International

VietnamHas Britain given up on foreign affairs? Many say ‘We don’t have an Empire anymore’; or that ‘We are not a rich country.’ That has been said since Indian independence in 1947, or perhaps since our economic fragility was laid bare at the end of the First World War. Some ask ‘What right have we got to tell others how to live their lives?’ That question has been gathered momentum since the 1960s. Some ask ‘What business is it of mine?’ That attitude has been going on since the Old Testament.

Meanwhile, the balance of power is shifting to the people, quickly. Parliament blocked government action on Syria. There was the referendum over our membership of the European Union. There is disquiet over our aid programmes. Many fear it is a sign that populism or domestic priorities are undermining Britain’s place in the world. They worry too that people don’t know about the complexities of foreign affairs and don’t care. About this last point, at least, I think they are wrong.

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The role of air strikes in Iraq

I am writing on the night sleeper, travelling down to Westminster to vote on air-strikes. Emails and texts are hammering into my Blackberry, for and against, from colleagues, constituents, friends, and journalists. The whole Scotland campaign, which absorbed us until last Friday, now seems months in the past. Parliament has been recalled at 24 hours […]

Thoughts and analysis on Putin

The US and Europe spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on Defence. Why? For the last ten or fifteen years, the answer has been that our militaries exist to ‘intervene’ – to end conflict, drive out terrorists, topple regimes, and build democratic states. NATO doctrine has focused on intervention (and stretched to Somali […]

Why Foreign Policy Matters

Has Britain given up on foreign affairs? Many say ‘We don’t have an Empire anymore’; or that ‘We are not a rich country.’ That has been said since Indian independence in 1947, or perhaps since our economic fragility was laid bare at the end of the First World War. Some ask ‘What right have we […]

In Syria, the best solution is a negotiated peace

First published in The Sunday Telegraph, 8 September 2013:   Like hundreds of thousands of civilians, soldiers, contractors, UN and charity-staff, I have worked in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years. I was in favour of the Prime Minister’s humanitarian motion on Syria, but against a deeper intervention. I find it […]

Syria

Why should chemical weapons have changed our response to Syria this week? After all for two years, Syria has been a place where we have felt both that we ought to intervene, and also simultaneously that we cannot intervene.  Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions made refugees. The regime is backed by Hezbollah, Iran […]

WE MUST LEARN THE LESSON OF OUR FAILURE

Article first published in the Yorkshire Post on 17 June 2013. I was not in the House of Commons for the 2003 vote on the invasion of Iraq. I am far from sure that I would have made the right decision. The starting point for any discussion of Iraq has to be an acknowledgment that it […]

our future in the european union

For every country in the European Union, except perhaps Britain, the Union has been a means of burying history. For some, it promised the end of war on the continent; for the Spanish, the Union gave them the status of a full European democracy; and in January, the Croatian Ambassador to London said that Europe […]

looking back on iraq

It is the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and nine and a half years since I first boarded a troop plane to Basra. I still find the scale of our failure astonishing. It was a war in which 179 British and 4488 American soldiers were killed, and over 40,000 wounded. A trillion pounds […]

Why Turkey matters

How does parliamentary business relate to Cumbria? Take the last 24 hours.  There were some direct connections: I attended a ministerial meeting on second homes in Cumbria; a Lake District National Park planning discussion; and a community hospital conference with representatives from Brampton, Wigton, Penrith and Cockermouth. But in the same 24 hours I was […]