integrity. We make that point to the Georgians bilaterally and we have made it clear in our interactions with the Russians. We continue to do it through all international engagement, including in the EU.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall how much British policy towards Georgia in the 26 years since it became independent has been closely co-ordinated with other EU member states? I recall, on one visit to Tbilisi, being invited by the British ambassador to sit in on one of these meetings in which EU ambassadors were drafting a joint report. I know that they had joint meetings with local Russian representatives, with the OSCE and with the Georgian Government. When will the Government explain to Parliament how they will organise continuing co-ordination with our European partners, with whom we share very common interests in this area, after we leave the European Union?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As the noble Lord will be aware from his own experience, it is not just our relationship through the EU. That will remain important once we leave the EU, but those relationships continue through other fora as well, such as membership of NATO—there are alliances there—and through the Security Council. France is a notable and permanent member and we can have candid discussions with other permanent members, such as Russia, which has a key influence in Georgia. I assure the noble Lord—indeed, the whole House—that we will continue to strengthen our international relationships, not just in Georgia. Where we need to work constructively, progressively and proactively with European partners we will continue to do so.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Ministerial Guidance

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I draw attention not to myself but, in looking to my right and around this Chamber, I am sure that all noble Lords would acknowledge the tremendous service to this Government that my predecessors have given as Ministers of State in the Foreign Office. My noble friends Lord Howell, Lady Warsi and Lady Anelay are examples of how the voice of the Foreign Office is heard not just in this House but across—oh! The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is perhaps casting aspersions on my performance; that remains to be seen.

The noble Lord raises an important point about international issues. I draw his attention and that of my noble friend to the statement given by Ambassador Rycroft at the United Nations, where we stood side by side with other European nations to make clear our position on the issue of east Jerusalem. I understand that that question was raised here. We remain consistent with all Governments in saying that we need a two-state solution where the capital of Jerusalem is shared by both states. That point has been made consistently by all Governments of all sides. We should focus on challenges facing the Foreign Office such as retaining the nuclear deal with Iran. The Foreign Secretary has led the way in ensuring that balance, communication and contact is retained on an international front on that very important issue.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Israeli press comment on the recent visit was rather critical, and I have seen many other critical comments on the Foreign Secretary’s performance in other foreign media over the last year. Can the Minister try to redress the balance by telling us about the Foreign Secretary’s close, mutually confident relationships with any particular senior Ministers of foreign Governments?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

If I started talking about the Foreign Secretary’s close and constructive relationships—there are many I could name—I fear it would take us beyond the 30-minute limit. We shall be coming to the subject later, but I can say briefly that the Foreign Secretary has just returned from a very important and constructive visit to Iran and the Middle East, where I am sure noble Lords will agree that we have important relationships. He is leading from the front in ensuring that those relationships are not just sustained but strengthened.

Permanent Structured Cooperation

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Let me assure the noble Lord that we continue to partake in discussions about this. I agree with his points about the cornerstone of the alliance and particularly the work of NATO to ensure not just peace and security across Europe but its benefits further afield as well. It is essential that, as the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, whatever partnership its remaining members choose to take forward, opportunities remain for co-operation directly with NATO of which the United Kingdom is an important and pivotal part.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall the position paper published only a couple of months ago on our constructive and useful co-operation with the EU in foreign policy and defence during the last 40 years, which left open the question of how we shall continue it? Does this development not make it more urgent for the Government to spell out how they will do this? Does he not agree that the Foreign Secretary’s response that we welcome it, we wish to co-operate and our relationship will be like that of a flying buttress to a cathedral—a very overused phrase intended to confuse us all—was inadequate?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary was reiterating the importance of our continued relationship with the European Union while we remain a member of it, but also that we want a different but strong partnership with it once we leave. That includes these two important areas of defence and security, which we have just touched on and in which the UK has led the way. We are making our view known that an option should remain within Permanent Structured Cooperation in those areas of defence and security for third countries to join at an appropriate time for whatever projects are perceived to be of mutual importance to both—be it NATO and, say, this new organisation, in whatever shape or form it takes. This would allow the UK to continue to co-operate with European partners after we leave the EU.

