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I am not fond of Tony Blair. As a current resident of the United Kingdom (UK) I bear witness to the folly of the many institutions and policy changes his regime birthed. These disasters include but are not limited to: the Supreme Court, the independence of the Bank of England, devolution, the removal of hereditary peers, the Freedom of Information Act, the Equalities Act, the London mayor, and the undermining of English political and cultural identity. However, there is one area in which I find I agree with him more often than not: foreign policy. 

Blair’s foreign policy was the best part of him because, unlike his domestic policy, it was rooted in reality. Domestically, he behaved like a net-zero deranged lunatic in the British Museum. Abroad, he understood the central fact of Britain’s post-imperial existence. Britain is no longer a world power in its own right. It is a serious middle power only when it attaches itself intelligently to the great Atlantic system, and the anchor of that system is America.

That is why I will argue to this day that Blair was right to join in both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the strategically correct choice and, although neither of those endeavours may have ended successfully, Blair’s choice (I believe) had the effect of sustaining almost twenty years of the so-called "special relationship" with the United States (US). Blair understood that you actually had to be useful to the US if you wanted to be friends with it.

Essay

His prominent essay of a few weeks ago made this point well. He argues that foreign policy begins with alliances because only America, China, and eventually India possess first-order power, leaving Britain as a middle power that must combine with others to matter. He says international politics is primarily about power, and that values require power for their protection. Blair therefore saw the US not as one legal partner among many, but as the central pillar of British strategic considerations.

The contrast with outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is brutal. The error in Starmer’s foreign policy is not that it is incoherent in the ordinary sense. It is worse than that. It is coherent according to the habits of an international lawyer, and therefore incoherent according to the needs of a nation.

To say that Starmer’s foreign policy is that of an international lawyer is not to say, in some cheap biographical sense, that he once wore a wig and read briefs. It is to say something much graver. It is to say that he thinks of foreign policy as a branch of adjudication. He approaches the world as though it were a dispute capable of being resolved in The Hague.

Starmer tells us this himself. At the United Nations (UN), he said he had spent his "career as a lawyer working to protect those rights", referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the same speech, his chosen programme was to "recommit to the UN, to internationalism, to the rule of law".

This is why Starmer can mention the national interest, and yet never quite sound as though he understands it. At Munich, facing the Russian threat, he said Britain’s objective was "lasting peace, a return to strategic stability, and the rule of law". He also conceded that Britain must build "hard power" because it is the "currency of the age". But the order is revealing. The lawyer’s end remains legal stability. Hard power is admitted, but only as an ugly necessity, a rough instrument to be held at arm’s length by the men of law.

Look at Iran. When the US and Israel struck Iranian targets in February this year, Starmer’s first instinct was to not rush to the assistance of the UK’s most important ally. British aircraft were active only defensively, Starmer said, making sure to add that this was "in line with international law".

Again, when a major international incident occurred, Starmer was more concerned with legalities and not the question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, regional aggression, and attacks on British soil, which require a strategic British answer, or whether the continued goodwill of the US is a strategic long-term asset.

This blind legalism has therefore produced a British foreign policy set adrift from the national interest, the "special relationship", and therefore, any international relevance. What Starmer’s policy has created is a Britain without any global power, less than 100 years after it ruled nearly a quarter of the world.

And it is not clear that Starmer’s likely successor, Andy Burnham, will do much to change British foreign policy when he comes to power, which will not be later than September.

South Africa

And this brings us to Pretoria.

South Africa’s foreign policy is not identical to Starmer’s, but the pathology is the same. Both have displaced the national interest. Starmer displaces it into law. Pretoria simply put its national interest up for sale and sacrificed it to nefarious actors.

Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s foreign minister, claims that the country’s foreign policy is anchored in multilateralism and non-alignment. This is similar to how Starmer conducts his foreign policy.

But for Pretoria, the language of law is used as a smokescreen for something more sinister. Take South Africa’s (likely Iran-funded) case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In an episode of Conversations with Gabriel, Mark Oppenheimer shared all the structural flaws in that case, so I shall not list them here.

However, the ICJ case allows South Africa to position itself within a global alliance against the West, particularly the US and Israel, while still claiming fidelity to law and multilateralism. But it is the needs of the Iranian regime and Hamas that are really the driving force.

Piecemeal

So, when one says South Africa is a regime for sale, there is some truth to that. Its foreign policy is sold piecemeal without any consideration given to the national interest.

This leaves South Africa very much in the same position as the UK today. We are internationally irrelevant. Our only defining characteristic is being anti-Israel. Our chief global allies are a group of dead men who once made up the Iranian regime. Where is the benefit to the country in that?

And so we, dear reader, must, most unfortunately, return to Tony Blair. He has given his own country and, incidentally, ours, a roadmap for a leftist, progressive government to follow if it wishes to be globally relevant. Blair understands that foreign policy is the management of power in the service of the nation. To a statesman, nothing matters more and Blair, to his credit, was at least that. The feckless crowd who run the show in London and Pretoria now would be wise to heed his advice.