Keepin’ it Real

Tony Blair on rump-Europe’s notion of what alliances really are:

I have real concern that on both sides of the Atlantic there is, in certain quarters, an indifference, even a hostility, to an alliance that is every bit as fundamental to our future as it has been to our past. By this I don't just mean the rampant anti-Americanism on parts of the left. In a sense, that is relatively easy to counter.

It is more a drifting away, occasionally a resurgent isolationism that crosses right and left. In Britain now there are parts of the media and politics that are both Eurosceptic and wanting “an independent foreign policy” from America. Quite where Britain is supposed to get its alliances from bewilders me. There is talk of Britain having a new strategic relationship with China and India bypassing our traditional European and American links. Get real. Of course we will have our own relationship with both countries. But we are infinitely more influential with them if we have two strong alliances behind us.

Indeed. The very fact that one would have to impress a British public whose instincts are generally to follow the precise opposite course in international relations that Blair advocates isn’t so much surprising or telling, but a sign that mainstream European public opinion is not to be taken with much seriousness by anyone – not even these mythical allies to be found in Beijing.