Ch a pter 1 The Representation of British Foreign Policy The English are divided in two categories, clearly identified by those who study zoology: the first one is represented by that famous Englishman who was marvelled not to find negroes in Calais, for, according to him, the Channel was the border of the civilised world. The second category is the one of types like Hervey, who [. . .] being in the Venetian Lagoon, tasted the water and concluded ‘ it is salty, hence it is ours!’ 1 What in the world is this famous English friendship? We want to see the proof! 2
This book addresses the special relationship from the perspective of post-Second World War British governments. It argues that Britain's foreign policy challenges the dominant idea that its power has been waning and that it sees itself as the junior partner to the hegemonic US. The book also shows how at moments of international crisis successive British governments have attempted to re-play the same foreign policy role within the special relationship. It discusses the power of a profoundly antagonistic relationship between Mark Twain and Walter Scott. The book demonstrates Stowe's mis-reading and mis-representation of the Highland Clearances. It explains how Our Nig, the work of a Northern free black, also provides a working-class portrait of New England farm life, removed from the frontier that dominates accounts of American agrarian life. Telegraphy - which transformed transatlantic relations in the middle of the century- was used by spiritualists as a metaphor for the ways in which communications from the other world could be understood. The story of the Bolton Whitman Fellowship is discussed. Beside Sarah Orne Jewett's desk was a small copy of the well-known Raeburn portrait of Sir Walter Scott. Henry James and George Eliot shared a transatlantic literary network which embodied an easy flow of mutual interest and appreciation between their two milieux. In her autobiography, Gertrude Stein assigns to her lifelong companion the repeated comment that she has met three geniuses in her life: Stein, Picasso, and Alfred North Whitehead.
The period August 1966–September 1967 saw a decline in Wilson’s commitment to President Johnson and to the United States, both personally and in the wider context of British foreign policy. In February 1967, the Prime Minister tried to use the visit to London of the Russian leader Alexei Kosygin to bring Hanoi and Washington to the negotiating table over Vietnam. Wilson was sincere – if over
Vic00 10/23/03 3:53 PM Page 1 Introduction Labour’s election victory in May 1997 was closely followed by the new Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, launching his department’s mission statement in which he made a commitment to an ‘ethical dimension’ to British foreign policy. Cook declared that he was going to implement a new kind of foreign policy, which ‘recognises that the national interest cannot be defined only by narrow realpolitik’. The aim was ‘to make Britain once again a force for good in the world.’1 This sparked a debate on the nature of Labour
world was being replaced by the United States, and that Britain was, whether it really wanted to or not, retreating from its previous imperial position. Vic07 10/15/03 2:11 PM Page 161 THE ATTLEE GOVERNMENTS 161 The great power manoeuvring of the European states was being replaced by the burgeoning contest between the Soviet Union and the USA, the Cold War, in which British foreign policy was to play a more minor, but still significant, role. There are two main approaches in the extensive literature on the Labour governments’ foreign policy between 1945 and
Anglophobia in Fascist Italy traces the roots of Fascist Anglophobia from the Great War and through the subsequent peace treaties and its development during the twenty years of Mussolini’s regime. Initially, Britain was seen by many Italians as a ‘false friend’ who was also the main obstacle to Italy’s foreign policy aspirations, a view embraced by Mussolini and his movement. While at times dormant, this Anglophobic sentiment did not disappear in the years that followed, and was later rekindled during the Ethiopian War. The peculiarly Fascist contribution to the assessment of Britain was ideological. From the mid-1920s, the regime’s intellectuals saw Fascism as the answer to a crisis in the Western world and as irredeemably opposed to Western civilisation of the sort exemplified by Britain. Britain was described as having failed the ‘problem of labour’, and Fascism framed as a salvation ideology, which nations would either embrace or face decay. The perception of Britain as a decaying and feeble nation increased after the Great Depression. The consequence of this was a consistent underrating of British power and resolve to resist Italian ambitions. An analysis of popular reception of the Fascist discourse shows that the tendency to underrate Britain had permeated large sectors of the Italian people, and that public opinion was more hostile to Britain than previously thought. Indeed, in some quarters hatred towards the British lasted until the end of the Second World War, in both occupied and liberated Italy.
influences on the development of the Labour Party’s attitudes towards international affairs and British foreign policy. However, first it is necessary to highlight some of the aspects of the party’s structure that affected the making of policy. The structure of the party meant that party activists had a voice at conference, which, while not necessarily deciding policy, certainly acted as a Vic01 10/15/03 2:09 PM Page 23 THE EMERGENCE OF THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY 23 constraint on policy. It is worth considering this in a little depth, as the structure and ethos of the
, the US had learned that by utilising a number of tactics, including the temporary cancellation of nuclear and intelligence cooperation, they had managed to ensure that the British would, if forced, operate bilaterally with the US in opposition to Heath’s desire to formulate common EEC political and foreign policies. As shown in Chapter 3, US bilateral pressure on British interests could have profound effects upon the direction of British foreign policy. It is the coercive elements in US diplomacy towards its British ally that are currently omitted from existing
the merits of the case advanced by any capitalist government, and the other either out-and-out pacifist or working for peace by negotiation, but opposed to any attempt to invoke revolutionary violence as a means of ending the war by international working-class revolution.26 The ILP, led by Ramsay MacDonald, formed the centre of the opposition to British foreign policy and the war, and was criticised by the Labour Party and the TUC for doing so.27 It was argued that, had events been left to the ILP, ‘the Germans would be here now.’28 While there was no great public
analysis noted that Britain’s standing in the United States depended ultimately on ‘our practical contribution to the Western Alliance rather than on any particular feeling of United Kingdom/United States interdependence’. 48 It was commented in 1964 that the ‘alliance with the United States’ was ‘the most important single factor’ in British foreign policy: ‘As much the weaker partner, dependent on overseas trade and with world