British Foreign Policy After Brexit: An Independent Voice

CONTENTS

Title Page

Introduction

Part 1: Strategic Perspectives

Chapter 1 A Foundation for Global Diplomacy

Chapter 2 The UK’s Role in Global Security

Chapter 3 Building a Prosperous Future

Chapter 4 Coordinating and Implementing Policy

Part 2: Near Term Challenges & Opportunities

Chapter 5 Russia and Stability in Wider Europe

Chapter 6 The Challenges of the Middle East

Chapter 7 China and its Neighbours

Chapter 8 Dealing with Europe

Index

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

‘AN INDEPENDENT BRITISH VOICE’. H

ENRY

K

ISSINGER

In the midst of the UK referendum campaign in 2016, I visited Canada to discuss future trading arrangements and visited New York to call on the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, whom I have known since I was appointed Foreign Secretary in February 1977. He told me on 3 May that he was facing a deadline to decide before the end of the day whether to sign a letter with other prominent members of the American foreign policy establishment, arguing that Britain should not leave the EU. It soon became clear that he had no intention of signing and his reasoning was clear and simple: ‘I do not want a world in which there is not an independent British voice.’

I wrote to him to seek his agreement before recording his view in this book, and he wrote back on 20 December: ‘The quote is exactly correct. It is what I said and what I felt. You have my permission to use it.’ It is to help establish that independent British voice in 2017 and beyond that this book is written. In doing so, I am fortunate to have as a co-author someone twenty-five years younger and with far more recent experience of working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), who voted to ‘remain’.

We want to demonstrate that after leaving the EU, the UK can confidently play a full and constructive role in a shifting global environment, while shaping a new relationship of mutual benefit with our twenty-seven former partners in the EU, and ultimately building a more prosperous and secure country.

Neither of us are federalists and we explain what that term means in concrete terms in this book. In my case, the rejection of federalism dates back to what Hugh Gaitskell, the then Leader of the Opposition, said in 1962 when we were applying to join the Common Market. It also dates back to the strategy paper that, as Foreign Secretary, I wrote for the Cabinet in the summer of 1977. Nevertheless, my opposition to federalism did not affect a longstanding friendship with Michel Rocard, an ardent federalist, who served as Prime Minister under President Mitterrand. In January 2013, when I was in Paris to discuss my recent book Europe Restructured, Michael publicly called for he UK to leave the EU with friendship.¹ He put me in touch with Emmanuel Macron, then in the Elysée under President Hollande, and we exchanged letters and had a telephone conversation. I was left in no doubt after this that Macron broadly shared Michel’s view about the need for a federalist future for France, and he demonstrated that in his successful Presidential election campaign by playing the ‘Ode to Joy’, the anthem of the European Union, alongside the French national anthem and flying the European flag alongside the tricolour. I, nevertheless, wanted him to become President. He is highly intelligent and dedicated to a reform of the Eurozone, which is in everyone’s interests.

In this book we have not set out to present a comprehensive review of all aspects of the UK’s international activities, but rather focus on those areas where we see the greatest challenges, where there are lessons to be learnt, and where there is potential for that independent British voice to bring new ideas to the table. Nor are we attempting to write a diplomatic history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. However, we have given weight to the historical background where we feel it appropriate, sharing the view of former chief FCO historian Gill Bennett when she writes: ‘There is no doubt that in the realm of foreign making, history can be a constructive tool rather than a misleading guide.’²

David Ludlow and I worked together for two years from 1992 when I was the EU Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. He returned to the FCO, subsequently working for Schroders (later acquired by Citigroup) in London and Dubai and then Standard Chartered Bank. He came back to London in 2014 to work for two years for the UK’s export credit agency as Head of Business Development, which took him to many of the high-growth markets that are now a target for British businesses. We have written this book together in the time since he left that role at the end of 2016.

