Airstrip One

The real issue on withdrawal

The anti-war Tory MP and army reservist Andrew Murrison says that Britain will be in Iraq for ten years, because Iraq can simply not govern itself.

While we probably will be there for ten years, and Iraq probably will be unable to govern itself in that time - this dependence need not detain us in Iraq. The Americans will suffer if they leave Iraq in chaos, but we will not. We are the junior partner - we can leave whenever we like. The Yanks will simply have to fill the vacuum.

Of course the consequential Yankee displeasure may be worse than any withdrawal. However it is the prospect of American displeasure that is the reason for keeping the troops in place. We must not fall under the illusion that Iraq is our show.

Moment of Truth

The meetings surrounding the draft of the European Constitution have continued. Whilst the 'Big Three' (Britain, France and Germany) agreed upon a provisional form of military headquarters (an acorn or successful sabotage, depending upon your viewpoint), their proposals still require full agreement from every Member State.

The other issue of European defence is the mutual defence pact, suggested by the Italians at the end of November and viewed as anathema by those smaller countries which maintain the myth of neutrality as their foreign policy objective. This has been ditched for the concept of soverien countries assisting each other in the event of armed aggression.

However, Berlusconi was 55% optimistic on Sunday and was in a halfway house on Saturday. Both France and Germany are unwilling to compromise on their demands for voting powers and greater integration, with Chirac describing the critics of the draft constitution as "incoherent".

Jack Straw has repeated the government's position: that a bad Constitution is worse than no Constitution. The anxious moment is this weekend when final negotiations take place and hardline positions give way to compromises in order to achieve that final deal.

On Monday, we could wake up to find the European superstate has arrived or has been definitely postponed.

(22.50, 8th December 2003)

An Unsurprising Insight

Gisela Stuart, the New Labour member who sat on the European Convention's presidium, has finally admitted her disillusion with the whole process. Stuart provides anecdotal evidence of the strategy D'Estaing employed to achieve his consensus.

"There was little time for informed discussion, and even less scope for changes. Large parts of the text passed through without detailed discussions", she writes.

Small details would be strangely absent:

Some members of the secretariat showed particular irritation with my insistence that documents be produced in English. On one occasion a redraft of articles dealing with defence mysteriously arrived just before midnight. They were written in French and the authorship was unclear. Verbal reassurances were given that this was little more than a "linguistically better draft of the earlier English version". The draft was discarded when some of us spotted that references to Nato had mysteriously disappeared".

Yet, for some reason, there is a faint echo of the British Parliament. Another planted article to allow New Labour both possibilities: success or failure.

(22.22, 8th December 2003)

A Brown Government?

What would a Brown government look like foreign policy wise? It's a good time to ask this as Blair seems to be (A) amazingly reckless on non-core items of the New Labour agenda such as tuition fees and (B) publicly sickly.

On the second item I am sceptical about how much Blair's actual health has deteriorated. After all he has been incredibly profficient at hiding Leo Blair's avoidance of the single vaccine MMR jab, his use of IVF to conceive Leo Blair and the rather extensive, and free, use of private health resources. If he can keep this stuff secret why are we suddenly hearing so much about stuff that sounds scary but is in fact relatively minor - at least compared to conceiving a child to win seats at the next general election.

After this we leave the realm of facts for that of speculation. Is this a deliberate ploy or just a post-Campbell policy decision to be more honest? Perhaps they think that a Prime Minister's health is more to the point than his children's. Well my theory is that this is deliberate, and it is a ploy. Blair probably intends to keep his promise to resign and let Brown have a fist at being Prime Minister - around about now. However the Great British public may not like the idea of electing Blair and getting Brown. However if Blair had to resign...

So what would Brown be like in foreign policy? In the least important area, our relationship with the third world, he would be worse. He thinks that we should be indulging in transferring our wealth to third world elites in the shape of aid programmes (or he is transferring our wealth). He may also be even keener on implementing pointless environmental treaties (although that's not certain).

In the second most important area, our Special Servitude to America, there will be little difference. Despite the (often skin deep) Atlanto-scepticism of his backers, Brown is as emotionally committed to America as Michael Howard is - and as committed as Blair is to Europe. We are unlikely to give less to, or receive any more from, America. Our boys will still be dying in useless wars.

The most important area is Europe, and Brown will be marginally better. His current, exagerated, Euroscepticism will almost certainly be diluted. For a start he will be out of the traditionally Eurosceptic environs of the Treasury. Secondly, he is not truly as Eurosceptic as he appears to be in contrast to Blair. On the other hand he is no longer committed to Europe in the same way as Blair is. For a start America is no longer as keen on Europe. He also seems to have shown a genuine distaste for the wranglings of Europe, and he is not as capable of self-delusion as his neighbour - he does not think things will improve fast. It will be a marginal improvement, but a marginal improvement is still an improvement.

Sure, the Tories will be better than Brown, but Brown is better than Blair. All those concerned for Britain's independence should be fervently praying for a Brown succession.

Persuading old allies

Geoff Hoon is meeting Donald Rumsfeld in order to allay US concerns about the fleshing out of the joint defence clauses written into the draft of the European Constitution. As there are 1,000 planners in NATO and 30 in the new planning unit, the ambitions are not yet matched by the embryonic institutional structures being put in place.

On a separate note, the CBI has warned that the proposed Constitution could undermine British industry and security. Energy assets (North Sea oil and gas) could be sequestrated under a European licensing and nationalisation system, sharing these assets to all Member States in a time of crisis.

His [Digby Jones, Director-General of the CBI] deputy, John Cridland, said last night that the energy chapter could allow the EU to take control of energy supplies by giving it the potential right in times of crisis or scarcity to effectively share out reserves.

"It's not that evil people in Brussels want to steal our oil and gas but we should not be signing a treaty with significant uncertainty or ambiguity," he said. The EU could take control of licensing and regulation.

By extension, a crisis in pension provision could lead to the sequestration of private pension assets from countries with a strong asset base.

Alistair Darling made noises. That's another battle lost then.

(22.49, 2nd December 2003)