Brexit, economic turmoil and political scandal have so damaged Britain’s international standing that people regularly ask Douglas Alexander: “What’s happened, we thought the UK was a serious country?”
The veteran Labour Party politician fields that point as he seeks a return to the front line, bringing with him a wide experience in global affairs. Mr Alexander lost his seat eight years ago after a stellar career at the top of the party working as the cabinet minister in charge of overseas aid and, before that, as a close aide to Gordon Brown in the Tony Blair-led government that ruled from 1997.
“We have a responsibility if Labour is elected to rebuild trust and to rebuild our reputation with many of our closest friends and neighbours,” Mr Alexander told The National while campaigning in Scotland for the UK general election.
The dawn of a Britain under Labour may resurrect his political career after the humiliation of losing his seat to Mhairi Black, then a 20-year-old Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate, in 2015 and perhaps thrust him back into the cabinet.
Since losing his seat, Britain has lurched from Brexit to the political dysfunction of five prime ministers in eight years and Mr Alexander has seen much in the affairs of state that angers him.
“What this Conservative government has done over the last 14 years to Britain's international standing is profound,” he said.
Labour would “turn the page on the economic and political chaos that has been so damaging to so many people's lives” and the “deep sense of anger about a Conservative government that partied its way through the pandemic”.
There is talk – fiercely denied – of him being appointed foreign secretary, given that he will be among the government’s most experienced politicians having served in the last Labour administration as international development secretary.
Helping to find Middle East peace could be the first step in rehabilitating Britain’s battered overseas reputation, said Mr Alexander, 56.
“We can have a British government that sends a very positive signal at home and abroad that the UK is back as a serious country willing to shoulder its share of responsibilities in the face of significant challenges.”
The ties holding the UK together that nearly snapped could well be strengthened by a Labour government, perhaps drawing Scotland closer to the other nations.
Westminster’s relationship with Scotland has been severely damaged under Conservative stewardship, particularly with Brexit and Boris Johnson’s high-handed tenure, although the last time a majority of Scots voted for a Tory government was 1955.
Labour leader Keir Starmer would do well to appoint one if not two Scottish MPs to his cabinet once he becomes prime minister to “give Scots a sense that Britain is once again a comfortable home for them”, according to political analyst Chris Deerin, from Edinburgh.
In the Harvard-educated Mr Alexander, the government would have a polished veteran of international affairs, who has spent time out of politics travelling the world, including a period as a lecturer at New York University in Abu Dhabi and addressing world poverty as an adviser to Bono of U2.
That gives him the air of a traveller who understands much of the world’s woes that have multiplied since Labour were voted out of office in 2010.
Mr Alexander reminisces that back then Donald Trump was “still selling real estate” and at the start of Labour’s tenure in 1997 Britain’s economy was “bigger than China’s” and it still had Hong Kong as a territory.
Others suggest his time outside politics have formed a “more rounded character” and “softened the edges”.
Arab diplomacy
With the Firth of Forth's waters to his back in the pretty fishing village of Port Seton, Mr Alexander suggested a grasp of world politics with a well-tuned view is what is required for peace in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“One of the ironies is that beyond this immediate crisis is the possibility of not just a two-state solution, but for a 23-state solution involving the 21 members of the Arab League as well, which has been a dream of many people in Israel and beyond for many years,” he said.
But that outcome had been hindered by a combination of Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr Alexander spoke of the Israeli Prime Minister's failure to “take the steps that many of us would have liked to have seen”.
“One of the many, many tragedies of the situation is that those outside the region, and many countries in the region, seem more committed to peace than some of the principal actors,” he said.
“It’s a vexing, horrendous situation where the suffering is huge.”
He also speaks with insight of the work CIA director Bill Burns is doing behind the scenes for a peace deal and refers to the “need to do the quiet, hard yards of diplomacy to encourage a sustainable peace”.
Positive force
His views are echoed by Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, who told The National his party “will be a positive force in the world”, particularly where Palestine and Israel are concerned.
“Britain will seek to use its alliances, its relationships and its convening power to try to persuade people towards that two-state solution,” he said, speaking on board his battle bus in Methil, Fife.
But he admitted the international community “has looked pretty toothless in the face of what is a horrific situation”.
Mr Sarwar, of Pakistani Muslim heritage and a close ally of Mr Starmer, “completely supported” Labour’s manifesto recognition of a Palestinian state that it “is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and not the gift of a neighbour”.
Disunited kingdom
The desire of many Scots to remain within the union, which was tested in the 2014 referendum when 45 per cent voted for independence, has largely eroded.
Scotland had 59 out of the 650 Westminster MPs of the four nations of the UK, but the majority of them in the last parliament – 43 – were SNP.
There is now a chance for Scotland to feel properly represented in Westminster, with Labour in power likely to “give Scots a sense that Britain is a comfortable home for them and that they belong in the United Kingdom”, said Chris Deerin, of Reform Scotland, a political think tank.
That remedial action may lead Mr Starmer “to put Scottish people in senior jobs” because the ambition for Labour in Scotland, where it could overtake the SNP in numbers of MPs, is “wanting the union to continue”.
“And that's not a sure thing at the moment as Westminster has become very English to Scots,” Mr Deerin said.
Appointing Mr Alexander to the cabinet would be a swift, first remedy, he added. “Douglas is one of the few people who goes in with experience of the top table in government and has made incredible connections in his work abroad.”
If Scotland can prosper under Labour, he said, then the independence movement will recede.
“There's a lot of people who just want this constitutional debate to go away, especially when our police and hospitals are in trouble, schools are doing badly and our economy is not working,” said Mr Deerin.
But he said Mr Starmer has five or, if he gets a second term, 10 years to demonstrate that the UK can be that “comfortable home” for the Scots, otherwise pressure for another independence referendum would be insurmountable.
Gulf dynamic
There should, therefore, be little surprise in seeing Mr Alexander stride up Downing Street on July 5 with the offer of a post in Mr Starmer’s government.
But, he claims, his entire focus now is winning the East Lothian constituency just outside Edinburgh and fends off the cabinet probing with the Sir Alex Ferguson allegory of “staying in the tunnel” before the big match.
“I'm not going to indulge in post-match analysis before a ball is even been kicked.”
Acknowledging Mr Alexander’s likely rapid ascendancy, Mr Sarwar said his colleague’s experience “will be vital” in steadying Britain.
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Mr Alexander has also been “very struck by the high dynamic and potential” of the Gulf states, having worked in the UAE.
“I applaud the efforts that Labour has made to emphasise how important we see Gulf partners as being one of the real growth pools in the global economy,” he said.
The area was also “highly influential in terms of the geopolitics of the divided world in which we live” and he hoped it would remain a key focus for the Labour front bench.
He may well very soon be able to turn that hope into reality.