I also went into business after my tenure in the former Yugoslavia. From 1995 to 2006, I served as chairman of UK-based company GNE, which invested in a modern steel plant in Russia and petrol stations in the UK. From 2006 to 2015, I was chairman of Europe Steel, which traded steel and iron ore and was owned by the Russian company Mettaloinvest, as well as being a consultant for various companies. I was also chairman of Yukos International for three years and served as a non-executive director of Coats Viyella in London for six years, Abbott Laboratories in Chicago for fifteen years, and Hyperdynamics in Houston for seven years.

This book is not about the Article 50 process. The UK will, as a result of the 2017 election manifesto commitments of the Conservative Party, Labour Party and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from Northern Ireland, leave the EU at the end of March 2019, unless another general election takes place before that date. However, during any such election, the Conservative and Labour manifestos are unlikely to change in relation to the referendum decision to leave the EU. So whichever party were to win an early election, we as a nation are going to leave the EU. Only the much hyped new ‘EU party’ – which never emerged in 2017 – would be likely to fight a new election on a commitment to stay in the EU, and the chances of it being established were reduced following the Liberal Democrats’ election performance.

Where the argument between the parties has a renewed strength is around what sort of access the UK should try to establish with the EU’s single market. Here, the arguments of the ten DUP MPs, who do not want the return of a hard border with the Republic of Ireland, deserve serious consideration; likewise those of the twelve new Conservative MPs from Scotland, who will want to demonstrate they best represent the interests of Scotland rather than the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose number of MPs has fallen sharply to thirty-five. Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs will also want to do the same.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit Secretary, who skilfully handled his party’s manifesto position, must in a hung parliament be given access to more confidential information, as before the talks are completed he could be responsible in government for negotiating on behalf of us all. Traditionally when international negotiations are underway, there are regular exchanges of information with the official opposition, and David Davis has a good record of openness. After both the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election, Brexit has become an issue where the national interest must now predominate. Some who voted Remain are still not ready to accept the referendum result; that is their constitutional right and their views deserve respect. The unelected House of Lords, however, can no longer claim any right to block Brexit. Under the Salisbury Convention – agreed after the 1945 Labour landslide victory – manifesto commitments cannot be overturned by the Lords.

The really substantive issue, however, is: after leaving the EU in March 2019, how does the UK negotiate for the implementation of a lasting EU–UK trade agreement? I believe the UK should remain a Contracting Party to the EEA Agreement during this transition period. There is nothing in the Agreement’s provisions that convincingly serves to establish that the UK will cease to be a Contracting Party on withdrawal from the Treaty of Lisbon and leaving the EU. The significance of this interpretation is that it is consistent with the purposes of the EEA and with the Vienna Conventions on disputes over international treaties,³ and is difficult to overstate. Continuing as a Contracting Party would avoid any cliff edge which the EU Article 50 procedures might force upon us in ways potentially very damaging to UK interests.

The overall UK strategy should be to exit the Lisbon Treaty in March 2019 as a first step, continue as a Non-EU Contracting Party to the EEAA as a second step and negotiate trading agreements with the EU and with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as the third step, while being ready to give a year’s notice of leaving the EEAA when appropriate in relation to the trade negotiations before or during 2022. To pave the way for this in the summer of 2017, the UK should tell the EU and the Non EU Contracting Parties to the EEA Agreement that we consent to be bound by the Law on Succession of States 1978 (Article 2.1 (g)).⁴ We should also indicate that while we do not accept the validity of an exit tax in any shape or form, we are ready to pay the cost of compensating UK citizens who have been employed by the EU and whose job prospects are affected by our leaving. Also for the duration of any ‘implementation period’ as a Non-EU Contracting Party to the EEA Agreement, we are ready, following precedent, to voluntarily pay a financial contribution.

Successful negotiations with the EU over the next four to five years will need clarity of purpose, to build on precedent and to follow the wording of Article 8 in the Treaty of Lisbon on good neighbourliness that is spelt out in practical terms throughout this book. They will also need a close degree of cross-party cooperation.

