UK cannot hang onto the 'comfort blanket' of existing alliances, says James Cleverly

Foreign secretary James Cleverly has said the foreign office needs to throw off its 'comfort blanket' of old friends and allies to develop a strategy to engage with countries that have different values and philosophies.

Cleverly told reporters at the foreign office on Monday that the UK 'we need to grow and we need to make sure that we are having conversations in diverse countries that are moved by different philosophies.' He added: 'that is the difference between being a commentator and active player. And the UK at all times should seek to be an active player on the world stage.'

The Guardian on YouTube:

#JamesCleverly #UKForeignPolicy #Conservatives #Tories #UK

[lololol]

Notice the freudian slip at the start? When he's talking about the "friends and allies" he almost says "who've stolen" before correcting himself.

[Peter-drch]

“Embraces human rights” What a laugh that is from a Tory!

[nicolek]

Yeah! Sure! We're prepared to drop any pretence we have toward standards of human rights and environmental protection, and bend over backwards to accomodate the unpleasant attitudes of authoritarian, but rich countries.

[raquetdude]

Isn’t this what we said in the 80s about China becoming Democratic cause it has access to free markets?

[albrown]

I thought we were rid of this trumpet .

[susannehartl]

The current government's idea about being an active player:
February 2020 - Munich Security Conference - The Independent
Britain’s lack of presence at Munich security conference sparks concern among allies
“British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, pulled out in the days before the event and Sir Alex Younger, the head of MI6, also cancelled his appearance at a late stage. Downing Street denied instructing the two men not to attend.”
Anyhow: “James Cleverly, a junior Foreign Office minister, was a late substitute. He did not feature on any of the panels, although he wanted to stress that he had been active, posting photographs of bilateral meetings with the Norwegians and the Kuwaitis.”

[hadror]

You need to cut ir regime ties. Not support it

[stevensarson]

Comfort blanket - more like a candle wick bedspread, as we sleepwalk out of every major competition : sport, politics and just about everything in-between.

[michaelng]

What your thoughts & values? Human rights!

[josephinemitchell]

First glance and it looks very American in how its set out.

[harveyyoung]

Comment Part 1. The whole speech was only 15 mins followed by a Q&A of another 15mins.
I am no expert on International Law but it seems it draws widely on many long and diverse historical world traditions. I can though still write about some Critical philosophical features of this tradition and James Cleverly’s speech here.
Done before listening to the Q&A On the face of it does suggest a possible metaphysical ontological turn from both the ideology of absolute natural law grounds and the ideology of positive law grounds in International Law. Firstly it suggests a challenge to the so called different spheres of academic knowledge as really being autonomous in practice, and so unconditional and independent in competence. Thus the myth of an independent academic discipline in action in practice is dispelled, and thus its sovereignty of authority when in practice is dissolved (Philip Bobbitt "The Market State"). It might seem then to be in line with the post war Left's anti positivism in politics and economics and law. But while the analytic separation of positive sciences is rejected, this is not the lefts rejection of positivism, which I would say rests on both taking positivism to be too de facto in notions of right, and too anodyne when it comes to its recognition of what they consider to be the essential conflictual nature of human relations. That is from Hegel through Marx and so on, people, groups and institutions are seen as the mere historical result(ant) of de facto power that then post facto establishes itself as self legitimising James Cleverly's alternative though is not a brutal pragmatism, with the excuse that realism is necessary, as with the left, but with just the simple recognition of conflict at the atomic scale between individuals mediated by groups. No the long tradition of a Heraclitian cosmology buttressed by Epicureanism and Stoicism: essentially governed by a conflict of opposites, and its influence on International Law, is questioned by a new, long term direction drawing on in, notions of trust and the active maintenance of stability in and through rules. Thus in contrast to the natural law tradition and the positive law tradition, our situation is one of the recognition of the interrelation between public maintenance of stability though rules, and the private disposition to contract and promise. This is not fleshed out though just in terms of a tradition of recognition of capacity and capability differences but of the thick notion of trust that could indicate a return to the natural law tradition that saw inner virtue of character as non eliminable and non reducible to external symptoms as by positivism for example. Thus for even positivism to be useful in context t has to presuppose this continuity in its calculation and then try to reduce trust to self interest in some way. So both this natural law tradition and positivism take the state of nature as a conflict between externalities, while both have for some time now rejected any need to refer to inner states of responsible actors. Maybe we can set this inner "thick" notion of trust and responsibility as an alternative to both, mere left externalities of a thin natural law of absolute justice and equality by force and the rights notion of externalities as merely the "thin" long run ability to construct temporary shared interests or asymmetric use for project aims. But we must remember that: just as here, the maintenance of the possibility of law and following rules is inseparable from its constitutive (but often forgotten or ignored ) notions of character as in trust promise etc, so the capacity and capability to have the responsibility of being able to trust and be trusted is also dependent and conditioned by those rules maintaining that very (sedimented obligation) capacity and capability of people in relation, as the condition of its own possibility of laws and rules. Now, i imagine this is to be cashed out as public international law and legal ordinance but also as in terms of the international tradition that takes our conventional inheritance seriously but relatively informally in comparison to legal force and coercion. That is, in a certain sense, for this view I think James Cleverly is opening here, we are always already "in" rules "in" laws and "in" trust and in "promise". by contrast the conflict and use principles of some natural law and positive law theories, here can be described both as "immodest" (Michael Dummett), in that they propose a series in accord with a rule or law as there in the abstract number series in itself (Crispin Wright). and they propose that rules and laws can be followed without regard to real inner states ie as the consequence of the application of continuous or discrete force, without the need for recognition and consent.

