International law is an oxymoron. Get used to that, Sir Keir Starmer. There are only agreements made for the time being between consenting nations. There are no independent judges, no global enforcement police and each nation is sovereign.
And yet despite this reality, Britain’s left/liberal elite and Whitehall obsession with the “rules-based system” is allowing bad actors and rogue nations to manipulate international structures at our expense.
The so-called rules-based system is a throwback to Pax Britannica when the British world system determined the international order, global commerce and its enforcement. The first globalisation was down to us British and it worked very well.
It is massively ironic that it is the left, particularly, who hanker after our imperial past and are living in a fantasy world in which anybody cares what we think.
This is creating huge damage to the our prospects, wealth and prosperity and across major policy areas it is time for wake up call. Characters like Mr Starmer are particularly subject to the oxymoron that is “international law” and are incapable of dealing with the reality of a business like, transactional world that was ever thus and even more so now.
The practical impact of all this is manifold. The whole mess of immigration leaves the country at the mercy of the generosity of strangers, with net migration hitting a record high that scraped one million in one year.
This is allowed to happen simply because it is in the narrow vested interests of our ruling class, both in politics and corporates, to uphold so-called human rights set out in “international law” and with the oversight of a foreign court.
The scandal of the UK capitulation on the matter of the Chagos Islands is driven by the manipulation of the international order by potential enemies of Britain: China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, in whose interests lie the removal of these islands from our sphere and who would and do happily ignore international law when it suits them.
Our total and leading commitment to the international Net Zero project is another example of an unholy alliance between vested interests at home and a supposed international movement towards decarbonisation, except that the UK,even at the extreme of zealous implementation, can make no meaningful difference to global CO2 emissions.
No one is following us nor do they care, but as a consequence we are impoverishing our people and destroying our industry. “International law” is transferring wealth , jobs and power to China, India and now the USA. It is not inevitable, it is a choice, a very bad choice.
Just as pernicious was our cow towing to the World Health Organisation during the, likely man made, pandemic.
Lockdowns cost the UK eye-watering amounts as the mad policy of paying people not to work unfolded, in order to “protect” the NHS.
Futile, damaging on so many levels, and perverse, this remains the major cause of our current national debt and productivity problems – it is as if we had gone to war.
It was a choice of our Mandarin and political class to uphold international agreements via the WHO, a politicised organisation to which we still pay and to whom we subscribe to follow on any future event – heaven help us!
The population of the UK elect politicians to serve the interests of the people not the vanity projects of international elite, not the virtue-signalling, globe-trotting rulers of the country. It is time the electorate drew a line in the sand. Sovereignty means a sovereign Parliament serving the interests of a sovereign people.
Former MEP John Longworth is an entrepreneur, businessman and the Chairman of the Independent Business Network of family businesses.