David Owen

June 2017

Notes

1 David Owen, Europe Restructured: The Eurozone crisis and its Aftermath , Methuen, 2012.

2 Gill Bennett, Six Moments of Crisis , Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 175.

3 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties ‘Part V: Invalidity, Termination and Suspension of the Operation of Treaties’, Article 42 – Article 72, pp. 342–9.

4 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties. Vienna, 23 August 1978. Relevant extracts available on www.lorddavidowen.co.uk

PART 1

STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES

…The world is a tough, complicated, messy, mean place, and full of hardship and tragedy. And in order to advance both our security interests and those ideals and values that we care about, we’ve got to be hardheaded at the same time as we are bighearted, and pick and choose our spots, and recognise that there are going to be times where the best that we can do is to shine a spotlight on something that’s terrible, but not believe that we can automatically solve it. There are going to be times where our security interests conflict with our concerns about human rights. There are going to be times where we can do something about innocent people being killed, but there are going to be times where we can’t.

President Obama, The Atlantic, March 2016

CHAPTER 1

A FOUNDATION FOR GLOBAL DIPLOMACY

As we leave the EU – to whose Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Common Security and Defence Policy we devoted so much diplomatic and military energy in the recent past – we must take the opportunity now, urgently, to redirect that energy into policies which allow us to move forward and face the future with confidence, delivering on the UK citizens’ understandable aspiration for greater prosperity and security. The 2016 referendum decision was not just a decision to leave the EU and invoke Article 50 in the Treaty of Lisbon; it was a decision to mark a change in the UK’s relationship with the world. As the historian Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield said in a House of Lords debate on 20 February 2017 on Article 50:

It is a key element in what will be the fourth of our country’s great geopolitical shifts since 1945. The first was the protracted withdrawal from Empire – from India in 1947 to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in 1980. The second was joining the European Economic Community in 1973 – or ‘Brentry’ as the Economist rather neatly described it the other day. The third was the ending of the Cold War between 1989 and 1991.

The challenge presented by this fourth great shift is to move the emphasis from a European focus on world events, to a global focus through diplomacy, military support and free trade.

Brexit involved a choice. We could – and many wanted to – stay with the European focus on our economic and foreign policy that started in 1973. Or we could choose – for mixed motives and with differing priorities, as in any referendum – to restore a global orientation. Many who hoped to stay in the EU, warts and all, understandably feel rejected and bruised. Many important decisions are taken on the margin. This should be respected. We must learn to live with and respect each other’s views. Practically no argument is won by a 100 per cent majority. Indeed, the referendum was decisive but the margin not great. The spirit of the country, however, is to get on with the task ahead. The overriding task facing the UK now is to make a success of Brexit, economically, socially, politically and in terms of national security.

There is a sense of adventure in taking to the high seas again, developing ‘blue water diplomacy’ and worldwide commerce. But there is a danger in overstretching our capacity. We have to be selective, and we will be helped in doing that by returning to being a nation that has greater control of its own destiny. There is a hard-headed calculation to be made concerning what sort of role we wish to play in the world, and how we can be best positioned to achieve our goals. As Prime Minister Theresa May said in her speech in the US in January 2017,¹ the UK sees itself as ‘by instinct and history a great, global nation that recognises its responsibilities to the world’. We share this view.

Brexit means Britain is freer to work through global policies we wish to espouse; to gain some of the clarity or harder edge that cannot usually be found in an EU policy agreed amongst twenty-seven other countries. It would be foolish to give the impression that everything will suddenly change. EU policies may still be appropriate, and we in the UK have benefited from pooling knowledge on foreign and security policy with other EU member states. Post-Brexit the UK will not be developing policies on our own. We will be cooperating within NATO at a more intensive level and we will be stepping up our activity under the UN Charter and within the UN Security Council. This chapter focuses on the United Nations and the next on NATO.

For all its acknowledged shortcomings, the UN sits at the centre of many key aspects of multilateral diplomacy, including conflict resolution and peacekeeping, and provides a focal point for the rules-based international system. It is also where we continue to hold the much-envied position as one of the permanent five (P5),* veto-wielding, members of the UN Security Council.

