The contours of British foreign policy under the new Labour government became clearer yesterday with the publication of a "mission statement" by the Foreign Office and some clarification of Britain's attitude towards the single currency by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, at his first Ecofin meeting in Brussels.
The new concern for ethical principles in British foreign policy is welcome and will help to galvanise those responsible for carrying it out. But it will be difficult to implement in this most realistic and interest driven sphere of government. Diplomacy is above all open to Machiavelli's cautionary advice: "How we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation". The Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, could be forgiven for dismissing such pessimism as too reminiscent of the outgoing Conservative ideology. He has put forward a bold and confident new statement of British interests and values, including a leadership role in Europe, a revived Commonwealth and a more effective United Nations. He says human rights concerns will be put at the centre of policy and he raises questions about the morality of the arms trade, in which Britain has played a prominent role.
That political perceptions of national interests can conflict is a truth which has nowhere been more forcefully aired than in Britain's long running debate on its proper role in Europe. Mr Cook's statement puts his country on a much more positive footing with the other EU memberstates, as has been abundantly clear from their enthusiastic reception of Labour's decisive election victory. The negotiating elements necessary to reach agreement in the InterGovernmental Conference are rapidly falling into place and make it much more likely that agreement will be reached on a new treaty in Amsterdam next month. This is a great relief after the traumas that attended Mr John Major's last years in office. Mr Cook looks forward to Britain's EU presidency as a leading player from January next, during which he says priority will be given to enlargement and completing the single market.
Mr Cook was much more circumspect about whether Britain will join the single currency, saying that "it is not likely to be, for ourselves, a national interest to take part" in it and that Britain is unlikely to be among the first wave of those joining on January 1st, 1999. In Brussels, Mr Brown insisted that Britain does not consider it necessary to rejoin the Exchange Rate Mechanism as a precondition for joining EMU. He also kept to the line that a decision will be taken at the appropriate time, based on national interests. Assuming, however, that the project does indeed go ahead on time, as the German Chancellor, Dr Kohl, insisted once again yesterday that it would, does not the aspiration to play a leading role sit uncomfortably with nonparticipation in the single currency?
It will not be easy to maintain these two lines of policy. Pressure will mount on Labour to clarify where it stands, particularly since it will have the task of chairing the decision making process on who will qualify for EMU this time next year. After the first round of enthusiastic change the Labour government will come face to face with another political truth: to govern is to choose.