British foreign policy debate remains dominated by the Iraq war and its aftermath. But could a new emphasis on British values see a revival of the idea of an ethical foreign policy?

Speakers: Haleh Afshaf, Nick Cohen, John Kampfner, John Lloyd, Stephen Twigg,

A return to the 'ethical dimension' to foreign policy promoted by former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook offers the left its best route to applying values to foreign policy, New Statesman editor John Kampfner told the Fabian Britishness conference.

But deep divisions over what ethics in foreign policy would demand were on display as the 'Global Britain' session brought leading critics of British and US foreign policy John Kampfner and Haleh Afshar and two prominent advocates of Blair's liberal interventionism in John Lloyd and Nick Cohen. The panel could agree that the aftermath of divisions over Iraq war will continue to dominate British foreign policy debate and that democracies should expect to divide over foreign policy.

'I don't agree with the idea that there is something wrong or odd about Britain or the left dividing over foreign policy: it has always happened', said Observer commentator Nick Cohen. The left had been divided in 1939, over Bosnia and since 9/11. Cohen expected the divisions to become wider because of differences over how to respond to fundamentalist Islamism. John Lloyd of the Financial Times said that the left had not been able to agree over Nato, over CND and over US bases. Divisions over Europe in the 1960s and 1970s had fundamentally split the Labour Party. 'The divide is deeper and more bitter than it has been in the past, but we should have the division and the debate' about it.

John Kampfner argued that a coherent, effective left foreign policy would have to be built around the 'ethical dimension to foreign policy' much maligned when Robin Cook put it forward in 1997. But this required far more than cosmetic change and Britain would need to kick the habit of being in constant rivalry with France for the number two position in global arms sales. "It would be a very good thing if Britain did have an ethical foreign policy but the fact is that it doesn't' said Haleh Afshar of York University, arguing that foreign policy was defined by 'white men in suits who have no idea of the very diverse character of multicultural Britain, and even when diverse Britain gets together and two million of us march in the street, we don't have any way of influencing foreign policy as I fear that when America calls the tune then Britain follows along'

For John Lloyd, the Iraq war had been in the best traditions of the internationalist left in opposing tyranny. He said that those who branded liberal interventionists like himself as 'neo-cons' failed to understand the importance of the neo-con domestic agenda: 'It is natural that in Europe, we see neo-conservatism as about foreign policy. But to the extent there is a coherent neo-conservatism it is founded on a domestic agenda, around lower taxes and the minimal state, very little of which those of us who are wrongly branded as neo-cons would agree with'.

In a contribution from the floor, Gary Kent of Labour Friends of Iraq, said. 'Why don't we ask Iraqis what they want from us. Whatever our positions on the war, we should be able to agree on a policy of solidarity and offer practical assistance to those struggling to build an Iraqi labour movement'.

John Kampfner said that those who had opposed the Iraq war were ill-served by the more simplistic anti-war arguments. He spoke of how his experience as the western journalist who had spent most time in Rwanda had convinced him of 'the absolute folly of non-interventionism in certain circumstances'. Kampfner agreed with John Lloyd, saying that 'Blair's Chicago speech had much to commend it but Iraq was a fundamentally different case'. For Kampfner,

Anthony Barnett of OpenDemocracy challenged Nick Cohen to explain why he had been critical of the war in Afghanistan at the time, which he had now opposed, though Cohen said he had believed reports from aid agencies about the humanitarian impact which turned out to be vastly exaggerated. Fabian General Secretary Sunder Katwala said that, approaching the fifth anniversary of 9/11, that there needed to be a more engaged debate which, instead of replaying the arguments over Iraq, sought to identity the common ground between liberal interventionists like Lloyd and those like Kampfner who had supported interventions in Bosnia, Rwanda but opposed the Bush-led Iraq war. The aim should be to forge a 'neo-prog' agenda on the left which was clear about its differences to the neo-con approach in seeking to create effective multilateral means to protect democracy and human rights.

But attempts to move the debate on from Iraq mostly proved short-lived, as many of the floor contributions returned to the subject, though issues discussed included whether British identity could help us to adapt to a shrinking role in a world where rising powers like China were increasingly important. John Lloyd said that a British identity dilemma was how the most pro-European government in a generation had ended up here: 'Is anybody confident that we will join the euro soon – or even that we will ever join the euro? … The forward march of Europe has halted and neither left nor right knows what to do about it'. For Haleh Afshar, Europe's troubles linked to a fear of diversity: 'Why did the French in particular decide to say no? At heart, it was the fear of Turkey'.

Haleh Afshar said that the west was losing the argument for public opinion in the Middle East: 'The Iraqis want an Iranian style government. I have fought against an Iranian government all of my life – and yet now I find myself almost sympathising with that, so much has the west lost support'. But Lloyd said that while some divisions over foreign policy were 'unbridgeable', there were 'some encouraging signs of change' towards democracy in the Middle East. 'In Egypt, Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia we are beginning to see stirrings in a number of societies. They are certainly not doing it in George Bush's name but they are doing it in their own name' said Lloyd.

Kampfner said there remained too many allies of western powers where a blind eye was turned to horrific human rights abuses 'we go through the motions of condemnation but do nothing about them', citing the cases of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, with dissidents from the former being summarily shot on the border trying to escape to a country which itself is in the practice of boiling dissidents alive. 'There will never be purity of motive in foreign policy. But we can at least strive towards a greater level of consistency and a greater effort to remove the double standards', he said.

Global Britain: must foreign policy divide?, with Haleh Afshar (University of York), Nick Cohen (The Observer), John Lloyd (Financial Times) and John Kampfner (editor, New Statesman), and Stephen Twigg (Director, Foreign Policy Centre) chairing. This panel debate took part at the Fabian New Year Conference 'Who do we want to be? The Future of Britishness' on January 14, 2006, at Imperial College London.

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