In the search for unifying themes in foreign policy within the UN for the UK after Brexit, some urge the primacy of security; others the primacy of democracy, despite democracy not being mentioned in the UN Charter; while others believe there can be no lasting security or democracy without the underpinning of human rights.

In Europe, many take human rights for granted as having been in existence since the dawn of time. However, as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin made clear ‘the notion of individual rights was absent from the legal conceptions of the Romans and the Greeks; this seems to hold equally of the Jewish, Chinese and all other ancient civilisations…’² We, in the UK, tend to look back to clause thirty-nine of the Magna Carta of 1215, which gave all ‘free men’ the right to justice and a fair trial. There is a general sense in the New World that the concept of human rights was the product of Europe and the Enlightenment. This came specifically to prominence in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted in revolutionary Paris on 26 August 1789, which in its first article states that, ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.’ This was followed on 15 December 1791 by a US Bill of Rights. A strong stance in support of human rights as a continuing guide to British foreign policy in 2017 cannot be a mere add-on. While much has been achieved by the UK’s efforts in the UN, a lot remains to be done, for example, in the area of women’s rights, where there are still many serious abuses, particularly where rights conflict with religious practices. This is a matter in which the UK has shown a readiness to take a lead, such as with its work on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. It also has to be recognised that any human rights-based policy creates conflicts of interest and a lot of compromises, some of them embarrassing. But far better that a dialogue and debate takes place than sweep issues under the carpet.

Even while the Second World War was still raging the UK, as one of the ‘Big Four’, met at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944 to plan for a post-war world. The US insisted on a reference to a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, against – let it not be forgotten – Soviet and British objections. On 25 April 1945, in San Francisco, the founding conference of the UN started and soon the US Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius, made clear that the US expected a Human Rights Commission to be established ‘to promptly undertake to prepare an International Bill of Rights’. The eventual full UN Commission on Human Rights met in January 1947 at Lake Success in New York State with Eleanor Roosevelt in the chair. It was because of her unyielding belief in human rights that they became so firmly ensconced in the UN under President Truman and shaped the UN’s identity in the first few years. But a large section of US opinion has long been sceptical, to say the least, of foreign embroilment, and the work of the UN in particular. We must continue to work to demonstrate that putting trust in the UN is justified, which includes a continued drive for reform in the organisation.

Human rights were centre-stage in the UK’s foreign policy from 1977, which coincided with President Carter’s period in office. Under Carter, the US was at last sufficiently self-confident to build on the remarkable achievements of President Johnson’s civil rights legislation, which was brought about in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. In 1977, Carter’s presidency began an open reinforcement and espousal of human rights worldwide but particularly in southern Africa, where the US began to champion freedom and attack racial discrimination. The Anglo-American plan for Rhodesia led to the Lancaster House Agreement in late 1979 after the successful Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka. Negotiations on South West Africa, later Namibia, took place in 1977–78 under the auspices of the Western Contact Group, made up of representatives from the US, UK, France, Germany and Canada. The foreign ministers of those countries met with President Botha and his government in Pretoria. The commitment made at that time to hold UN-supervised elections paved the way twelve years later for Namibia to become independent. This period also saw the rise of Charter 77 in Eastern Europe after the signature of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975.

When President Reagan succeeded Carter, he appointed Ernest Lefever, a conservative Democrat who had opposed Carter’s human rights policy as head of the Human Rights Bureau. What looked like a clever way of wrong-footing the Democrats backfired and, after four days of hearings, Lefever’s nomination was rejected by the Republican-controlled Foreign Relations Committee.³ Elliot Abrams, a 33-year-old Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, wrote: ‘the government should not abandon human rights. We will never maintain wide support for our foreign policy unless we can relate it to American ideals and to the defence of freedom.’ The Reagan White House listened and a ‘Republican’ human rights policy was constructed.⁴ President Trump, in ordering a military strike against Syria for its use of chemical weapons in April 2017, shows that he too sees a human rights element in his foreign policy, and we look to his administration to build on this.

