VIEWPOINT

The ghost of a policy

GEORGE GALE

ince the immediately postwar days of nest Bevin, it is doubtful whether Britain can be said to have possessed, sought to formulate, or put into practice, a consistent

ttitude towards the world that could justi- fiably be regarded as a policy. The lack of a foreign policy is certainly not fatal; it may well be desirable not to have one for much of the time; and clearly it is better to have no policy at all than to pursue one that is wrong-headed, that is, disadvantageous.

here are and always have been those who

rgue that it is better to pursue a policy that is right-headed, or just plain right (whatever that might mean), even if it should turn out to be disadvantageous; but with the ad- herents of this school, or religion, I do not propose in this article to deal. What this country has done since the days of Bevin- Attlee is to bumble and fumble along the lines laid down by them, every now and then having a burst of activity as often as not called an 'initiative'.

Now this is highly traditional: the foreign policy' of Great Britain from the Congress of Vienna up to the outbreak of the first world war was a bumbling and fumbling along the lines laid down by Castlereagh and Canning, punctuated every now and then by 'initiatives', usually of a gun-boat or predatory kind, but occasionally characterised by outbreaks of moral fervour. In the hundred years between Vienna and Sarajevo Great Britain, presiding over its vast empire, was thought to be chief among the Great Powers, and indeed for the first fifty or sixty years she was in fact the most powerful of them. A bumbling and fumbling, a not excessive use of strength or display of greed, produced a kind of pax Britannica in which inventors, industrialists and merchants flourished in what we now call 'the west' as never before and the foundations of industrial wealth were very very securely laid.

But although it is possible, provided you are very strong, to bumble and fumble along without much of a policy and avoid War (because no other country is likely to seek war against the very strong, or the strongest), once a nation becomes weakened. or overweening, it can as much bumble and stumble into war as out of it. In 1914 and 1939 we bumbled and stumbled into two German wars which, although we emerged

through our alliances, and especially thanks to the industrial and military power of the United States, as among the notional victors, left us severely weakened. In 1914 we were unquestionably among the Great Powers and still thought by many (if wrongly) to be the chief; by 1945 the stage was set for our decline from what we were or were thought to be at Potsdam (that is, chief of the second-rank Powers and moral Proctor) to our present condition of industrial and political inferiority at, or close to, the bottom of the second rank and considerably weaker than the unconditionally surrendered Germany and Japan of 1945.

Ernest Bevin recognised the fact of the expansionist and imperialist and Russian policy of the Soviet Union and knew better perhaps than anyone this country's weak- ness: the American alliance, and the American presence in Europe were, rightly, seen as the essential prerequisites of British, and Western European, independence in the face of the Russian threat. This, together with the decision to give India its freedom (before it was taken), the consequential dismemberment of the British Empire, and

a token regard for the United Nations, con- stituted British policy before 1950; and does so today. In 1946-50 it was a policy; now it is the ghost of a policy which many of

us, from time to time, fear uneasily may be sitting on our collective British grave.

There is nothing to stop us accepting the situation as it is, coming to terms with a slow ageing and debilitating process towards national senility, being civilised about it, neutering and neutralising ourselves, becom- ing another Sweden with model social ser- vices and another Switzerland with a better line in tourist attractions, or, alternatively and following the more grandiose example of ancient Rome, declining and falling into barbarism by way of splendid dissolution and debauchery. However, it is clearly observable from the speeches of politicians and the reception afforded to their patriotic passages, from letters to editors and from opinion polls, from high and low and middle, that no enthusiasm exists for any such supine acceptance of things as they are and, if left alone, are likely to become. Whether or not this country needs a policy, I am con- vinced in my own mind that most of it wants one; and certainly its rulers and its administrators now, and those who have ruled and administered in the past, and any who may conceivably rule and administer us in the future—which is to say, those who matter, have mattered, will matter, in this question of whether to have a policy or not—want one. What is more, they think they have one.

The policy they think they have proceeds from the premises (1) Britain must not slide back into the third rank, (2) to avoid doing so requires a larger industrial base, or market, than we presently possess, (3) to avoid doing so requires a larger political and territorial base than we presently con- stitute, and (4) consequently our policy must be to sign the Treaty of Rome and become a member of the European Economic Com- munity and an eventual major constituent in some form or other of a United or Federated State or States of Europe. If we assume the first premise, which is the asser- tion of what is regarded as desirable, to be so, then I think no one would dispute that the second and third premises follow in- eluctably. As much cannot be said for the fourth premise, the practical conclusion that our policy must or should be to join the Common Market. However, this has been our policy, albeit in fits and starts, ever since Harold Macmillan, upon the most urgent advice from the Treasury and the Paris Embassy, and with the enthusiastic promptings and blessings of Washington, de- clared that it was preferable to an un- dignified devaluation.

