British Foreign Policy Towards The I.R. Iran With Special Reference To The Two Main British Governing Parties: 2000-2015
The British Labour Party until 1914 did not have a foreign policy doctrine which could differentiate it from the continental socialist parties. “In 1900, led by Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb, the Fabian society even openly supported imperialism and rejected the pro-Boer attitude of leading liberals.”5 But, in the years which followed, Sydney Oliver, C.R. Buxton, Mary King and E.D. Morel’s influence, who represented the liberal or radical tradition, made itself felt. They were more interested in the actual situation in the colonies than in a theory of imperialism, and foreign policy. They demanded more active reforms, to improve the lot of the native population, instead of the withdrawal of the colonial power. “Hobson provided the Labour party with a ‘doctrine’, since he interpreted colonial imperialism and foreign policy in economic terms; however, Hobson was not a socialist nor even a Marxist, but a radical reformer who anticipated the concept of trusteeship in his demand for and ‘enlightened’ colonial and foreign policy”.6
During the First World War the Labour party had already adopted the mandate principle of the future League of Nations and also made international control a focal point of its colonial, and foreign policy programme. In this there were two aims: “to prevent a new rivalry for colonial acquisition among world powers, and to replace capitalist exploitation by a policy of reform which would ‘develop’ backward ‘people’ and prepare them for self-government.”7
In addition to two above mentioned goals, not only did the Labour party want “a detailed formulation of the mandate principle and a well-defined system of international control; it was even more concerned with subordinating all the colonies to the League of Nations.”8 In the following years the Labour party demanded to extend the mandate principle to all European colonies. However, the SFIO (French Socialist Party), unlike the British Labour party was interested in assimilation and not self-government, which was the object of the mandate policy, and thus showed no interest in the British Labour Party’s initiatives.
Labour’s support for trusteeship and late the policy of ‘gradual grant of self-government’ helped to establish a certain basis of trust between the mother country and the nationalist leaders. Such an attitude did, to some degree, contribute towards creating the Modern Commonwealth-Multiracial Institution.
This examination firmly indicates that the Labour party is overtly ideological. It stresses the need for equality – equality between classes and between races. It insists on equality of opportunity and, even, equality or near-equality of rewards. Social provision is given a very high priority by the Labour party. It advocates an extension of public ownership and/or control. In foreign affairs the Labour party is “far less hesitant about cutting defence expenditure and closing overseas bases than any Conservative government is ever likely to be.”9 It is “parochial and fervently anti-colonial.”10
Having examined the roots of the British Labour party’s attitudes and policy ideas in foreign policy, the article shall now proceed with the British Labour party’s attitudes and policy ideas, regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran in the first decade of the twenty first century.
