Gordon Brown with new UK foreign policy?
MIL/BBC, Jun 26, 2007.
London: June 26, 2007 (Tuesday) - What changes Gordon Brown is likely to make to British foreign policy after he succeeds Tony Blair as prime minister? BBC News website world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds looks at them subject wise.
Gordon Brown is something of an unknown quantity as far as foreign policy is concerned. He can probably be described as an Atlanticist and his pro-American sympathies should not be underestimated, though he will not be as close to President Bush as Tony Blair has been. His European instincts incline towards the practical not the integrationist.
He has quietly supported all the interventions carried out by the Blair-led government - Iraq, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan - but the question remains as to how far he would undertake such interventions himself. As chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister) he has been keen on multinational initiatives on debt and aid, so he is expected to continue with these.
The expectation is that he will distance himself from President Bush to some degree. However, Mr Brown has close ties to the United States, is certainly not personally anti-American and his will not be an anti-American government. He is interested in and in sympathy with US politics and history, knows a number of American political, especially Democratic, leaders well and holidays at Cape Cod. He might disappoint those who want Britain to make a decisive break with the Bush administration. A lot will depend on the decisions he takes over Iraq.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6234592.stm
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