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British defence policy: the breakdown of inter-party consensus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Peter M. Jones
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Extract

In 1983, for almost the first time since the end of the Second World War, defence became a major party political issue at a general election. In that year it was one of the major campaign issues between the political parties and, according to one poll, ranked second only to unemployment as an issue influencing voter behaviour. Indeed, poll evidence indicated that the Conservatives held an unprecedented and overwhelming 54 per cent lead over Labour on the question of British retention of nuclear arms. Furthermore, of those who thought of defecting from the Labour Party, 42 per cent gave defence as the main reason. Such figures as these suggest strongly that by 1983 the inter-party consensus which had governed defence issues since 1945 had broken down, particularly in view of the fact that the question of defence had not been raised as an issue affecting voting intentions in the 1979 election. The breakdown of consensus may thus be judged by the emergence of defence as a party political issue. It might even be said that in 1983 it was an electiondeciding issue, especially when one set of policies could be represented by opponents as being contrary to the continuation of British membership of NATO, the one issue on which all parties were agreed. Defence thus moved from being a peripheral issue to one at the centre stage of the election campaign and it had a major impact on the outcome of the election. However, the.demise of inter-party consensus was not reflected in the electorate as a whole, which chose to continue to support the tried, and trusted policies of the past rather than adopt the radical alternative presented by the Labour Party, If a new consensus is to emerge—and it is beyond the limits of this particular paper to consider whether a consensus in defence policy is desirable—then all parties will have to review their present policies. However, before turning to the reasons for the breakdown, it is instructive to consider the nature of the post-1945 consensus and the origins of its apparent demise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1987 , pp. 111 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1987

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References

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45. Ibid., p. 29. For an interesting discussion of the dual-key system, see Gerry Northam, ‘Is there really a dual-key system=’, The Listener, (15 May 1986). Some experts argue that it is technologically impossible to have a dual-key system fitted to the cruise missile. Letter from Professor Frank Barnaby to the author, June 1986.

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55. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1983 (London, 1984), p. 159Google Scholar (speech by Robin Cook). Other delegates disagreed with the view that defence had damaged Labour, Lord Fenner Brockway (Ibid., p. 156) argued that ‘a careful analysis of the votes cast shows that… a larger number of voters supported the ending of Trident and Cruise than supported Mrs Thatcher’.

56. Ibid., p. 153 (Composite Resolution 41, which was defeated).

57. Ibid., pp. 160–1.

58. Ibid., p. 156.

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Since we completed our work, there has been a lot of misleading speculation about the Report's conclusions. As a result, certain members of the Commission wish it to be made clear that in their view Britain should in present circumstances remain a nuclear weapon state and that they are willing to replace Polaris. Some other members believe that present circumstances do not justify the replacement of Polaris. I must stress, however, that all members agree that a decision on whether, and if so how, to replace Polaris should be made on the basis of the criteria we have set out.

82. For a comparison of David Owen's position with that of the government see the speech by Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to the Foreign Press Association in London o n 17 March 1986 where he argued that ‘the priority must be to reduce the superpower strategic arsenals by fifty per cent’. See also the speech by Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Relations, Timothy Renton, to the Geneva Disarmament Conference on 25 February 1986. Texts of both speeches appear in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit, Quarterly Review, No. 1 (London, 1986).

83. For reaction to Owen's speech, see The Guardian, 20 May 1986; and Roy Jenkins, ‘Where Dr Owen went wrong’, The Observer, 14 June 1986; and David Steel, ‘Why Britain can rely on the Alliance defence’, The Guardian, 15 June 1986. For Owen's views see also the extract from his speech, ‘Europe's nuclear options’, The Guardian, 6 June 1986; and his article, ‘Polaris must be replaced’, The Observer, 1 June 1986. In addition the split in the views of the two Alliance partners may be seen by the results of a poll which showed that whilst 51 per cent of SDP candidates wanted a replacement for Polaris; 83 per cent of the Liberal candidates were against replacing Polaris with another system, The Sunday Times, 8 June 1986.

84. The amendment, which added the words, ‘provided that such a defence capability is non-nuclear’ to the paragraph which called for ‘close cooperation in defence policy and procurement between Britain and its West European partners to develop a more effective British contribution to the collective defence of capability of the European pillar of NATO’ was carried by 652 votes to 625. It had been inspired by a pamphlet, Across the Divide, Liberal Valuesfor Defence and Disarmament, written by three Liberal MPs, Simon Hughes, Archy Kirkwood and Michael Meadow, who had argued strongly in favour of a non-nuclear defence policy. For an account of the debate, see The Guardian, 24 September 1986. Earlier in the week, the Liberal Party leader, David Steel, had argued that Polaris should be ‘maintained… until such time as it is negotiated away’. The Guardian, 22 September 1986. After the vote, the two Alliance leaders appeared on television and, the Liberal Assembly position notwithstanding, ‘asserted their belief in the need to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent capacity’, The Guardian, 26 September 1986.

85. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1984 (London, 1985), p. 147.Google Scholar

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89. Defence and Security for Britain, p. 17.

90. Denis Healey, a supporter of the general trend of the NEC document, has argued that ‘to expel American bases from Britain without consultation in the first days of a new Labour Government would create a serious danger that America would reduce her conventional contribution to NATO’. He adds that:

there is another problem to which the Labour Party has given little attention. It is difficult to foresee any possible government in NATO, including a Labour government, wishing America to give up all its nuclear weapons while Russia still possesses a nuclear arsenal… So offshore American nuclear weapons will remain necessary to deter a nuclear attack on Europe even when all nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from European soil.

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92. For details of the debate and the votes, see The Guardian, 3 October 1986. There were still some who were prepared to argue that the Labour Party should adopt a policy of withdrawal from NATO, see Lowe, Ben, Peace through Non-Alignment: The Case Against British Membership of Nato (London, 1986).Google Scholar

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94. Defence and Disarmament for Britain, pp. 26–7.

95. Ibid., p. 35.

96. Denis Healey, Labour and a World Society, p. 7.

97. Ibid., p. 2.

98. HC debs. Vol 100, No. 139 (London, 1986), Cols. 719–20.

99. Remarks made on BBC television ‘Panorama’, 30 September 1986. Neil Kinnock responded quickly to these attacks by arguing that whilst US officials had a right to express their opinions, British public opinion was sensitive on the issue, The Guardian, 2 October 1986.

100. In the same speech George Younger also dismissed the Liberal-SDP concept of a minimum ‘Euro-deterrent’ as ‘pie in the sky’, The Guardian, 2 October 1986.

101. Ibid., 2 October 1986. George Younger returne d to the attack on Labour's non-nuclear policy and the chaos in the Liberal/SDP Alliance when he spoke at the Conservative Party Conference. He highlighted the main Conservative theme by pointing out that ‘the sobering truth is that we in the Conservative Party are now the only force that stands between Britain and disaster’, The Guardian, 9 October 1986.

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103. Ibid., pp. 10–12.

104. For an interesting public discussion of these issues, see the Report of the Select Committee on Defence, Defence Commitments and Resources and the Defence Estimates (London, 1985). There is general agreement that defence spending is facing a crisis, some experts, like David Greenwood, argue that there already is a crisis; others believe that even if there is no crisis at the moment, escalating costs n i all areas of weaponry mean that sooner or later major changes in defence priorities will become inevitable.

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107. Statement on the Defence Estimates 1986, i, (London, 1986), p. 6Google Scholar. For a somewhat different discussion of the problem, see David Owen, A United Kingdom, pp. 57—8; others commented that the White Paper merely postponed the day of reckoning until after the next general election, The Guardian, 13 May 1986.

108. Poll taken by Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic on behalf of BBC ‘Newsnight’ in 1985, during the Tyne Bridge by-election, The Guardian, 30 November 1985.

109. Despite this Labour victory and the poor Alliance showing, there is also some poll evidence to suggest that whilst Labour Party defence policy does not command wide support among the electorate as a whole, it does have strong support among Labour voters, see Denis Balsom and John Baylis: ‘Public opinion and the Parties’ Defence Policies', Political Quarterly, lvii (1986), pp. 145–57. This evidence s i also confirmed by a Harris Poll in The Observer, 5 October 1986, which gave the Conservatives an 8 per cent lead over Labour on defence issues. A further poll reported that support for the Trident purchase among the electorate as a whole was only 13 per cent, (The Guardian, 6 October 1986). Although the Labour Party has made a considerable recovery from its position in 1983 it is still vulnerable in an election campaign, as even those who are sympathetic to the Labour Party have pointed out. See, for example, The New Statesman, 3 October, 1986.

110. For trenchan t critique of party political attitudes towards NATO, see Coker, Christopher, A Nation in Retreat? (London, 1986).Google Scholar

111. Defence and Disarmament: Peace and Security, p. 2 and pp. 29–31, (emphasis added).

112. Defence and Security for Britain, p. 41.

113. Ibid., p. 18.

114. Defence and Disarmament: Peace and Security, pp. 24–28; see also David Owen, A United Kingdom, p. 69.