Labour needs to be proud of its role in ending the British empire

By Jon Wilson

August 15th – yesterday – is a day Labour should celebrate. On August 15th 1947, under a Labour government, India became independent from the British empire. Pakistan was freed from British rule the previous day.

In the last few decades, we’ve struggled to develop a distinctively Labour foreign policy. We’ve been too easily seduced by the conservative pursuit of British power, prestige and interest at the expense of Labour values. When we have talked about doing things differently, we’ve forgotten that our values need to inform not just our objectives but the way we achieve them. It’s no use claiming to have progressive foreign policy objectives if we use the old ways to achieve them. As Iraq and Afghanistan show, one can’t create a stable democracy if local populations see you as an imperial occupier.

One answer is to return to Labour’s history. For much of our party’s history Labour has a foreign policy record to be proud of. Labour politicians were the strongest supporters of the League of Nations in the 1920s. They were the harshest critics of appeasement in the 1930s and the staunchest advocates of colonial freedom from the 1940s onwards. Each of these three moments were driven by an opposition to a world in which one people ruled over another.

We must recover the spirit that motivated Labour’s commitment to ending Britain’s empire.

Three principles underpin that spirit. First, and most importantly, is the recognition that people flourish when they rule themselves. That is why Labour has supported struggles for liberation from colonial rule, including India and Pakistan’s independence in 1947.

The second is that stable, just states rely on strong collective institutions, whether trade unions, civic associations or strong local governments. That principle allowed Labour to help create the German social market after World War II. In British-occupied Germany, Labour foreign secretary Ernest Bevin helped rebuild collective social institutions – unions, trade associations, worker representation on factory boards – which have allowed Germany to thrive since.

The third principle is hostility to violence as an instrument of policy. Labour’s historic opposition to empire has been based on the fact that empires can only sustained through the use of force. Labour recognised that violence is simply a bad way to achieve one’s objectives – and should only be used as a final resort.

At its best, Labour’s foreign policy has been based on putting these principles before a narrow sense of British self-interest. By contrast, from the Chamberlains (Joseph and Neville) to David Cameron and William Hague, the Conservatives and their Liberal allies have talked about putting ‘national interest’ first. In each case, their policies only advanced the interests of a narrow section of the British population.

Tories believe that putting Britain first and screwing the rest of the world wins votes in the UK. They forget that a large section of the public wants Britain to be a country does the right thing, not the selfish thing. In the 1860s, Manchester textile-workers supported the abolition of slavery in the American South even when slavery meant cheaper cotton, and more jobs in the mills. By the late 1940s, the British empire was an electoral liability. It ended with barely a whimper of opposition in the UK. Opposition to the Iraq war was driven by the fact that few believed Tony Blair was motivated to do the right thing.

At it’s best, Labour’s value-driven foreign policy has been based on something the Tories don’t have. The early Labour Party was part of an international movement of democratic socialists and social democrats. Labour politicians were tied through strong relationships – often close friendships – based on shared values to likeminded politicians throughout the world.

Close ties between Labour and Congress politicians in India allowed Labour to see how much India was suffering under British imperial rule. Connections with German Social Democrats let Labour to play such a positive role in post-war Germany. Those relationships meant Labour acted to create a more stable and just global order in the post-war world.

If Labour politicians had such strong connections with social democrats in the middle east in 2003, it is unlikely the last government would have embarked on the disastrous venture of the Iraq war.

Next Labour’s foreign policy needs to be clear about putting social democratic values before a narrow conception of British self-interest. Doing so can’t be a matter espousing abstract principles in a vacuum; and it needs to broaden its horizons beyond its strong relations with the USA. It has to be based on a re-engagement with our social democrat brothers and sisters around the world, from the Zapatero government in Spain, to Congress in India, to imprisoned Trade Unionists fighting for a living wage in China.

The most important step to rebuild those relations would be to say clearly that – whatever form it takes – empire is a bad thing.