The uncertain merger of values and interests in UK foreign policy

What is good for Britain is also good for the rest of the world. The increasingly consistent, and surprisingly unchallenged, claims that Britain’s national interest and its moral responsibilities to international society and to vulnerable non-citizens are merging seem to lean towards this controversial sentiment. Accompanying Labour’s foreign policy with an ethical dimension, the idea that values and Britain’s national interests were merging was a central plank in Tony Blair’s ‘Doctrine of the International Community’ (Cook 1997a; Blair 1999). Despite claims of a return to national interest and a more ‘pragmatic’ foreign policy, suggestion of a values-interests merger has been maintained in the foreign policy of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Analysing speeches and documents, this article explores the implications of this claim. Although ethical reflection in British foreign policy is not necessarily new, the idea that concern for non-citizens should be manifested in overt commitments, to which governments are held accountable, represents an innovation that has endured beyond Labour’s tenure. Understandably, the coalition has made concerted attempts to depart from the more controversial and hubristic aspects of Labour’s internationalism. The coalition claims a foreign policy with a more pragmatic approach, more measured and modest ambition and closer attention paid to national interest.