An ethical foreign policy was tried by the Labour government from 1997 when Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary, but it was contested from No. 10 and finally died on the streets of Baghdad after the invasion in 2003. Limping along since that period in British foreign policy has been morality wrapped up in a mantra of, ‘It is the right thing to do’, when it came to further interventions. This was an expression frequently used by Prime Ministers Blair and Cameron, and more recently, surprisingly, taken up in 2017 by President Putin. The problems come when ‘the right thing to do’ has little to no basis either in UN Security Council resolutions or in international law, but is rather just an expression of national interest.

Why not, some therefore argue, simply label our foreign policy based on ‘British interests’, since they seem to have determined British foreign policy over the centuries? The answer is not that it may appear selfish and introverted, and to parrot ‘America First’; nor that it recalls a period when the British Empire meant that we ruled and influenced much of the globe and enforced our interests. There is a more basic reason for not using the term ‘British interests’ too readily: for who wants policies from their government that are not in their interest? It is now a term used to cast doubt on a policy where too little regard is felt to have been given to the potential consequences; too little attention to the cautious question, ‘Is this in our interests?’, or statement, ‘This is not a British interest’. We shall come back to this subject when looking at the issues surrounding recent military interventions in which the UK has been involved.

If we had to choose a single word to describe where the UK foreign policy is heading, it would be global. But whereas some might have previously stressed human rights as being at the heart of a global policy, the more nuanced ‘shared values’ is becoming a much-used term in many countries. We need to be clear what those concepts mean in concrete terms and how they will influence our actions. ‘Rights’ is a far stronger word than ‘values’, which vary between countries. We as a nation should remain bound to respect human rights as laid down in the UN Charter. In view of serious criticisms of past British foreign policy, we need to emphasise that we want to implement a foreign policy rooted in respect for the UN Charter and the body of international conventions, treaties and related international law. That said, we should not pull back from espousing our core values, such as our commitment to an open, liberal democracy, freedom of the press, free trade and the rule of law.

We must acknowledge that the effectiveness of a UN without US support will be much diminished. Indeed, a real challenge for our diplomacy will be how we deal with US attitudes towards the UN. In 2017, at the start of US President Trump’s four-year term in office, his stance on the use of sarin gas in Syria suggests that he is ready to embrace at least some international Conventions – though his widely criticised unilateral rejection of the Paris Accord on climate change shows this is at best selective – and sees some role for the UN. However, as with NATO, he appears determined to see a more equitable burden sharing. This, in part, is motivated by the feeling that the US bears a disproportionate share, some 29 per cent, of the UN’s peace-keeping budget, with focus in particular on the five largest budgets which cost over $1 billion each year. There is little doubt that unless others step up, either there will have to be a meaningful cut over the next few years, or the US will pull out of funding specific missions. These UN ‘freeloaders’ the Trump administration identifies are Russia and China. As for NATO, Presidents Obama and Trump have pointed to many European countries as freeloaders. Financial support, however, for UN activities will still be needed. Support for the UN over these difficult years ahead is not a soft option and UK funds will be required.

It is also clear that President Trump is ready to take radical decisions in a short time-frame, which complicates the management of sensitive global issues, such as immigration. On 27 February 2017, shortly after taking office, Trump faced the constitutional check integral to the US separation of powers. His executive order banning refugees from entering the US for ninety days, while other measures were put in place, and restricting travel to the United States from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen was struck down by a US district judge in the State of Washington. Three judges then unanimously decided to uphold the decision, having found that the government had not provided enough evidence that urgently implementing the ban was necessary for the country’s security. President Trump instantly appealed to the Supreme Court and tweeted in capital letters, ‘SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!’ Within a few days, he thought better of that first reaction and announced there would be no appeal, but a new executive order. This took some time to re-emerge and was followed by a Hawaii federal judge blocking the revised travel ban in March and then extending his initial ruling. It is not risking much to predict that these will not be the last legal checks on Trump’s presidential power. It may indeed be this external legal discipline that will limit his tweeting reaction and protect the presidency from Trump himself. The written constitution of the US and the constraining mechanisms within it are very powerful. The constraints are not just legal but also political. The individual states can and do frequently assert their independence of the federal government. We see this now over climate change, where more than half of them look likely to assert their right to stand by what had been agreed in the Paris Accord.

