Peter Oborne writes:
On the whole, William Hague has been a
disappointing Foreign secretary, and for an unexpected reason.
When Mr Hague was in opposition nobody shouted louder about the importance of British sovereignty.
In government, by contrast, he has repeatedly failed to stand up, or even attempt to stand up, for legitimate British interests.
There are numerous cases in point, but the most embarrassing concerns Mr Hague’s habitual crawling to the United States. Whatever the reason, he will never challenge Washington.
The most important current example of the institutional impotence of Mr Hague’s Foreign Office concerns Iran.
The Foreign Secretary has ceded control of trade with Iran to a department inside the US Treasury called the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), a body which monitors US sanctions by pursuing foreign companies involved in trade with Iran.
As I revealed in my column on February 19, OFAC bullies British banks through an informal system of secondary sanctions which makes it impossibly risky for Britons to carry out completely legitimate business with Tehran (including humanitarian aid).
The situation is so dire that (as of last month) the new Iranian chargé d’affaires in London can’t even open a bank account, making it impossible to pay electricity bills, council tax or run an office.
It is essential to stress that in Britain we have our own system of sanctions against Iran. I am not complaining about those, which have been democratically agreed and are open to scrutiny inside and outside Parliament.
But Parliament has never debated or even discussed these secondary (and in effect secret) sanctions imposed by OFAC, to which Mr Hague’s Foreign Office has silently assented.
So three cheers for Jack Straw for raising the matter in Parliament on Wednesday.
His well-informed speech, which can be read on theyworkforyou.com, brilliantly exposes Mr Hague’s failure to stand up to what amounts to United States blackmail.
The great merit of old-timers like Straw, a former Labour foreign secretary, is that they bring institutional memory to British politics.
Straw pointed out that British governments have not always kow-towed to the United States.
Mr Straw reminded the House of Commons that shortly after Margaret Thatcher came to office, the US tried to push British shipping firms around.
Thatcher was having none of it and forced through the Commons the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980, which was designed to "reassert and reinforce the defences of the United Kingdom" against attempts by America "to enforce their economic and commercial policies unilaterally on us" through "the extra-territorial application of domestic law".
This is exactly what is happening now with Iranian trade.
Unfortunately, this time William Hague and the Foreign Office are doing nothing. They have responded by grovelling to the United States.
Jack Straw produced some very startling statistics which showed how badly Britain has lost out as a result of Mr Hague’s grovelling.
British exports slumped by 73 per cent from $584 to $173 million between 2009-12, whereas US exports are down by a mere 11 per cent over the same period.
Insiders say that this is because US exporters have used their domestic political clout to negotiate exemptions with OFAC.
By contract, British exporters – thanks to William Hague (and David Cameron’s) refusal to stand up for Britain – are forced to do what OFAC wants with no right of appeal.
There is a telling lesson to be learnt from this miserable episode.
Mr Hague’s weakness flows from a basic failure to understand Margaret Thatcher's legacy.
She was famous throughout the world for the strength of her relationship with Ronald Reagan. Those who came after her – above all Tony Blair – sought to duplicate that relationship.
But Blair (and now Hague) made the disastrous error of assuming that the Anglo-American warmth in the 1980s came about because Britain lay down and allowed America to walk all over us.
This was a fundamental misinterpretation – as Charles Moore has showed in his wonderful biography of Thatcher.
The real reason for the strength of the relationship was because Maggie was never afraid to come out fighting for Britain, and Reagan profoundly respected her for it.
William Hague’s time as Foreign Secretary is coming to an end. Whatever the result of the next election, he is unlikely to stay at the FCO.
Though he will not go down as a distinguished Foreign Secretary, he has achieved a few good things in office.
In his final months, let’s hope he follows the example of Margaret Thatcher and not Tony Blair and makes it clear to the United States that Britain will not be bullied and blackmailed by a department of the US Treasury.
When Mr Hague was in opposition nobody shouted louder about the importance of British sovereignty.
In government, by contrast, he has repeatedly failed to stand up, or even attempt to stand up, for legitimate British interests.
