No one on the political right doubts the need for a conservative economic policy or a conservative social policy that is different from the one offered by the political left. However, no such logic seems to apply to foreign policy.
For many, Britain’s approach to the outside world is seen as existing in a separate realm to domestic policy, defined by enduring interests and values that transcend ideology or party politics. And, in some measure, this is true.
But there are always choices to be made in foreign policy. The national interest is not a stable concept but one defined by what politicians perceive to be important. Nor are the means for pursuing these interests in any way fixed.
Unfortunately, thirteen years since the political left last held power, many small-c conservatives are still running with an approach to global affairs defined by their opponents – a kind of liberal internationalism that prioritises the pursuit of human rights and natural justice over alternative goals such as security and prosperity, and is willing to subordinate Britain to rule by international institutions to achieve these.
Certainly, matters have moved on since the 2000’s when conservatives backed the Blair government’s various humanitarian interventions in the Islamic world and elsewhere, under the American-imported rubric of ‘neo-conservatism’.
Under James Cleverly, the government has adopted a more pragmatic and less idealistic approach with regard to such unachievable goals as rescuing the Uyghurs or restoring democracy in Hong Kong even if it has not resolved whether to prioritise prosperity via trade or the combatting the systemic threat that China poses to the UK.
However, the doctrine of liberal internationalism remains prevalent in many other aspects of foreign policy. The government’s 2021 Integrated Review is imbued with the values and priorities of the political left with its emphasis on Britain’s role as a ‘force for good’, manifest in a determination to tackle climate change, eliminate poverty and promote global health – not necessarily bad things, but more the business of an NGO than a government. While some of the more dogmatic language was purged from the Integrated Review’s ‘refresh’ published in March this year, the underlying approach remains intact.
The government’s commitment to liberal internationalism exists not only on paper. On the ground, diplomats busily pursue the approach in practice, from promoting left-wing objectives such as advancing equality and ending discrimination based on protected characteristics, picking allies based on their commitment to liberal-left values and sanctioning those that reject these, and promoting a multilateral approach to foreign policy that prioritises rules, institutions and international norms over the national interest.
Meanwhile, in parliament, prominent Conservatives have advocated messianic policies such as war with Russia as a means to cut it down to size, in apparent disregard for the security and welfare of the British people.
All this matters. At a minimum, pursuing idealistic goals, which are not in the UK’s gift to deliver, are a waste of time and resources – massively so in some cases, such as Britain’s interventions in the Islamic world. Such goals also impose opportunity costs, distracting policymakers from more pressing tasks such as securing Britain from threats from hostile states, upholding the country’s prosperity, and countering dangerous imported ideologies such as Wokeism.
An ideologically-driven foreign policy alienates international partners whose support Britain should be cultivating. No doubt, large parts of the Global South’s current support for Russia is a response to years of being lectured on their morality by Western countries such as the UK.
A focus on idealistic goals also rides roughshod over the views of ordinary people who, while not indifferent to liberal values, make clear their preference for a foreign policy focused on upholding the national interest.
So what explains this failure to promote conservatism in foreign policy?
Partly, it is due to a lack of interest in the subject by politicians of all stripes for whom domestic policy is more immediate to their lives and those of their constituents – despite foreign policy being an extension of domestic policy and a front on which it is fought and defended. Tellingly, the Reform party’s political programme has literally nothing to say about foreign affairs.
Partly, it is due to the domination of the foreign policy establishment by liberal internationalists – in think tanks, the media, universities, parliament and the civil service – who present ideologically-loaded advice about what the UK should do abroad as impartial analysis.
Yet the failure of conservatives to uphold conservatism in foreign policy also reflects the absence of a coherent alternative to liberal internationalism – a conservative foreign policy doctrine from which they might derive an alternative agenda.
If so, then the solution to this problem lies in two domains. The first is to reach some definition of what a conservative foreign policy entails by returning to the principles on which conservatism is based and the practice of foreign policy by conservatives in the recent past.
In the process, conservatives will discover a rich tradition on which to draw, encompassing various approaches to the outside world that can inform policy today.
These include realism with its regard for the salience of international power, prudence in the use of force, attention to the risk of unintended consequences and scepticism about the transformational nature of politics, especially in the international arena.
Another tradition is nationalism, with its emphasis on the national community and national sovereignty, the preservation of culture and tradition, limits on immigration, respect for the values and traditions of other nations and abstention from involvement in their sovereign affairs, qualified only by opposition to those nations which compromise the sovereignty of others.
A third is liberalism in the classical meaning of the term, with its emphasis on promoting democracy, free markets and the rule of law, within limits defined by a focus on how other societies should organise themselves and reach decisions, rather than what those decisions should be.
Certainly, these traditions do not always neatly align and at points even contradict each other. Such is the nature of human affairs. However, in combination they provide the outlines of a genuinely conservative foreign policy that emphasises the well-being of the nation, rejects multilateral government where this compromises national sovereignty, urges caution in dealings with hostile states but supports containment and even confrontation with those that threaten the UK’s way of life.
Yet, defining the policy is only half the problem. The second domain is implementation in the face of a foreign-policy establishment that is wedded to liberal internationalism and – as the Trump administration discovered when it tried to implement its policy of America First and faced relentless internal opposition.
Overcoming such opposition is inevitably a long and arduous task but there are measures that conservatives can take. One obvious step is to end the various practices that deter conservatives from entering and staying at the Foreign Office – such as the compulsory diversity courses and flying of rainbow flags at embassies abroad – which collectively send the message ‘conservatives not welcome’.
A second would be to establish a couple of openly conservative foreign-policy think tanks and to ensure public financing for these, ending the practice in which funds are directed only to those that have succumbed to O’Sullivan’s law – that all organisations that are not explicitly right-wing will over time become left-wing. Conservatives should also seek out those academics and foreign-policy specialists who think outside liberal parameters, of which some do exist.
With the political left set to return to government next year with a foreign policy that fully restores the liberal internationalism of the Blair era, replete with its idealistic policy agenda, propensity for militarism and disregard for national sovereignty, it is more important than ever that conservatives work out an alternative doctrine and how this can be implemented.
In short, if they are to provide effective opposition, it is time for Conservatives to establish a conservative foreign policy.
Dr Timothy Less is a researcher at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University. He is leading a new project at the Centre for Brexit Policy on conservatism in foreign policy
