King’s Speech

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I thank the Minister for a thoughtful introduction to the debate and I warmly welcome that the response will come from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—the hero of our Rwanda debates. The House is well aware that Portobello Road in London is so called to celebrate Admiral Vernon’s great victory in 1739. I expect Rwanda Road to follow soon.

It was an Anglophile Dutch statesman who once said that there are only two kinds of European countries—those that are medium-sized powers and those that have not yet realised that they are medium-sized powers. I like the Labour manifesto’s call for a “progressive but realistic” foreign policy. I think we may be turning the page. After the bombast and bluster, there was a mature modesty—welcomed abroad—in the manifesto promise that we will be

“a reliable partner, a dependable ally, and a good neighbour”.

The Prime Minister has made an excellent start, and the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, suggests that there will be a responsible, helpful Opposition.

But, to be honest, there was not much realism about Ukraine in the election—about how much we will have to spend helping Ukraine and remedying our hollowed-out Armed Forces. The fact is that the war in Ukraine is not being won and, if it were lost, President Putin would not stop there. We are in a 1938 situation. It is not just Ukraine’s security at stake; it is ours. I believe that, if told the truth about what is at stake and what we must do, the country would not baulk at the bill. I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, to his new role. He is well known here and at NATO for telling hard truths, and I hope that he will do so.

Looking further afield, and here I pick up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, I hope that Labour realises how much the world has changed since the party was last in office and how much we have lost the global South. In 1990, when Kuwait was invaded, the UN resolution to condemn Saddam Hussein carried unanimously. In 2022, when Ukraine was invaded, while only four countries supported President Putin, 35 chose not to condemn him. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that the 35 included representatives of over half the population of the Commonwealth. Since then, the arithmetic has worsened with our refusing to condemn what is seen as genocide in Gaza and our ignoring what is happening in the Horn of Africa, where more are dying than in Ukraine and Gaza put together. We are seen as being hypocritical. The diplomatic disaster of March 2022 should have been a wake-up call.

What lessons should the Labour Government draw? First, it was unwise to hollow out our diplomatic posts in the global South; the Chinese did not. Secondly, cutting the BBC World Service was a false economy; RT in Moscow and CGTN in Beijing are expanding—no more cuts to the World Service, please. But there is a bigger underlying cause for the West’s declining influence in what is seen as our hypocrisy. The manifesto asserts that we will

“work with allies to build, strengthen and reform”

the global multilateral institutions. Quite—that is the point. The UN Security Council composition reflects the realities of half a century ago. The IMF director is still always a European. The World Bank president is still always an American. America rejects the ICC and paralyses the WTO court. The dollar’s exorbitant privilege is evermore resented. The bill for fighting global warming is seen as unfairly skewed, and western diplomatic aid is shrinking and comes with too many patronising strings and costly consultants.

There are some—the disrupters—who reject the whole idea of international law, but most of the global South follow the Chinese and want reform. They want rules that are modernised, and so should we. If the Labour Government are up to that challenge, progressive realism will mean something very important.