[ShanKatOD]

bc what we really need to do is become salespeople? is today Say the Quiet Part Aloud day?

[harveyyoung]

Comment Part 2: In summary this is a turn away from the old "naturalisms" of some natural law theories and most positivisms. As such it marks a move away from the long traditions of thinking of: natural laws human nature as self interest in public reason and greed in private reason, in need of absolute external social control in its pilgrimage to the city of pure right equality; and positivisms neglect and reduction, of inner states, its conflation of choice to psi and flight from chi (e.g. "psi" is not "not-chi"), its general view that the fact of a contract and its result is all that is important in contract legitimacy and called private right. As such it marks a move in the practice of diplomacy from mere laws and rules and force to involve other areas. but not as such as borderlands for the exertion of force on the target domains from another sphere (Deleuze Foucault Derrida), rather other constitutive arena's wherein already practices are in play that do not just recourse to law force as their grounds. A forgotten natural law tradition that maybe can give us a return and also new conception of nature and right not base din man as absolutely grounded in self interest and greed and not orientated towards infinite justice. My one issue might be that there is a risk in making the external laws and rules dependent on such inner dispositions as trust and promise, that these "private" states are now taken up by the law as possible risk and emergency areas and in need of external scrutiny and forceful compliance mechanisms. This they do by making say trust as a condition of law we make being untrustworthy a existential risk so we think we get to trustworthiness by applying force to examples of failure to trust. this would of course be accompanied by psychological and medical sciences as the vanguard of this saving the nation and international law project. Thus the new natural law here would be human nature(s) as science institutions describe it, with law as right demands it. my knowledge of history informs me that any political ideology even positivism that denies it, all can have this tendency to make mans inner states his character his private life a matter of public risk and responsibility. That is rather a self contradiction to agent responsible trust and consent. Thus the broad strokes of Isiah Berlin's and Michael Foucault's critic of totalitarianism as directed at the soul (via natural law and/or scientific laws of nature) remains true also for classic liberalism. and the last 10 years have told me even people who have read this can still fall back into this kind of soul searching intrusion and engineering.(All this is influenced by inner state's and reasons here called "thick" as opposed to "thin" rules and external reasons after Bernard Williams) There is already a sort of erased precedent in international law for this in the case of R v Dudley and Stephens (1884 14 QBD 273 DC) is an English case which developed a crucial ruling on necessity in modern common law (Wikipedia “Custom of the Sea) Contrasting the legal consequence and judgement of the Whaling Ship Essex’s sinking in 1812, with the yacht Mignonette’s sinking in 1884. Also though, contrast the voyages of discovery and exploration of the Franklin Expedition and the Shackleton Expedition. My reading list for context would include, as “before” international law, would be Kant’s double Critique of empiricism and Pure Reason. Then, Hegel on Right, Mill on utilitarianism. Sedgwick on Ethical Science. Then G.E. Moore and Pritchard on the naturalistic fallacy and fallacy of single application of rules. John Dewey and O.W. Holmes on pragmatism and the application of law. Wittgenstein “Philosophical investigations”, the attempts to return in positivism and casuistry and the Critique by Wilfred Sellars in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”. Adorno, Derrida Foucault Deleuze and Heidegger on naturalism justice rules norms and Law. Philip Bobbitt (The Market State), Henry Kissinger “Diplomacy”. Then I go to Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, Nicholas Maxwell, and John McDowell.
I you prefer movies for understanding judgement and context watch The Time Machine (1960) and after (spoiler) ask your self:
TheTimeMachine(1960). He leaves Victorian London New Years Eve 1900 to return and build a world for the Eloi in the future. He takes 3 unnamed books with him. What books would you take? TheTimeMachine(1960). What historical political music event from the past would you go to?
Then maybe watch the Time Machine (2002) ask yourself the same questions.

[johnnyrockabilly]

Take the icing off the cake and what have u got 😂???