Daesh: Raqqa

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the noble Lord, most certainly on his final point—the Government, as he knows, take very seriously the need to hold them to account. Just to put this in context, the number quoted also includes the families. The deal was known to the SDF, in particular, and was a local tribal deal. The purpose behind the evacuation was to minimise the loss of civilian lives in the fall of Raqqa, particularly those of women and young children. To track Daesh fighters we are continuing to use all agencies on the ground and to work with the coalition of 73 countries, including several neighbouring countries, to ensure that those who are seeking to leave the conflict zone in Syria and in Iraq are held accountable locally. If foreign fighters seek to return to the UK, there is due process in place to ensure that they are held to account for their crimes abroad.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The Minister will have heard the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, say 10 minutes ago that we continue to play a pivotal role in operations against Daesh. The presence of coalition aircraft over the convoy, as reported on BBC News, suggests that at least some leading members of the coalition knew what was going on and, perhaps, must have been involved in the conflict. Is he saying that we were not playing a pivotal role in this?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend made the point that we continue to be at the heart and centre of the fight against Daesh in both Syria and Iraq. I think that some of the media reports were speculative. However, to put the noble Lord’s question into context, the deal was not not known to people as there were two press releases at the time highlighting that the evacuation was taking place. It was not a question of not knowing. We continue to monitor all aspects of any Daesh fighters fleeing from the territory. We continue to monitor their movements very closely.

Middle East (IRC Report)

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and the committee on this excellent report. I welcome the Minister to his new post and very much hope that he will continue the occasional briefings that his predecessors had for Members of the House of Lords; I suggest that some of the issues in the Middle East might be a very strong candidate for such a briefing.

I am not a Middle East expert, and I learned a lot from this report, including about the incoherence of British responses to the changes which are under way. It sets out very clearly the underlying instability of the region, the rapid rise in its population, with unemployed but educated young people, and the rapid transition from traditional society to cities and mass communication in one or, at the most, two generations. It has weak states, mostly run by old men or military men, but now some Gulf states are run by young men in a hurry. The Arab spring was a failed attempt at transition away from autocratic regimes, but the conditions that led to those popular eruptions across the region are still there and unresolved and are likely to create further eruptions.

Climate change threatens to make the situation worse. The likelihood of outward migration on a large scale is there for multiple reasons: refugees, economic migrants and the politically discontented. Migration from the Middle East and North Africa, not from eastern Europe, is the long-term immigration challenge that the UK and other European states face, unlike what Migration Watch UK and the leave campaign have been trying to sell to the British public over recent years.

The report also sets out very well the loss of western influence and the limits of British influence. After all, Britain’s moment in the Middle East ended 60 years ago with the disastrous intervention in Suez. The report does not go very far into the influence of Middle East states and elites in Britain, but the complexities of the relationship work both ways. Qatari, Kuwaiti and other Gulf investment in London property and British banks and companies is highly visible. The personal links between Gulf royal families and others and British high society is evident to anyone who goes to Royal Ascot or walks through Belgravia and goes into its restaurants. The question of who is influencing whom is not easy to determine.

At the other end of the social scale, there is a significant flow of influence and finance to Muslim communities within the UK. Saudi and Salafi influence within Pakistan flows indirectly back into British cities, mosques and madrassahs. The diversity of our British Muslim community means that conflicts across the Muslim world risk spilling over into our own country with attacks on Ahmadis or Shias in our cities. Much of the Turkish community in London is Kurdish, and some is Alevi. In Britain, Arabs and Turks, Iranians and Kurds breathe the freer air and plot peaceful or revolutionary change at home to the concern of their autocratic Governments at home. So we cannot disengage, but we have to recognise, as the report makes clear, that we have limited influence on our own and must work with others—above all, as the report suggests, with other major European states, mainly France and Germany, and, in so far as we can with the volatility of the Trump Administration’s policies, the United States.

The latest crisis is that between Qatar and rest of the GCC. Some of us are quite worried that this could become a long-term breach. For example, there have been suggestions from ambassadors of the UAE, which were reported in our newspapers, that third countries may after a while have to choose whether they wish to trade with Qatar or with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is not at all in our interests to have to make choices like that. Given Saudi claims that Qatar is the main sponsor of terrorism across the Middle East, the case for publication, at least in part, of the UK government report on the Muslim Brotherhood and on Saudi support for radical groups in the UK and elsewhere is now even stronger than before. Will the Minister say what the Government’s intentions are on this? If we are to understand and respond to the comments and lobbying that some of us are getting about the positions we take on this dispute, it would help a great deal to have some sense of the Government’s interpretation of the Saudi record. There were promises to Liberal Democrats before and after the 2015 election that these reports would be provided. At the very least, we need a confidential briefing for parliamentarians. I note that this report supports a cautious dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a rather different position to the hard lines adopted over the past week or two by Dubai and Riyadh, and is cautiously critical of Saudi support for Wahhabi approaches to Islam in other Muslim states. I recently read a very worrying article in the Atlantic magazine on King Salman’s recent visit to Indonesia and the influence which the Saudis have had in Indonesia in changing the tolerant attitude which Islam has had to other faiths and to different varieties of Islam into a much less tolerant version.

