Politics

The Foreign Office doctrine

When a bomb goes off in London, or as happened on 17 April, a foreign ter- rorist shoots a British citizen, the press and

television naturally speak angrily — Britain should 'get tough', 'serve notice to the murderers' that she will not stand idly by.

The message is that 'something must be done', and if it appears that it is not being

done the press likes to leap on the Govern- ment for cowardice and inaction. But it also becomes sycophantic. Just as the Govern- ment feels powerless, so the press feels frustrated at having nothing to report, and so it talks up the Government's response. Reporters talk of 'specially trained' squads of police and experts, 'experienced marksmen', dog handlers. And the politi- cians are dramatised. They tend to be 'on the spot within minutes', 'keeping in hourly communication' if they are in some remote part of the world. They chair 'top level committees' and they 'speak out' against the terrorists.

The usual result is that the five page stories every day, the piling up of every detail — spaghetti was brought to the Lib- yan 'People's Bureau' late on Monday night, the press reported, though they failed to say whether it was ready-cooked or not — blur the point of the story and so let the politicians off lightly. Last Christmas, for instance, the IRA blew up a number of people outside Harrods. The Home Secretary, Mr Leon Brittan, advised the survivors to `go on shopping'. I cannot remember than any publication except the Spectator pointed out what an unimpressive piece of defiance this was. This time, Mr Brittan has been even more circumspect. He has permitted himself to say that the Libyan shooting was a 'barbarous outrage' — yes, and a 'murderous onslaught' too — but he has wisely risked nothing more (such as ad- vice to Libyan students to go on demonstrating). Presumably he knows that if the People's Bureaucrats manage to hit another police officer before they leave on Sunday, the Government would have no more idea of how to respond than it did last week.

Unsmothered by the blanket coverage, the event remains simple. A foreigner murders a British policewoman in the mid- dle of London, and he is allowed to get away with it. That this can happen argues either a very grand and secret policy for which the Government is prepared to sacrifice human life and electoral populari- ty or an almost equally grand in- competence. No doubt most people feel that they know which of the two it is more likely to be.

But if it is an incompetence whose is it, and how does it arise? It would be unfair, after all, to blame Mr Brittan very much. He must have known, through the police, that Libyans here were causing trouble and so, one would have thought, he should have asked the Foreign Office to look more closely at the Libyan mission; but it is the Foreign Office's responsibility to make sure that diplomatic rules are observed.

Yet perhaps 'incompetence' is the wrong word. The Foreign Office has never been foolish enough to believe that Libya was a well-behaved nation which plays by the rules. It believed that it was important for reasons of state to pretend that Libya was respectable. Even now, it continues that pretence. Mr Oliver Miles, the British Am- bassador in Tripoli, refers to friendly talks with the Libyan government, and to being well-treated. Until and even after the break- ing of diplomatic relations, it was felt necessary to issue only the vaguest condem- nations and to keep up a tone which, if not, in the diplomatic phrase, 'cordial', was equally not 'frank'. The Foreign Office is not blundering aimlessly. It is acting accord- ing to a doctrine.

The doctrine is that the purpose of diplomacy is to preserve international order and that this is best done by ignoring or playing down its violations. Individual outrages, though of course 'regrettable', do not justify fierce reactions. Dead policewomen have to be weighed in the balance against contracts and live British citizens abroad, and it nearly always turns out that the scales come down on the side of the contracts and the living.

Which sounds reasonable. One would not think much of public servants who gaily abandoned the safety of British citizens whenever they felt that the honour of their nation had been impugned. But what is the test of the doctrine's soundness? The Foreign Office always takes refuge in its own expertise. It supports an extreme theory of cultural relativism by saying: 'We have met these people. Their standards are quite different from ours. It's no use expect- ing them to behave like us, so you must take them as you find them,' and yet it then turns round with an equally extreme in- sistence on good form where British official behaviour is concerned: 'You cannot expect British diplomats to depart from the normal courtesies. We at least will behave decently. Our temperate and well-informed profes- sionals know a great deal more about inter- national relations than does the rowdy House of Commons.' The doctrine of 'pragmatism' is actually the doctrine that the Foreign Office is always right, and the form which its rightness takes is always to say that the situation is too complicated for anything much to be done. The Foreign Office position offers itself as the wisdom of the ages, but what it amounts to is a trade union mentality. It is natural that a diplomat should think that his work is valuable, that only he and his kind understand how to deal With foreigners, and that the more countries in which British diplomats are permitted to ex- ercise their skills, the better. The diplomat sees diplomacy (the word chosen to describe how he spends his day) as a policy or rather, superior to policy, a good in itself. The diplomat defends his trade as fiercely as a printer threatened by new technology. He does it: it is good. It follows that the Foreign Office is unf!ts

to judge what should be done in St James Square. Its first interest will be to defend its own — good relations with Libya and the safety of its own employees there. It has very little interest in the defeat in itself,

of inter- national terrorism. In the case of the Vienna Convention, diplomats want to preserver diplomatic privilege against the wishes 01 nations to limit it. For the rest of us, concern for that privilege is tempered by some concept of reasonableness. If, f°r

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stance, the Libyans in St James's ScItn" trained missiles on Buckingham Palace, in- stead of a rifle on apolicewoman, n° °11„e would seriously suggest that we should ereevn- our side of the Convention. The ment should make a general declaration now that if any embassy again abuses Its. privilege so grossly (it should not specify act limits), it will reserve the right to its immunity and act as it pleases. The con: vention, after all, depends on goodwill to police itself — it is forbidden to carry weapons in diplomatic bags and to search the bags for weapons.

But before it defies the Vienna Conven: Gov Brittan

tion, or tries to reform it (as Mr promised the Commons on VVednesdal'c the Government might try t° vatic out why it wants to have diplom. relations with countries. Has it be„, sensible to butter up the oil-produelq nations, running relations with Africa int" shadow of Nigeria and with the Middle Efis in that of Saudi Arabia? Gaddafi hinise the beneficiary of a servile diPl°111a- towards OPEC which now looks sillier than ever. The characteristic of our diPl°51. te has been to use friendliness as a rely for power and so to value diplomatic re..; tions whether or not they show tang results. It might be better if we thollitov„ most of our diplomatic missions more as._ss fices for expediting Britain's business! Ifai as strands in a magical web of interna_, understanding. Is it possible to e business with countries like Libwith° damaged? being compromised and di.as Perhaps. But one suspects that no one bothered to ask the question. The vents„e St James's Square have shown that tnt. Foreign Office ducked it so resolutely tn..!.. it even winked at repeated Libyan viola ,1°, of its precious rules — all for the sake 01

diplomatic doctrine. xpedite

Charles Nilf,L__01.,e