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Britain
Foreign Secretary insists US will remain Britain's main ally
2007-07-16
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, insisted yesterday that the United States would remain Britain's main ally, as he issued a coded warning to government colleagues not to interfere in foreign policy. His move was part of the government's continuing effort to kill off speculation that Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, is preparing to distance Britain from the US and President George Bush.

The speculation started last week when Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, used a speech in Washington to call for a more "multilateral" foreign policy that put greater emphasis on economic development than military might. And it was fuelled by Mark Malloch-Brown, the former United Nations official now serving as a junior Foreign Office minister in the House of Lords, who has been a persistent critic of the Bush administration. On Saturday, he told a newspaper Mr Brown and Mr Bush would not be "joined at the hip", as he said the president and Tony Blair had been.

But Mr Miliband made clear Britain's relationship with the US was unchanged. "We have a very clear view in the government - it's been the case for many years - that our bilateral relationship with the United States is the most important bilateral relationship we have," he said.

In a BBC interview, he said pointedly that neither Mr Alexander nor Lord Malloch-Brown were authorised to drop hints or send signals about UK foreign policy. "We are not into the game of hints," Mr Miliband said. "If we want to say something, we will say it and we will say it in plain terms and you will hear it from the Prime Minister and you will hear it from myself." The Foreign Secretary's rebuke was aimed mainly at Lord Malloch-Brown, the minister for Africa, Asia and the UN. But he is also said to have been upset that Mr Alexander ranged so widely into foreign policy in his Washington speech, although the address had been cleared by Downing Street in advance.
Posted by:ryuge

#5  Ummm, not once Britian is run via Brussels.

BTW when does Europe give up all of those old fashioned France, Germany, Spain, etc. UN seats and sit at one EU seat?
Posted by: jds   2007-07-16 22:07  

#4  An England with a Winston Churchill could keep the US as an ally. However, it seems Winston has joined the other 'Winston' in the memory hole of Oceania British history.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2007-07-16 13:59  

#3  MMB's Lordship was his backdoor to the Foreign Office, where he'd otherwise have to be an elected MP. In other words, Brown specifically wanted miniSoros to run his foreign policy (though Miliband, to his credit, seems to be resisting the figurehead part).
Posted by: JSU   2007-07-16 13:00  

#2  The Foreign Secretary's rebuke was aimed mainly at Lord Malloch-Brown, the minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, former co-investor in the UN oil-for-food program. But he is also said to have been upset that Mr Alexander ranged so widely into foreign policy in his Washington speech, although the address had been cleared by Downing Street in advance.

There, fixed that. One of the weirdest things Blair did was to get this guy a Lordship. I mean, what the hell was he thinking? I guess he wanted to prove once and for all that he wasn't Bush's lap dog.
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2007-07-16 09:46  

#1  I have seen precious little evidence of British military might to substitute with multilateralism.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-07-16 08:51  

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