There is a real danger that the UK will end up too closely aligned with the Sunni Gulf states in their political and sectarian conflict with Iran. I note that a number of noble Lords say that it is a fundamentally political not sectarian conflict, but when it reaches the ground, some Sunni kill Shia, so it unavoidably becomes deeply sectarian. The report again recommends a cautious but positive approach to Iran, encouraging the moderate and open elements in that country’s complex political system against the hard-liners. Iran is a major potential trade partner and a necessary element in any more stable Middle East. British Conservatives should not fall in behind US Republicans in their obsession with Iran as a global threat, which is itself fuelled by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government in Israel.

The next crisis in the region will be over the future of Iraq and Syria after the defeat of Daesh, with Turks, Kurds of different factions and from different regions, Iranians, Saudis, Qataris, Russians and Americans all with different preferences to push. Britain, again, will have only limited influence but will be affected by what happens, and our influence will best be exercised in co-operation with our European allies.

The report is rightly critical of the confusions of British policy towards the region and of Britain’s failure to adjust. Boris Johnson’s speech last December on returning “east of Suez” was a blast of imperial nostalgia that had no strategic rationale behind it. Why are we expanding our military footprint in the Gulf? Is it to join the GCC states in containing—or even fighting—Iran, to impress the Americans with our claim still to be a global power, to compete with the French in selling arms to the Gulf states, or what? Was it wise to accept the Bahraini Government’s offer to pay for an expansion of our naval base there, which must look to the majority Shia population of Bahrain as a British commitment to defending the current regime against future change? The Government promised us a Gulf strategy paper before the end of last year. It has not appeared, presumably because there is no coherent Gulf strategy. Can the Minister tell us what plans the Government have to publish such a strategy?

The report notes that Brexit makes UK foreign policy more dependent on relations with other regions outside Europe and that Liam Fox, as International Trade Secretary, sees enormous potential for further growth in economic interdependence with the Middle East, above all with the Gulf states. But the report also notes time and again that we have to work with others and that it will be wise to co-ordinate our approaches as closely as possible with France and Germany—as the UK government did successfully in the nuclear negotiations with Iran.

I worry about the incoherence of government policy towards the Middle East almost as much as I worry about its incoherence towards the European region. It is still operating on the assumption that we should follow the United States as closely as we can and still sees ourselves as wiser and more global than other European states. I wish that government policy were closer to that which this report recommends.

India: Extremism

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the Prime Minister referred to reports of violent offences when she visited India in the first bilateral overseas visit after she became Prime Minister last summer to show the importance that we ascribe to our relations with India. The reports have also been raised more recently by my honourable friend the Minister for Asia when an Indian Minister visited this country. So we will continue to raise those issues. It is for the benefit of both countries that we develop our trade relationship—but, as I mentioned earlier, it is our firm belief that good relations and strong human rights are the underpinning for successful economic development.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that what happens between faith communities in other countries can spill over into the UK, particularly when we have diaspora communities? We have a significant Indian community in Bradford. They are mainly Gujarati. Some are Muslim, some are Hindu. Relations are good, but on other occasions and with other faiths we have seen how, when events in the countries from which their ancestors came worsen, relations in this country can worsen. I pay tribute to the excellent work that the Minister has done on interfaith issues in this country. Is this not something with which the Government should engage, and should they not point out to the Indian Government that this is not a matter simply for them?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, with regards to the diaspora, ensuring that there are good community relations is a serious issue. How could I think otherwise coming from Woking, where such a significant proportion of the community brings with them the strength of their background in the Punjab and enriches our community? It is important that, across the United Kingdom, faith should join us, not break us up.

Russia

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I would say many things about the European Union, but I would never call it ineffectual. It is because of some of its effects, perhaps, that the British people decided that they wished to leave the European Union when they cast their votes last year. With regard to the specific issue of ethnic minorities, as I made clear in my Answer, we are a strong supporter of human rights. We will continue to argue that point in our relationship with Russia.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, given the importance of co-ordinating our relations with Russia with our European partners, particularly with regard to Ukraine and the other countries round Russia’s western border, how do the Government intend to maintain that close co-ordination as we withdraw from the mechanisms of European foreign policy co-operation?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, on a previous occasion I have been able to make it clear that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is already putting in place the opportunity to expand our network throughout the other member states of the European Union. Our bilateral relationships should therefore remain strong and develop to be even stronger as and when we leave the European Union.

Brexit: UK International Relations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the report and the work of the new committee. I welcome, too, its reiteration of the UK’s commitment to the preservation and strengthening of the liberal global order, to the UN and the international institutions of the UN family, and to the extensive framework of international law, including the global human rights regime, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is so actively engaged.

International law, courts and institutions of course constrain national sovereignty. Successive UK Governments have accepted the trade-off that treaties and international norms share sovereignty and build an open international order. Now it appears that we have a US Administration who reject many of the constraints of global institutions and international law. That puts Britain in opposition to the current thrust of US foreign policy and I very much hope, as we all do, that the Prime Minister will be robust in warning President Trump of the dangers of his approach.

