22 July 2009 : PA
By Jon Smith
Britain risks losing its authority in the world because of Gordon Brown’s “catastrophic” handling of the economy, shadow foreign secretary William Hague warned yesterday.
He predicted “tightly-controlled military budgets” facing “extreme pressures” even under a future Tory administration, after a strategic defence review.
Mr Hague, in a speech to the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said: “Britain stands to lose a good deal of its ability to shape world affairs unless we decide we will not accept that and are prepared to do what is needed.”
He went on: “One of the damaging effects of Gordon Brown’s catastrophic stewardship of Britain’s finances is the diminishing of our economic power and by extension the effectiveness of our international role.
“Does this background of a decline in our relative economic base and severe constraints on our military capabilities mean that we simply accept a much diminished role in world affairs?
“The Conservative Party’s answer to whether further such shrinkage will be right for Britain’s international role is no.”
Mr Hague said: “A further constraint will come in the form of tightly-controlled military budgets.
“The extreme pressures on our own defence budget obviously necessitate a strategic defence review, which an incoming Conservative government will certainly undertake. This must be focused not on whether Britain should be able to project military force elsewhere in the world but how it will do so.
“I wish to make clear now, first that it will be a defence and national security review, covering all aspects of Britain’s security and not just the armed forces.
“Second, that it will be guided by the requirements of foreign policy and not solely by financial constraints, and third that we will not shrink from adapting our future armed forces for this changed world.”
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: “William Hague failed to explain how the Conservatives would run a coherent foreign policy while remaining on the fringes of the European debate.
“Tory relations with key allies in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid and Washington have already been undermined by David Cameron’s decision to quit Europe’s mainstream centre-right party in the European Parliament.
“They are choosing isolationism over influence, which is extremely damaging to Britain’s national interest.”