There are numerous cases in point, but the most embarrassing concerns Mr Hague’s habitual crawling to the United States. Whatever the reason, he will never challenge Washington.
The most important current example of the institutional impotence of Mr Hague’s Foreign Office concerns Iran.
The Foreign Secretary has ceded control of trade with Iran to a department inside the US Treasury called the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), a body which monitors US sanctions by pursuing foreign companies involved in trade with Iran.
As I revealed in my column on February 19, OFAC bullies British banks through an informal system of secondary sanctions which makes it impossibly risky for Britons to carry out completely legitimate business with Tehran (including humanitarian aid).
The situation is so dire that (as of last month) the new Iranian chargé d’affaires in London can’t even open a bank account, making it impossible to pay electricity bills, council tax or run an office.
It is essential to stress that in Britain we have our own system of sanctions against Iran. I am not complaining about those, which have been democratically agreed and are open to scrutiny inside and outside Parliament.
But Parliament has never debated or even discussed these secondary (and in effect secret) sanctions imposed by OFAC, to which Mr Hague’s Foreign Office has silently assented.
So three cheers for Jack Straw for raising the matter in Parliament on Wednesday.
His well-informed speech, which can be read on theyworkforyou.com, brilliantly exposes Mr Hague’s failure to stand up to what amounts to United States blackmail.
The great merit of old-timers like Straw, a former Labour foreign secretary, is that they bring institutional memory to British politics.
Straw pointed out that British governments have not always kow-towed to the United States.
Mr Straw reminded the House of Commons that shortly after Margaret Thatcher came to office, the US tried to push British shipping firms around.
Thatcher was having none of it and forced through the Commons the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980, which was designed to "reassert and reinforce the defences of the United Kingdom" against attempts by America "to enforce their economic and commercial policies unilaterally on us" through "the extra-territorial application of domestic law".
This is exactly what is happening now with Iranian trade.
Unfortunately, this time William Hague and the Foreign Office are doing nothing. They have responded by grovelling to the United States.
Jack Straw produced some very startling statistics which showed how badly Britain has lost out as a result of Mr Hague’s grovelling.
British exports slumped by 73 per cent from $584 to $173 million between 2009-12, whereas US exports are down by a mere 11 per cent over the same period.
Insiders say that this is because US exporters have used their domestic political clout to negotiate exemptions with OFAC.
By contract, British exporters – thanks to William Hague (and David Cameron’s) refusal to stand up for Britain – are forced to do what OFAC wants with no right of appeal.
There is a telling lesson to be learnt from this miserable episode.
Mr Hague’s weakness flows from a basic failure to understand Margaret Thatcher's legacy.
She was famous throughout the world for the strength of her relationship with Ronald Reagan. Those who came after her – above all Tony Blair – sought to duplicate that relationship.
But Blair (and now Hague) made the disastrous error of assuming that the Anglo-American warmth in the 1980s came about because Britain lay down and allowed America to walk all over us.
This was a fundamental misinterpretation – as Charles Moore has showed in his wonderful biography of Thatcher.
The real reason for the strength of the relationship was because Maggie was never afraid to come out fighting for Britain, and Reagan profoundly respected her for it.
William Hague’s time as Foreign Secretary is coming to an end. Whatever the result of the next election, he is unlikely to stay at the FCO.
Though he will not go down as a distinguished Foreign Secretary, he has achieved a few good things in office.
In his final months, let’s hope he follows the example of Margaret Thatcher and not Tony Blair and makes it clear to the United States that Britain will not be bullied and blackmailed by a department of the US Treasury.
It's true, as he says, that Thatcher was really the last Prime Minister to stand up to the US-and Reagan certainly did respect her for it.
ReplyDeleteShe strongly denounced the US invasion of Grenada. She stood up to them over trade. Despite their "coddling" of Argentina's Galtieri regime, and their insistence that we negotiate, she unilaterally sent a British taskforce to retake the Falklands.
Ever since she left, we've been an American poodle.
Nigel Farage's blunt attacks on US foreign policy remind us of a time when we were better than this.
He's alienating such media support as he has, which is fiercely neocon. Much of his own party probably is, too.
ReplyDelete