Although British Conservatives support global law and institutions, they reject the constraints of the strongest and most effective regional order. They uphold global human rights but passionately reject the invasion of British sovereignty by the European human rights regime. There are uncomfortable parallels between what drives the Trump Administration’s antagonism to the UN and the British right’s antagonism to the EU.

I was struck by the warnings in paragraphs 183 to 199 on the potentially negative impact of Brexit on the UK’s influence within the UN and the limitations of the Commonwealth as a potential alternative framework. The EU has evolved into one of the most effective groups within the UN and has thus been a valuable asset to the British global influence. We are now abandoning that diplomatic framework.

Since we are also debating the UK’s international relations in the light of Brexit, I have looked for declarations by senior Ministers on British foreign policy in recent months. There has been remarkably little beyond empty repetitions that by becoming a much less European Britain we will somehow become a more global Britain, which is a bit like saying “Brexit means Brexit”. Boris Johnson’s Chatham House speech on 2 December, however, promised that it was,

“the first in a series of speeches setting out our foreign policy strategy”.

However, it was not very strategic. It spent more time discussing the fate of the African elephant than the future pattern of co-operation on international issues with our European neighbours, and indeed more time on the resonance of Harry Potter novels for children in south Asia. There was much discussion of the British involvement in Afghanistan over the past 200 years, but no reference to the centrality to British foreign policy, since before the English state became the United Kingdom, of relations with France, the Netherlands, Spain and Scandinavia. The most he would say was that Britain would be a “flying buttress” to the European church—whatever that may mean, and I suspect he does not know himself.

However, Mr Johnson repeated the old Tony Blair line that Britain is,

“a bridge between Europe and America”,

and that we are,

“at the centre of a network of relationships and alliances that span the world”,

in which,

“people around the world are looking for a lead from Britain”.

Mr Johnson wrote a book on Winston Churchill, which had mixed reviews, and he should know that Churchill’s concept of the UK at the centre of a network of relationships depended on our retaining a key role in the European circle as well as in the transatlantic relationship and in what Churchill called “the British Commonwealth and Empire”. Cut the European dimension out of Winston Churchill’s “three circles” concept, and our position in the world is sharply diminished.

The only substantial speech by Mr Johnson that I can find since then was given at a conference in Delhi on 21 January. He made no mention in it of the Commonwealth, in the capital of what had been the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, probably because he had been told by his staff that the Indian Government are not enthusiastic about returning to a subordinate role in a British-led network. There was much in the speech on Scotch whisky exports and about the “pesky” tariffs that India imposes to limit them, but how nevertheless India and the UK stand together in their commitment to free trade. “Pesky” is a term that I last came across when I was a boy reading comics, and it is interesting that that is the language that our Foreign Secretary still uses. He continued,

“we have just decided to restore our military presence east of Suez with a £3 billion commitment over ten years and a naval support facility in Bahrain. We have a commitment to the whole world … And as our naval strength increases in the next ten years”—

the noble Lord, Lord West, will be very glad—

“including two new aircraft carriers, we will be able to make a bigger contribution. In the Indian Ocean, we have a joint UK-US facility on Diego Garcia—an asset that is vital for our operations in the region”.

It is exactly 50 years since Harold Wilson’s Labour Government announced the UK’s withdrawal from east of Suez on the grounds that it no longer made any sense to continue to defend an empire that had now been given its freedom. Boris Johnson is too young to remember that: he was only three at the time. We maintained our presence across the Indian Ocean then with a fleet that included between 35 and 40 frigates, against the 16 we have now, as well as bases in Aden and Singapore. The Foreign Secretary claimed that Diego Garcia is a vital UK, as well as US, facility. Perhaps the Minister can remind us how many UK military personnel we have there—the last time that I was told, I think there were two; perhaps there are now four—and whether any British military assets are based there. This image of the world is not about taking back control, it is about taking Britain back to the 1960s, boys’ comics included.

Now we have the PM going to the USA to tell President Trump, according to the media this morning, that “together we can lead the world”—a phrase straight out of Daniel Hannan’s book on how the Anglo-Saxons invented freedom and the modern world. Is Theresa May going to attempt the same subordinate relationship as Tony Blair pursued with George W Bush? Does she share the same illusion that Anglo-Saxon Americans love Britain above all others, and that clinging to American coat tails gives us global status superior to the international roles of Germany and France?

Independence from Europe; dependence on the United States. Commitment to a liberal international order, but dependence on a Republican Administration who are against many of the assumptions of that international order. That is not a coherent strategy for a post-Brexit foreign policy.