Bernard Ingham: We must face the past to find our global future

Just as modern politicians are short of conviction, so they impart

little vision of where Britain should stand in the world.

They are so pre-occupied with "maintaining front line services" – most of which are going to pot anyway – that they never discuss what our international role should be. If they did we might not now be pouring blood and treasure into Afghanistan after Tony Blair's duplicitous venture into Iraq, with no prospect of negotiating an honourable settlement.

We must stop this drift. To do so, I would launch on May 7 a

comprehensive review of both foreign and defence policy. We need to be far clearer as to how we can best serve our national interest while being a force for good in the world.

If we are to achieve this clarity, we need to face up to our past.

We shall, however, achieve nothing until we have rid ourselves of Gordon Brown's gargantuan legacy of debt. A nation overspent, overdrawn and overborrowed is going nowhere fast. I shall deal with bringing Britain back to solvency next week.

In the meantime, let us first face our remarkable history. We are an easy going, outward looking people whose great achievement was perhaps not so much in ruling the waves and vast tracts of the world but in converting a dismantled empire into the Commonwealth.

As the old colonial power, we get more kicks than ha'pence out of it, but it probably serves a purpose in bringing the world's largest (India) and smallest (Tuvalu) democracies together in reasonable amity. It is nonetheless a relic, not an alternative to the EU – assuming we want one.

The notion that we need the EU for the reason we entered it – economic –has also got whiskers on it. The more we dismantle trade barriers

across the world – and Britain should be leading this campaign – the weaker the cement that binds us to the so-called Union.

The European edifice is crumbling because of its aggressively undemocratic nature, the chronically fraudulent conduct of its affairs, its frankly demented federalism and its determination to interfere in the minutiae of its member states' lives, even to the point now of wrecking the cricket bat industry in the name of the ozone layer.

The only sensible thing Gordon Brown has done in 13 years is to keep us out of the euro.

I have already warned you I would give formal notification of the re-negotiation of our EU membership on May 7. In doing so, I must acknowledge that, given the protectionist instincts on the Continent, we need rules governing free trade. These have wide ramifications extending to educational qualifications but we must not allow them

again to interfere unnecessarily in our lives.

The purpose in loosening our EU bonds and allowing us to govern ourselves more would not be to drive us into the clutches of the USA or anybody else. Instead, we should seek to be an independently candid but constructive voice in world affairs.

That is the sort of Britain America needs. In recent decades it has

taken US presidents too long to realise that Europe is a paper tiger

and that only the Anglo-American relationship has any substance. Russia, China and India – the other emerging giants of the current

world – also need Britain's independent voice because of our vast collective knowledge of the world and its governance.

But we shall not achieve their respect or trust until we can pay our way and speak independently and consistently. When we can do that, we can make a useful contribution to steering the world through the reefs of the Middle East mess and its related terrorism and avoiding future conflicts over notably energy and water resources.

Who knows, we might even be able to bring the UN to its senses over whatever warming man is inflicting on his Earth. The cost of its proposed "remedies" is out of all proportion to scientists' ability transparently to quantify the risk.

Similarly, we have to kill the notion that all development aid is virtuous – even when most of it goes into the Swiss bank accounts of the dictators of the recipient countries.

In short, my foreign policy would be based on national solvency, independent self-interest and practical commonsense, not debt, subservience and a certain madness. Dean Acheson could then rest in his grave. We would have found a role: to be ourselves.

Bernard Ingham continues his personal manifesto by revealing his approach to foreign affairs.