A second minister in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s new government has hinted at an apparent shift in foreign policy, predicting that London and Washington would not be “joined at the hip” under the new premier.
Brown denied on Friday any policy change after International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said in Washington that while Britain stood beside the United States in fighting terrorism, isolationism did not work in an interdependent world.
Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown followed up by insisting that Britain had to nurture a wider range of allies.
'Go beyond the bilateral blinkers'
“You need to build coalitions which are lateral, which go beyond the bilateral blinkers of the normal partners,” the former deputy secretary general of the United Nations told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Brown became premier last month, promising change in a bid to woo back voters after 10 years of Labour Party rule under Tony Blair and to draw a line under the Iraq war. Blair’s closeness to Washington was unpopular with many Britons.
The change of premier has prompted speculation that Britain might accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq. Britain has been gradually reducing numbers in Iraq and now has about 5,500 troops in the south.
Malloch Brown said: “For better of worse, it is very unlikely that the Brown/Bush relationship is going to go through the baptism of fire and therefore be joined together at the hip like the Blair/Bush relationship was.”
“That was a relationship born of being war leaders together. There was an emotional intensity of being war leaders with much of the world against them that is enough to put you on your knees and get you praying together,” he added.
'More pragmatic diplomacy'
But Malloch Brown predicted that relations with Washington would continue to be good and said that with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, “we are getting a dramatic reassertion of multilateralism and a more pragmatic diplomacy.”
Brown is flying to Berlin for talks on Monday and plans to visit Paris and Washington in the coming months, his spokesman said on Friday.
In comments interpreted by British media as a policy shift, Alexander had said: “In the 20th century a country’s might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st, strength should be measured by what we can build together.”
A spokesman for Brown denied Alexander’s speech marked any turnaround in Britain’s so-called “special relationship” with the United States and said the interpretation put on Alexander’s words by the media was “quite extraordinary.”
Brown told BBC radio he would continue to work closely with the U.S. administration.
“We’ll not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges we face around the world,” he said, when asked about Alexander’s words.