One of the several curiosities of Britain's Common Market policy is the manner in which its protagonists proclaim it to be essential, if Britain is to maintain its place in the world, etc etc. This proclamation is curious because it is doubly false: what the protagonists want is not to maintain Britain's place (which is lowly) but to regain what they think to be its proper place, which can only be done 'through the Common Market if Britain can exert a greater influence within the Common Market and, thereafter, through the Common Market upon non-Common Market countries, than it does now. To put it crudely, if it is more influence, power and prestige that we want, then if we are to achieve this through the Common Market we must be confident that, once in, we can run it. And there might be much to be said for the Common Market policy were our predominance in its decisions to be assured, or even to be probable, and our personal liberties (which are what matter in all this, and nothing else, for we are rich enough) thereby protected.

Alternatively, the submersion of Britain in a continental grouping might well be tolerable to contemplate and to seek to bring about, in the interests of greater material wealth, of independence from the Russian and American super-powers, and of par- ticipation in such a third force, were there reasonable grounds for confidence that our personal liberties would not thereby be threatened. The only reasonable grounds for such confidence must be of an historical nature; and I do not myself believe that any serious historian could demonstrate such grounds. In their absence we are left with faith as the basis of policy, which is indeed our present lot. And even this risky state of affairs, of hoping for the best while fear-

ing the worst, might be supportable if it were the case that, Britain having lost her Empire, there exists no other role for her to find. I do not myself believe we have no choice than that between the status quo and the Common Market.

We might for example reach an indepen- dent settlement with the Soviet Union, mutually profitable to both sides, and such a deal could make much economic and political sense: for the economies of this country and of those countries behind the Iron Curtain are to a large extent com- plementary, and joint Anglo-Soviet policies in Asia, Africa and the Middle East could be presumed to be acceptable to most of the underdeveloped countries involved. In Europe there would be an outstanding ad- vantage in such an arrangement, for German irredentism would be indefinitely dis- couraged. The advantages for France in some similar deal clearly occurred to Ze Gaulle. West Germany, properly and naturally, is now seeking an accord with the Soviet Union, and if, in the outcome, such an accord results in the acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line and also of the division of Germany, then we need not feel unduly alarmed, although we might muse upon our own lost opportunities. The objection to such a settlement is that it would threaten our liberties (although obviously less so than ad- herence to the Treaty of Rome, which looks forward to the political union of its signa- tories: no Anglo-Soviet deal would look forward to such a consummation), divide the country, and, possibly, alienate the us.

Alternatively, we might pursue further the concept of an Atlantic, or predominantly white English-speaking community in which the senior voice would be that of the United States, but in which some kind of parity between the United States and the rest could be arranged. This need not take the precise course of Britain becoming the fifty-second state. With eight natural regions in England, with Scotland and Wales, and wth a couple for Ireland, the British Isles could well supply a dozen states. With Canada's pro- vinces, Australia's states, New Zealand's islands, and the Scandinavians (whom I regard as honorary English-speakers), an economic and political community could be envisaged which would make much economic sense and a great deal of political sense.

Nor would such a policy, if pursued with anything like the determination with which the Common Marketeers have applied them- selves over the years, necessarily prove in the long run to be chimerical. Its advantages are manifest, for it would be a beautiful

natural historical outcome and reconcilia- tion, the resulting community would be blessed with a common language and a shared tradition and history and body of laws, and within such a community the liberties of the person would more likely than not be extended rather than threatened or reduced. Such a community or grouping. would be maritime rather than continental: . and it is towards the creation of an outward- looking and unforeign maritime system,. rather than towards our adherence to a continental and inward-looking foreign system, that the abilities of our statesmen and the energies of this country would best and most naturally and happily be disposed.

That the proposed arrangement with con- tinental Europe is unnatural, the majority of this country is well enough aware. It is un- likely to meet with success, for, even should a conclusion satisfactory to the negotiators be reached at Brussels, no such conclusion is likely to be acceptable to this country. Insofar as this country possesses and has over the last fifteen years or so possessed a foreign policy involvffig a change in the status quo, that policy of adherence to the Treaty of Rome is misguided, has been and is fraudulently advocated, and will not suc- ceed. When its failure becomes evident even to its most blind advocates, the plight of this country will indeed have become perilous for, having rejected the status quo of de- cline, we will be powerless to prevent it. And yet the right policy exists, is there for the pur- suing, if only we have the courage to take it up boldly in both hands, and with con- stancy and determination to follow it,