Daily View: The election and foreign policy
Commentators discuss the election and foreign policy. They ask how the UK interacts with the rest of the world from nuclear weapons and war to Europe and immigration.
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[subscription required] why he thinks foreign policy will not change:
"Since world war two, changes of government in Britain have not led to significant shifts in foreign policy. Both the largest parties have invariably shared the same aims and illusions. In opposition, parties have been roiled by disagreements over external affairs and defence, for example over our approach to the European Union and the possession of nuclear weapons. In government, the same parties have found a workable way forward and I doubt whether the situation will be much different after May 6."
Britain's nuclear-weapons plans have split the Liberal Democrats from Labour and the Conservatives. [subscription required] Barack Obama's goal of a nuclear-free world:
"The idea of a world free of nuclear weapons is not so much an impossible dream as an impossible nightmare... A world without nuclear weapons might also be one of much deeper mutual suspicion. Even if states did scrap all their nukes, most would retain the knowledge and the ability to build a nuclear weapon quickly. The certainty that an adversary had nuclear weapons would be replaced by the neurotic fear it might secretly have something in a cellar - or that it could be one screwdriver's turn away from reacquiring the world's most dangerous weapons."
[contains strong language] that Gordon Brown's recent "bigot" remark exposes the lie that people cannot talk about immigration without being a racist:
"Banned too are any suggestions that some anti-immigrant views are racist. Where is the social research evidence that these are uncoupled? Gillian Duffy was indeed bigoted (not a bigot - nobody should be wholly defined by any one set of attitudes) because she lumped Eastern Europeans into one big moan and because in her area there is no major 'influx' of our fellow EU citizens. They were used symbolically for deeper indigenous worries - that in Rochdale, in 10 years one in five will be from the 'ethnic minorities', and the place changing its old character. Duffy doesn't like that and she has every right to say so. But we too have the right to object to her xenophobic ideas of who may belong."
that the party who wins should not withdraw from Europe:
"Outside the EU, [the UK] would remain a nuclear power with a global reach as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, but Britain would be excluding itself from one of its main spheres of interest, making it a less important ally for the US. Taking itself out of co-operation on justice and home affairs would be risky too, as the UK enjoys a special hybrid status. It opts into much co-operation but keeps control of its own borders. But it is the economic sphere where withdrawal would really hurt. With an estimated 3.5 million jobs dependent on trade with Europe, the EU's single market is fundamental for British business."
The London correspondent of El Mundo how he thinks the rest of the world perceives this election:
"I think it's quite revolutionary, I do. It's almost certain that the electoral system is going to change as a result of it. I was so angry with those commentators who said this is a bubble, it's a Diana moment, it will burst. And it hasn't. I think something revolutionary is happening and this is big lesson for newspapers, commentators and political parties."
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