A MISTAKE appeared in this column last Saturday. Quoting remarks from a hog-whimperingly neoconservative speech about jihadism made at the Foreign Policy Centre in London nine months ago — a speech that compared doubters over the Iraq war with the appeasers of Nazism — I speculated that, though David Cameron himself had said little on this, he too was probably a hawk on Iraq. Calling the speech “pure Pentagon”, I attributed it to William Hague, now Shadow Foreign Secretary.
I apologise to him. I should have checked. Indict me of incompetence, however, but not of sexing-up my argument. Inadvertently I had sexed it down. The speech was Mr Cameron’s.
So forgive me for returning to the charge, but the risk is growing that the Conservative leadership could be led by its own instincts on international affairs, into an ambush: and soon.
Sooner than you may think, the capable Mr Cameron will be looking like the next prime minister. Already he is acquiring a sort of imminence. And sooner than you may think, British foreign policy will return to the centre of our attention. As it does, Mr Cameron risks being bounced into statements about what a Conservative government would do in the war zones where British troops are now committed. This could be dangerous electorally and pointless practically, because the Tories are not in government, and before they get there their plans may be overtaken by events.
The Conservative Party is heading for the wrong side of this argument. It may wake up to find that the reassuringly nutty Tony Blair has gone; that a Labour Cabinet has beaten a hasty retreat; and that — the cover offered by Mr Blair having disappeared — Tories are left uncomfortably exposed at the mad end of the foreign policy spectrum. On foreign wars Mr Blair has never knowingly been out-crazied, so he has always drawn the critics’ fire. Tory support has only ever been a footnote to Mr Blair. But what will they do when he is gone?
On this page on Thursday Anatole Kaletsky pointed to the danger for the Opposition that, on taking the reins, Gordon Brown might distance himself sharply from his predecessor’s attachment to a lame-duck US President. The decision whether or not to follow Prime Minister Brown on the road back from Baghdad could split the Conservatives, Anatole suggested.
His argument was timely, but the picture that Anatole paints of the Tories’ dilemma is too grim. Jacques Chirac once chided a fellow statesman for “missing a wonderful opportunity to keep his mouth shut”. And for the Tories, too, there is an escape from the dilemma on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan: a third way. Say nothing. Politicians not in power should never forget that silence is an option.
For the Conservative leadership, opportunities to say nothing about foreign wars should be seized with both hands. Many should be the mornings when Mr Cameron, Dr Liam Fox (his Defence Shadow) and Mr Hague leap from their beds with a real sense of excitement at the things they will not say today about necessary regime change, doughty Donald Rumsfeld, mad Iranian presidents or holding the line in Afghanistan.
First, the timing. Why write now about Conservative policy towards war in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan? Because I think the fall of Blair will alter everything, and that this may occur quite suddenly, and perhaps before the autumn. He now looks like a man alone in an old-fashioned signal box, its lights burning as night closes in, frantically yanking at levers. But they connect to nothing.
The Prime Minister is losing his command in the Commons and sinking in the opinion of the voters. In Washington this week with President Bush, he seemed to fumble for arguments. At home, each new prime-ministerial initiative enjoys a shorter half-life than the previous one. Was it only last week that nuclear power was “back with a vengeance”, and splashed across the front pages of newspapers? New promises die before the ink is dry. Are we still going to tear up human rights legislation, or was that last week? Are we still going to “automatically” “presume” that released prisoners will be deported, or has that been modified again? And perhaps the most telling intimation of political mortality is that Mr Blair’s critics have stopped bothering to answer his arguments. Newspaper stories routinely begin with sentences such as: “The Prime Minister will this afternoon attempt to reassert his authority/begin a fightback/secure his legacy . . .”
How long can this go on? Mr Blair’s last great claim on his supporters’ loyalty is that, whatever grumbling Labour supporters may feel about Mr Blair, they still see him as Labour’s most effective salesman to Middle Britain. As confidence in his salesmanship fades, this, always his greatest weapon at Parliamentary Labour Party meetings, drops from his hands.
In more ways than one, the atmosphere puts me in mind of 1997. I am particularly struck by the way Mr Cameron is neutralising the drawing rooms, common rooms and dining rooms of what you might call left-liberal England. Those who, without being tribal Labour supporters, would call themselves progressive or vaguely left-of-centre do not form any great electoral bloc but they are opinion-formers, and when they shift, the shift is indicative.
They were in love with Tony Blair. All political love affairs die, of course, but what is worrying for Labour is that the affection is not transferring to his successor. For the first time in two decades it no longer feels awkward among the media crowd to be a Tory. Few of these people will in the end vote for Mr Cameron, but it is noticeable that they are not at all struck on Mr Brown either. He just doesn’t get juices flowing in Harrogate, Hampstead or Hay-on-Wye. Smart, left-liberal England’s love for new Labour is evaporating, and there is little doubt that the picture painted of Mr Cameron (not least by Mr Cameron) has made him not only hard for progressives to hate, but even intriguing to them. He is de-Satanising their political world.
Were I a strategist for post-Blairite new Labour, and — in the face of the disarming barrage of warm words and fluff being pumped out by Cameron Conservatives — asked to suggest how opinion might be re-polarised, one of my suggestions would echo Anatole’s: get Labour off the hook on Iraq, and get Cameron onto it.
Opportunities to do this are on their way, and when they arrive my fear is that the Conservative Party may co-operate. Soon there will be well-sourced official talk of declaring “success” in Iraq, and beginning a phased withdrawal of troops. The temptation to expose the hypocrisy will be strong for any Tory. They should resist it.
Within a year, divisions over Iran may emerge within the Cabinet. Should Britain go along with warmongering talk from Washington? The temptation to back Cabinet hawks against Cabinet doves will be strong for many Tories. They should resist it.
And as Afghans revert to their ancient habit of killing whoever turns up, the temptation to urge an escalation in the military campaign will be strong for many Tories. They should resist it.
I am not asking Mr Cameron to recant. He genuinely wanted the neo-cons to succeed. But he must face the possibility that they cannot, and it is beyond Britain’s power to tip the balance. The electorate do not like these wars. A Tory manifesto pledge to go in harder behind a doomed US President would be a disaster.
When the lives of troops are at risk one can make a patriotic virtue of withholding judgment. From the Principal Opposition the sound we should hear is the sound of silence.
