Liam Fox is in Washington DC again. Two weeks ago he used a speech to America’s Heritage Foundation to analyse the failure of the Old European model. Tomorrow he will use another stateside speech to urge Tories to ‘speak up for the oppressed’.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Dr Fox, Shadow Foreign Secretary, will say that the Conservative Party has allowed itself to be portrayed as a party "which is purely pragmatic and with too little principle". He will say that Tories have a responsibility to speak for human rights campaigners "who speak up for themselves, often in the face of considerable dangers". Few Conservatives have shown much interest in human rights issues but former Tory candidates James Mawdsley and Ben Rogers established New Ground to develop a more “principled” Conservative foreign policy.
Dr Fox’s rhetoric closely resembles President Bush’s emphasis on the spread of democracy as a central theme of Republican and US foreign policy. In his second inaugural speech George W Bush gave a message to human rights campaigners throughout the world. He said: “Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.” This commitment has been severely tested by American reluctance to challenge human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.
Dr Fox, a close friend of Republican leaders, believes that it is vital for Britain’s Conservative Party to restore relations with the White House. Tory-GOP relations sunk to a terrible low during Michael Howard’s leadership because of differences over policy towards Iraq.
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