Is Ed Koch right about Gordon Brown?

The Jerusalem Post is promising blog posts from Ed Koch, once mayor of New York. And today it publishes his first contribution. The subject? Why George Bush is his hero.

He puts the case for Bush well, stressing the President's clear understanding of the danger facing America. But he fails even to address questions over implementation and judgment.

He also has this to say:

Our major ally in this war against the forces of darkness, Great Britain, is still being led by an outstanding prime minister, Tony Blair. However, Blair will soon be set out to pasture, which means Great Britain will leave our side and join France, Germany, Spain and other countries that foolishly believe they can tame the wolf at the door and convert it into a domestic pet that will live in peace with them.

I think this view of a the foreign policy of a Brown administration - a view also expressed by those who hope for the change that Koch fears - is wrong, or at least wildly overstated.

Gordon Brown is an Atlantacist and will act like one. He reads widely on American history, has an admiration for Lyndon Johnson and shows enthusiasm for all things Stateside. In an excellent Telegraph column, Rachel Sylvester has even argued convincingly that Brown is a neo-con, at least on domestic policy.

However Brown's instincts will be constrained by two things. The first is his party, rapidly heading towards an Atlantoscepticism at least as profound as the Tory Euroscepticism. The second is his new Labour outlook which will lead him to seek a third way even where there is none to be found.

But to suggest that this means that Brown's Britain will have a sharply different foreign policy to that pursued by Blair is a misreading. I think.

Comments

[George Earle]

Slightly off the point, but as a UKIP man I get tired of hearing about the Tory Party's 'Euroscepticism'! This is the Party which got us in originally and refuses to countenance leaving.'In Europe but not run by it' is impossible and a cynical slogan to hide behind. Their Euroscepticism is barely skin deep. I fully expect Gordon Brown to appear far more Eurosceptical than them.
Pity really, because they have no chance electorally until their leadership faces up honestly to this issue and with Angela Merkel now turning up the heat and forcing 'Europe' centre stage they are going to appear pretty pathetic looking for a bandwagon to jump on.

[Nick2]

Bush currently has about a 21% approval rating. It's possibly time we stopped giving the remaining stragglers the attention they don't deserve.

Who cares what neocons think? The neocon project has failed.