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| Lib Dem MP: UK foreign policy has hit 'new low' |
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| Tuesday, 19 September 2006 | |
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Liberal Democrat frontbencher Michael Moore has opened the party's annual conference with a scathing review of British foreign policy under Labour.
The party's foreign affairs spokesman said the prime minister had turned the government into the "advance party for the US secretary of state". He criticised Tony Blair's refusal to condemn the Israeli response in the Lebanon conflict this summer, a response he said amounted to "collective punishment". "These last few years have seen a dismal period in British foreign policy," he said. "This summer it reached a new low." And he said without a new UN-led strategy to stabilise Iraq, "the continuing presence of British troops must be called into question". Delivering the first set-piece speech on the opening day of the conference in Brighton, Moore also condemned the US and EU response to the election of Hamas in Palestine. He said: "The West encouraged the creation of democratic government. "But once the people had the temerity to choose a government profoundly troubling to the West, the reaction, including from the European Union, was a grotesque fit of pique." Arguing that "basic shared values" still bound Britain and the US, he said "increasingly the world needs a European voice, and one with a British accent". And he spoke out about the way in which constitutional affairs secretary Lord Falconer recently condemned the Guantanamo Bay detention camp during in a lecture in Australia. "Let us never again see ministers travelling half way round the world before they dare criticise the United States in Guantanamo, even as Republicans in congress defeat the administration on the issue," Moore said. He argued for a concerted effort to support troops and political reform in Afghanistan, and called for more aid to help reconstruction in Lebanon. He said arms licensing rules should be changed to ban the sale of any weapons which could "pose risks to regional stability". And the international community should show the same urgency in its response to the Darfur crisis it showed over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he added. "Our role in the world may be fast changing," he said. "But as we have seen in recent years our foreign policy still has consequences, all too painful at times. "We have stood out against the government and we must continue to do so. "To make the case for a foreign policy, based on our liberal, democratic and international values. "That is our role. That is our mission. Let's go to it." Source: epolitix.com The party's foreign affairs spokesman said the prime minister had turned the government into the "advance party for the US secretary of state". He criticised Tony Blair's refusal to condemn the Israeli response in the Lebanon conflict this summer, a response he said amounted to "collective punishment". "These last few years have seen a dismal period in British foreign policy," he said. "This summer it reached a new low." And he said without a new UN-led strategy to stabilise Iraq, "the continuing presence of British troops must be called into question". Delivering the first set-piece speech on the opening day of the conference in Brighton, Moore also condemned the US and EU response to the election of Hamas in Palestine. He said: "The West encouraged the creation of democratic government. "But once the people had the temerity to choose a government profoundly troubling to the West, the reaction, including from the European Union, was a grotesque fit of pique." Arguing that "basic shared values" still bound Britain and the US, he said "increasingly the world needs a European voice, and one with a British accent". And he spoke out about the way in which constitutional affairs secretary Lord Falconer recently condemned the Guantanamo Bay detention camp during in a lecture in Australia. "Let us never again see ministers travelling half way round the world before they dare criticise the United States in Guantanamo, even as Republicans in congress defeat the administration on the issue," Moore said. He argued for a concerted effort to support troops and political reform in Afghanistan, and called for more aid to help reconstruction in Lebanon. He said arms licensing rules should be changed to ban the sale of any weapons which could "pose risks to regional stability". And the international community should show the same urgency in its response to the Darfur crisis it showed over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he added. "Our role in the world may be fast changing," he said. "But as we have seen in recent years our foreign policy still has consequences, all too painful at times. "We have stood out against the government and we must continue to do so. "To make the case for a foreign policy, based on our liberal, democratic and international values. "That is our role. That is our mission. Let's go to it." Source: epolitix.com           |
