25/02/2025 10:21
The Guardian
Mike Amesbury was sentenced to 10 weeks in jail for assault but is still being paid his Commons salaryKemi Badenoch will be giving a speech shortly on foreign policy. CCHQ released a chunk of extracts overnight, and here are the key points.Badenoch will says she is a “conservative realist” on foreign policy. She will say:Twenty years ago, Irving Kristol talked of a conservative being a liberal mugged by reality. And, on foreign policy, that is exactly what I am: a conservative. Not a cosmopolitan internationalist. Not a supra-nationalist. Not a neo-con. But a conservative realist.She will say that the framework for the government’s foreign policy is out of date. She will say:The United Kingdom must accept reality. No-one owes us a living. No process is an end in itself. We can no longer hide behind vapid statements that were, at best, ambitious twenty years ago and are now outright irrelevant.It is time to speak the truth: the world has changed. And we are not ready.She will say defence must be the top priority.The first thing we must define is what we want, and what we must do. A nation state’s primary purpose is to defend its borders, its values and its people. Our national interest is first and foremost to protect our country, to strengthen our country, and to look after ourselves. That means a strong military and a strong economy. That is not a selfish objective. It is realism - because you cannot help others if you cannot help yourself. Strengthening Britain must be the principal objective at the heart of everything we do.She will downplay the role of international law, saying that on its own it cannot “keep the peace”.We must stop being naïve about international affairs. We’ve let ourselves be fooled into believing that international law alone can keep the peace. But when faced with a regime with no respect for the law, we need to be realistic.She will argue that the UK might have to withdraw from some international bodies “taken over” by activists or autocrats.We can no longer simply put our trust in international partnerships or supranational institutions as ends in themselves. Where these work for us and deliver in our national interest we will embrace them. NATO remains vital for European defence. We should always prioritise closer trading relationships with open economies, and as a trading nation we need to protect the rules that underpin global commerce.Where international discussions achieve results, like with the AUKUS Partnership or the CPTPP trade deal, we must support them. But “international law” should not become a tool for NGOs and other critics to seek to advance an activist political agenda through international bodies and our domestic courts. And if international bodies are taken over by activists, or by autocratic regimes like China or Russia, we must use our influence to stop them. And if that fails, we will need to disengage.She will say government spending on debt is too high.And there will be painful decisions on government spending. Any country that spends more interest on its debt than on defence, as the UK does today, is destined for weakness. Continue reading...
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