Trump was democratically elected President, predominantly by a large group of people who felt ignored by and unrepresented by the governing elite in the Republican and Democratic parties (a theme increasingly prevalent in global politics today). Though a Republican Party candidate, Trump acted independently and defeated a list of strong Republican candidates in open debate in their primaries. He then carved out of the Rust Belt states, the Tea Party movement and the religious right a constituency which he obviously intends to make his own, through tweets and visits, so he can pave the way for a second term in 2020. This is not a President who can or should be ignored by the liberal elite. He has to be engaged with. Prime Minister Theresa May was right to go and see him very early in his presidency, just as President Obama was right to invite him to the White House very soon after the election results were announced.

As for the UK, it is clear that President Trump approves of Brexit and is critical of the EU. The UK, however, should not count on these positions remaining unchanged. A US President, not least one who wins and continues to use the slogan ‘America First’, may change his mind quickly if he decides a position hitherto espoused is not in US interests. To some extent he did that on 2 April 2017, saying the EU had done ‘a better job since Brexit’. Nevertheless, while we want him to reduce his hostility to the EU, his support for the UK’s position could be very helpful. We should work with him to achieve a bilateral trade agreement, possibly even a multilateral agreement, if the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is revised.

Maintaining human rights as a guiding light for policy means we in the UK have to respect the rulings of our own relatively new Supreme Court. This was challenged by some in relation to the debate around the invocation of Article 50 to start the formal Brexit process. Fortunately, respect for the law triumphed. It is a gain that, outside the EU, we can interpret human rights without the intervention of the EU’s European Court of Justice. We will still have to adhere to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, whose convention the UK, as one of its main architects, ratified in 1951. The House of Commons noted in its March 2017 report on the UK’s relations with Russia: ‘In order to maintain international standards on human rights, the UK Government should not withdraw from the ECHR and should make clear that no such step is contemplated’.⁵ Nevertheless, we must recognise that not every country will share our views on what constitutes human rights, and we must work within those constraints to make progress on the issues which face us.

For example, China, with the largest population of any UN member state, does not accept democracy as an essential aspect of human rights – let alone as a contributor to progress in the widest, economic and cultural sense. This was evident in the events of 1989 when the People’s Liberation Army was turned against the people in a government crackdown, as Stein Ringen points out in The Perfect Dictatorship: ‘The nature of the crackdown in 1989 is not well remembered, neither in China nor in the world. The challenge to the regime was not from students protesting but from a popular revolt with broad support in the population and with participation by various groups of citizens…’⁶ What Deng Xiaoping had launched in 1978 was a process of economic, rather than political reform. What China has begun under President Xi Jinping is an all-important anti-corruption drive based on upholding their laws inspired by their communist beliefs. He is correct in insisting on greater respect for the rule of law within China and particularly to ensure their market economy thrives. Respect for the law in China could pave the way for greater respect for justice and international law outside the country. In this context, respect for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, of which China is a signatory (though the US is not), is likely to be a big test, as discussed in greater detail later. The UK, given its unrivalled history as a maritime nation, is in a unique position to champion and uphold the Law of the Sea in all international forums, and persuade the US it is in their interests to become a signatory.

The Russian Federation espouses a ‘managed’ democracy within a still broadly market economy, but has not yet developed a rooted respect for human rights. Their clamping down on potential opposition movements and leaders remains a concern. In the 1990s in Russia, there was a developing debate to define stricter legal boundaries in their market economy. Sadly, that debate has languished as their government showed less and less respect for upholding and enhancing the law. There are still very unattractive practices in Russia and the government is not bound by impartial courts of law. The annexation of Crimea, discussed in more detail in Chapter Five, was a particularly serious breach of international law. Nevertheless, it is through a market economy that the best hope lies for Russia to emerge