Lisa Nandy: Foreign policy affects people at home
- Published
Labour's shadow foreign secretary says her party wants to rebuild the UK's reputation as a "reliable international partner."
Setting out Labour's approach to foreign policy, Lisa Nandy pointed to how the UK's actions abroad "affects the lives of people at home".
Yet she said foreign policy was too often "agreed in closed rooms".
Ms Nandy said Labour wanted to address the "growing disconnect" and win back "the support and consent" of voters.
She also said a Labour government would make national security a top priority - including working with the EU and Nato to deal with Russian aggression - as well as enhancing environmental security by tackling climate change.
"I want to make the case today that the gulf between what we do abroad and what we choose to deliver for people at home is a direct threat to the security and prosperity of our country," she added.
In her first speech on foreign policy since being appointed to the role last year, Ms Nandy told the Chatham House event that "the global and the local are one and the same".
She added: "The world beyond our shores, and our ability to mould and shape it, affects the lives of people at home to an extraordinary degree.
"Why then, more than the economy, education, or health, is foreign policy so often discussed and agreed in closed rooms without reference to the people affected?"
Ms Nandy said people across the country, from steelworkers to football fans, had seen their lives affected by foreign policy decisions of the government.
She accused the Conservatives of "failing to defend the interests of people across our four nations" - claiming the "paper-thin" Brexit agreement had damaged both the Welsh farming industry and turned the Good Friday Agreement into "a bargaining chip".
But she also said there had been a "needlessly antagonistic approach pursued by both sides" over Brexit, which had "cost us all".
'Truly Global Britain'
The shadow foreign secretary also said Labour was a patriotic party.
Ms Nandy said its approach would involve starting "a new national conversation about our place in the world and the sort of country we want to be".
She added: "We can build an agenda for Britain that matches the ambition of the people in it - big and generous, not small and petty - measured not in the number of our flags but in the health of our children, the strength of our communities, the dignity of our workforce and the security of our nation.
"That will be the benchmark for the success of our foreign policy."
Foreign Office Minister and Conservative MP James Duddridge said Labour "can't be trusted with our foreign policy when little more than a year ago, they were all campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn, a man who supported Russia's story over Salisbury, prime minister" - a reference to the then Labour leader's stance on a nerve agent attack .
He added: "It is only the Conservatives that will deliver a truly Global Britain, striking new trade deals across the globe and ensuring the biggest investment in our Armed Forces since the Cold War."