March 19, 2001

Simon Jenkins: Last of the Little Englanders

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

One of the reasons I started writing this column more than a year ago was the belief that no one in Britain was making the case for a limited foreign policy, at least on the right. There were some Libertarians, who quite naturally did not focus on the foreign dimension. The most prolific of these is Sean Gabb, who has been featured on Antiwar.com a couple of times. There were a number of other authors, including our own Christine Stone, and the excellent John Laughland – although in the latter case his main writing has naturally been on Europe. His Intelligence Digest is always worth reading, especially for its news on Eastern Europe. Mick Hume, formerly of Living Marxism, also writes solidly anti-interventionist fare with a suspiciously right wing flavour, and has now set up in a new web magazine, Spiked Online.

GRABBING THE EYEBALLS

Simon Jenkins is, however, the most influential anti-interventionist journalist. This is somewhat of a surprise, as he is an establishment man to the core. He writes for the Times (who have a dreadful web presence – one of the reasons for writing this article was to provide reference to his work scattered over the web). He is most famous in Britain for his book on Britain’s thousand best churches – and his biggest impact on public policy was persuading Tony Blair not to dump the Millennium Dome. His politics range from a staunch local patriotism for London to a bias towards laissez faire economics, and general leaning towards Labour. This former editor of the London Times and chair of the Booker prize judges is not the model heretic.

FOREIGN POLICY HERESY

On foreign policy, Simon Jenkins is an admirable heretic. His consistent opposition to "humanitarian" intervention, from a perspective of national interest, is a breed of commentary that is far too rare in England. Profiles of him mention his opposition to hare-brained military intervention in passing. It seems so out of place, it is not worth mentioning. The statements of principle are there, such as Weep for poor Orisa or The new order that splits the world. Both of these explain the British case against intervention far better than I could, and deserve to be read.

GEORGE II

Simon Jenkins is also very much in favour of George Bush. This is mainly on the (over-optimistic) view that George Bush is a closet isolationist, who will not get into silly wars. It is also based upon distaste for Clinton, both in his policies (especially on the drug war) and for the man himself. Perhaps he is wrong on Bush’s distaste for foreign wars, but he is certainly right on what would have been a worse outcome.

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Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics, journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Mondays at Antiwar.com.