Britain’s unethical foreign policy shames us all

Martin Shipton

It seems an incredibly long time ago that incoming Foreign Secretary Robin Cook committed to introducing an “ethical dimension” to Britain’s foreign policy.

He used the term in a speech to Foreign Office staff in the heady days when Labour had, in 1997, won a landslide general election victory, ousting the Tories from office after 18 years.

Cook said he would “make Britain once again a force for good in the world” and pledged arms control measures and a focus on human rights and the environment.

“The Labour government does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business,” he added. “Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves.”

Augusto Pinochet

I remember feeling a sense of pride when the following year the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who had come to power in a bloody coup during which the elected left wing president Salvador Allende died, was arrested in London on a warrant alleging that he had committed atrocities. At the time the news was greeted with euphoria by Chilean exiles and victims of his torture. Allende’s former personal doctor said: “Pinochet must now account for more than 3,000 deaths, exiles and tortures in the 17 years of his dictatorship.”

Sadly the story petered out and Pinochet was allowed to return home on the grounds that he was too frail to stand trial. But for a brief period it seemed that ethics had a role to play in the way Britain interacted with the rest of the world.

In 2001 Cook was removed by Tony Blair as Foreign Secretary and demoted to Leader of the House. Two years after that he resigned from the Cabinet in a last ditch, and unsuccessful, attempt to stop the UK joining the US in invading Iraq – a disastrous decision that destabilised the Middle East to an extent from which it has never recovered, causing countless deaths and provoking a refugee crisis that has poisoned Europe’s politics.

Since Starmer’s Labour Party won a landslide majority in July 2024, there has been no mention of an ethical dimension to Britain’s foreign policy. We have continued to supply arms to Israel despite the genocide that is clearly happening in Gaza, together with the continuing attacks on Palestinian villagers in the West Bank, whose land is stolen from them with impunity by Jewish settlers who literally believe they have a God-given right to do so.

In 1997, during my first visit to Jerusalem, I vividly remember being told by a teenage boy whose family ran a pizza restaurant in the walled Old City how the day before two American Jews had entered the premises and told the family that they would have the building off them and take possession of it themselves.

On a visit to Bethlehem I met a trader who was closing down his souvenir shop for good because visitors on Israeli tour buses were told not to buy anything from him or neighbouring shopkeepers because the takings were supposedly handed over to terrorists. And when I went to Hebron I was told by a Palestinian doctor how market stall holders regularly had their stalls vandalised by Jewish settlers who emerged at night from an armed compound simply to cause trouble and demonstrate their power. Things have got infinitely worse since then.

Bombed 

On the same trip I went to Gaza and observed the appalling conditions of people living in refugee camps, but also spoke to the deputy principal of a university who was determined that young people should have educational opportunities despite everything. Now the enclave has been bombed to smithereens and there are no universities left standing.

The failure to reach a negotiated settlement for decades has had the effect of pushing people into the arms of religious extremists. Hamas was created by Israel’s intransigence and the failure of Western powers, especially the US, to use economic pressure to secure concessions.

Today Israel has the most right wing government since the state was founded in 1948, with ministers who openly refer to Palestinians as animals.

For anyone who analyses the objective reality, there’s no getting away from the fact that it functions as a racist and apartheid state, and yet it has a powerful lobby acting on its behalf that intimidates those who criticise its actions by falsely accusing them of being antisemitic.

Most of the Western media supports Israel regardless of how many innocent Palestinians it has killed.

Vox pop interviews with ordinary Israelis are not shown as often as they should be, probably because they tend to display a heartless indifference to Palestinian suffering or even an enthusiasm for wanting them all dead.

The prospect of a ceasefire in Gaza has been dangled for over a year, but no one is talking seriously about a final peaceful settlement. Trump has spoken about settling the war between Russia and Ukraine in a day, but he hasn’t made a similar comment about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The killing will go on with no end in sight because there is no impetus to achieve a solution. Of course the hostages must be freed, but there are hostages on both sides, although that’s rarely mentioned.

Resolute

Ireland, which knows from its history all about colonial oppression, has been resolute in its condemnation of Israel, as has a minority of other Western countries including Spain.

If only our government had the courage to do the same.

Starmer and Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, haven’t even had the balls to call out Trump over his bellicose demands that the US should take ownership of Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone and even, for heaven’s sake, Canada.

What have we done to deserve such craven politicians to be running Britain?

Plenty, actually. I’m currently reading a brilliant book called Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by the American academic Caroline Elkins.

It’s superbly researched and tells in compelling detail how Britain not only ruled its colonies with brutal violence, but justified its actions by devising the concept of liberal imperialism – a perverse and paradoxical philosophy according to which the attainment of a civilised society can only be achieved by crushing its opponents with devastating force. During the Vietnam War it was supposedly adapted by a US army major who was quoted as saying: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

The Israelis, it seems, don’t bother with such niceties. Instead they dehumanise those they want to displace by calling them “animals”, destroying their homes and killing them, and settling on their land.

It’s doubtful whether Kamala Harris would have done things differently, but with Donald Trump about to re-enter the White House we can certainly count on more of the same.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Britain’s unethical foreign policy shames us all.