Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

It may seem an odd reflection, but it is the view of this blog that in spite of Huhne/Price/Rennard and who did what and why and who knew what and when and all the subtexts of scandal washing over the Party,the Lib Dems are in a good place.

They had the guts to enter government, something of which for years most thought them incapable, and almost every aspect of coalition policy which is popular is there because of Lib Dem insistence. Their coalition partners, the Tories, are in terrible trouble. They are split over social values and Europe and their economic policy is stalled. Cameron’s great economic speech has gone the way of Osborne’s last budget, mired in mistakes and confusion. Both were a disaster. Now Vince Cable, who many regard as having the best grasp of economic reality, is openly opposing the Treasury’s position.

Then there is UKIP. Nigel Farrage is fast becoming a kind of English Alex Salmond. He has already made enough progress with his party to guarantee that the Tories cannot win a majority on their own in 2015, but his effect on the LibDems own supporters will be small, because  the Lib Dems are unashamedly pro EU and unlikely to vote for a party which wishes to leave. But UKIP’s appeal to those older backward looking Tories who do, will make it easier for Clegg’s party to hold onto their southern seats and maybe even gain some, to offset likely losses in the north.

There is more. It UKIP gets up enough steam to win seats there is an obvious possibility of a right wing Tory/UKIP coalition, but a Lib Dem/Labour government would be likely to have more seats and votes. There is one joker in the pack.

If the Scots vote for independence in 2014, everything changes.

This week Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, is travelling to London for talks with William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary. The two sides are close on almost every aspect of where they would like progress to be made but have between them an impasse. The Russians see the post cold war West as meddling and imperial, with a lust for regime change brought about by force, either directly or through proxies. Britain sees Russia as difficult on purpose and unprincipled in backing President Assad, once considered moderate and restrained, now condemned as a tyrant. Assad has become the sticking point preventing compromise over Syria.

This blog makes no secret of its opposition to British foreign policy, which it regards as lacking in strategic focus for many years past and a complete failure since 9/11. In the regime change department Iraq was a disaster, Afghanistan is a mess and has been a complete waste of British lives and money and Libya is not fulfilling the initial promise at the fall of Gaddafi. Relations with Europe are confused and Cameron’s proposals for a new relationship with the organisation of which we are a member and transact half our trade, confusing.

Our refusal to allow talks to include the government in power, i.e. Assad, at the very beginning of the Syria crisis is the single biggest factor that drove the protest from peace to violence, then to armed groups, moving on to civil war leading to a collapsing state. The suffering of the innocent people of Syria, most of whom support neither one side or the other and just want peace and security gets worse week by week. There is now not just a humanitarian disaster but one spinning out of control.

It is one of the oldest tricks of statecraft to set pre-conditions to negotiations which knowingly cannot be met in order to avoid talking. Having refused to talk to Assad, Britain and its allies now find themselves supporting a mish -mash grouping of opposition fighters of obscure intention, many of whom will be at each others throats as soon as Assad falls, and among whom Al Qaeda, the West’s arch enemy, is a key player. It is small wonder that Mr. Lavrov sticks to his point of principle that outside powers cannot dictate the detail of internal governance.

Russia is Europe’s natural ally. An astute foreign policy would recognise that without Russia, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler would have won their wars. It would also note that without Russian resources of coal, oil and gas, the lights of Europe would go out, people would freeze in their homes and few would be able to afford to run cars. Europe needs  the Russians more than it needs the US, which is ever more focused towards, and financially dependent on, Asia. Such thoughts might help William Hague to seek a compromise with Mr Lavrov. Nothing else will offer any hope of a swift end to the appalling events in Syria.