As Gordon Brown attempts to escape his domestic travails with a visit to the US, he seems set to provoke further debate about Britain’s most established international relationship. Speaking in an interview on Monday with Katie Couric, from the US broadcaster CBS, the PM reiterated his pro-American credentials in a way reminiscent of Tony Blair’s foreign policy rhetoric. Brown seems to be reverting to the default position of the last decade, that of the much vaunted ‘Blair bridge’. All of this begs the question - just how different is Brown’s view of the alliance from that of his predecessor? Certainly, his comments provide much for us to ponder, with there being two particular points I would raise:

1.    The first of these concerns the apparent attachment to traditional (post-1945) modes of thinking in British foreign policy - conceptualising diplomacy in terms of the nation’s role and status, rather than focusing on the realities of global issues that need attention. At best, the Prime Minister’s choice of words suggests that he was simply telling the US interviewer what he thought she wanted to hear. If not, then current policy seems set to follow a course charted during the Blair years - a far cry from the noises emanating out of the Brown premiership last summer.

2.    Secondly, the Prime Minister’s comments say something very interesting about the relationship between Number 10 and King Charles Street. Indeed, it was only in January this year that the Foreign Secretary was proclaiming Britain as a ‘global hub’ while suggesting that the ‘bridge’ metaphor was ‘never quite right’. Whatever intentions lay behind Brown’s comments, they introduce an element of doubt into Mr Miliband’s attempts to project a British identity that is truly global in both outlook and aspiration.

It is important, of course, to remember the context in which the Prime Minister made his comments - speaking to a US interviewer, for a US audience and preparing the ground for his visit to the country. Equally, however, the importance of coherence and consistency in expressing a foreign policy narrative is something we should not underestimate. Indeed, comments made in interviews and at press conferences have an uncanny knack of becoming embedded in discourse, whether Prime Ministers or Presidents like it or not (does anyone remember the ‘Colgate Summit’?). More seriously, they also serve to detract from the pressing issues that should form the focus of policy. We will all have to wait for Mr Brown’s foreign policy speech today in Boston to see how much an advocate of the ‘Blair bridge’ he really is, and incidentally where this fits into his vision of a 'global society' outlined in November last year. Journalists, policy wonks (and perhaps even the Foreign Secretary himself) will be waiting in anticipation.

michael.harvey@demos.co.uk

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