National Security Situation

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this debate in a sense has three dimensions: one is to discuss the transformed security environment in which we see ourselves; the second is the transformed position of the UK in the world; and the third is the appropriate response.

I note that the first report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, published last month, refers to,

“major changes to the wider security environment (including the election of the Trump Administration … and the UK’s decision to leave the European Union); intensifying and diversifying threats to the UK’s security”.

The National Security Adviser told the committee that leaving the EU means that,

“the UK is now working in a ‘different context’ on foreign and security policy matters”.

The committee quotes Sir John Sawers, a former National Security Adviser, in an interview with Prospect magazine, concluding that the combined effect of an erratic and distracted Washington and withdrawing from the EU required a major reformulation of the UK’s role in the world. He said:

“One thing I don’t think we can accept is Britain adrift. A Britain without a major strategic anchor in the world”.


The report goes on to note the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, the rising asymmetric threats from Russia and the increasingly assertive nature of Chinese foreign and security policy, as well as rising cyber criminal and terrorist threats. It could have noted also the long-term threat of disorder and conflict in Africa, combined with the continuing population increase on that continent, leading to an uncontrollable flow of refugees and migrants northwards across the Mediterranean. That represents the real long-term threat of immigration, not the prospect of a limited increase in Poles and Romanians coming to Britain.

The Government’s answer to calls for a new international strategy to fit the changing international context has been to talk about a “global Britain”. The Foreign Secretary has spelled that out a little by referring to a return to east of Suez, 50 years after we left, sending an aircraft carrier group through the Malacca Strait into the South China Sea and strengthening what he calls our two major bases in Bahrain and Diego Garcia.

Last month, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the other place published a report on global Britain which said:

“The most frequent complaint we have heard from several witnesses is that the only thing that is clear about Global Britain is that it is unclear what is means, what it stands for or how its success should be measured”.


The report goes on:

“No minister during our inquiry was able to give the Committee a definitive explanation of ‘Global Britain’”.


Just last week, the committee published a further report to try to flesh out what the concept of global Britain means for the Commonwealth, since the Foreign Secretary himself has failed to do so. I note here that the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office told the committee that the Commonwealth is not a top priority for the FCO, saying that although it is a very important organisation to the United Kingdom, it is,

“not as important, in the next period, as the neighbourhood”—

by which of course he means the European continent—

“China or the United States”.

There are elements of illusion in UK government policy across the board. Yesterday, we heard the Secretary of State for Transport telling us that there will be absolutely no problems in border control and so on when we leave the European Union because it was so clearly in the interest of those on the continent to maintain open borders with the UK. Liam Fox assures us that we are absolutely committed to free trade and that China and India are waiting to be helpful to us, even though both countries have spelled out their hard determination to defend their interests and strike a hard bargain. The Prime Minister herself talks about the importance of the Commonwealth, while the British Government do their best to deport long-term Commonwealth residents.

How does the concept of a global Britain apply to the Middle East, given the multiple conflicts and challenges in that region? The immediate focus for this debate is of course the Syrian conflict, but we are all aware of the potential for that conflict to spill over into the rest of the region given the number of outside actors involved. In the next four weeks, as we have heard in various briefings, we have the possibility that, on 12 May, President Trump will refuse to renew the US waiver on sanctions on Iran. We also have in May the 70th anniversary of Israeli independence, and the demonstrations in Gaza will continue and build up to that. There are elections in Lebanon—we all know how sensitive those can be—and now we have the announcement of an election in Turkey, intended to consolidate further President Erdoğan’s authoritarian regime.

What is Britain’s response to the many instabilities of the region, beyond selling as many arms as possible to the Sunni Gulf monarchies and providing logistical support to Saudi weapons systems operating over Yemen? Can the Minister tell us: what is the strategic rationale for expanding the British naval base in Bahrain? Are we, in effect, committing ourselves to the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shia divide in the region by accepting the Bahraini Government’s offer to pay for the expansion of the base? Are Her Majesty’s Government still pursuing an active dialogue with the Iranians, as we should be doing, in spite of the difficulties of dealing with that regime? Do Her Majesty’s Government intend to increase the UK’s military commitment to the Gulf further, including by stationing a carrier group there for extended periods when available, as the Foreign Secretary has suggested? If so, what will be the strategic rationale for that?

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in opening this debate, spoke of British global leadership and our robust international partnerships—although leadership on our own and working in partnership with others are not entirely compatible approaches to Britain’s role in the world. The concept of global Britain, as I understand it, is about an image of Britain standing alone, in the lead and at the head of the Commonwealth, apart from the merely European powers on the continent. We should remember that, in negotiating the joint agreement with Iran, we operated very helpfully and very successfully as part of the E3, in collaboration with the Russians, the Americans and others. Next week, I note, the E2—the leaders of France and Germany—will go to Washington to speak for Europe with the United States. Britain will be apart; we will be absent.

Geoffrey Howe, a foreign secretary of an entirely different quality from the present incumbent of that post, used to speak about the sharing of sovereignty, rather than the assertion of exceptional sovereignty. The rationale for the Syrian airstrike was, after all, the British commitment to maintaining a liberal international order, defending with others and in partnership with others the global rule of law. That is something that we on these Benches entirely and strongly support, although we are not entirely sure that such a position is consistent with the rejection of participation in our regional international order and with the particular objection that so many Conservatives appear to have to the regional rule of law, as represented by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.

Withdrawal from the European Union’s well-developed structures for co-ordinating foreign policy, defence policy and intelligence will weaken Britain’s robust international partnerships. I note that the report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy says that withdrawal will unavoidably weaken co-operation and intelligence, among other matters. Of course, all the more important co-operation will be in a darker international environment than it seemed two to three years ago, when we were discussing whether we stayed or left. The Government have so far said almost nothing about how they will manage future co-operation with our European partners, although the Prime Minister, in her Mansion House speech, tantalisingly suggested that we now wished to stay within the European Defence Agency—something which Liam Fox, when Secretary of State for Defence, was determined to take Britain out of, so at least that is a minor shift forward. Can the Minister say when the Government will inform Parliament and the public of their plans to continue co-operation in one form or another? I think there are 40 working groups in the common foreign policy and security network, which we will no longer be part of. My noble friend Lord Campbell has already raised the question of what our future relationship with PESCO will be.

The Government have talked about a new security treaty for internal security co-operation, necessary when we leave, to ensure that we remain within those structures. Do the Government begin to see the need for a new treaty to ensure that in foreign policy and security we will continue to co-operate? Perhaps he would like to reinvent the western European Union—from years of old, which only a few of us can still remember—providing at least some sort of mechanism for Britain outside the European Union in discussing these matters with others. We need something here. We need the Government to tell us what they intend. Without this, our international partnerships will become a good deal less robust than the Minister was suggesting.