Why world opinion backs Labour

By Jeremy Cliffe

Newsweek was not exaggerating when they called him the ‘world’s candidate’. In the run-up to the 2008 vote, Barack Obama was polling 54% in Mexico, 59% in the UK and 66% in Nigeria. On his election, international leaders had difficulty controlling themselves, straining to avoid undiplomatic outbursts of relief in their messages of congratulations, whilst at the same time indulging in some vigorous verbal kowtowing in the hope that some of that magic popularity might rub off on them.

The British election is, of course, different. Yet leafing through the world press, it is hard to escape a conclusion of similar clarity. Gripes with the British government are predictable - and sometimes justified - but, without a doubt, Labour comfortably wins the international vote. This confidence in the incumbents is matched by an attitude of bemused derision towards the Conservatives, around whom the word ‘lightweight’ hangs like a bad smell, employed in reference to the party by various European publications and, reputedly, the US President himself.

“Cameron’s team pales in comparison to the crisis-tested Labour ministers.” says the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s leading broadsheet. France’s Le Monde calls Cameron ‘indecisive’, and could barely be more scathing about George Osborne, describing the man who would run the British economy as an "intellectual lightweight" and slamming his "evasive answers", "half-baked analyses" and "those little – and not so little – errors that adorn his comments". The same paper terms Gordon Brown "the magician", adding that “confronted by the crisis he knew how to react”. Sentiment is similar in Spain, where El Periódico comments:

“Brown, whose economic nous is beyond question, has weathered the storm, putting the country on the road to recovery. There is a growing sense that the Conservative leader is all image and little substance.”

In Asia, Cameron’s inflammatory comments about China at last week’s leaders’ debate has raised more than a few eyebrows. The Tory leader’s gaffe, one of the clearest examples yet of his immaturity on the world stage, was reported in China’s Huanqiu Shibao newspaper, the Financial Times China, The Gulf Times, Reuters India, and the Maeil and Chosun newspapers in South Korea. In the English-speaking world, the Economist argues that a Cameron government would be “both the most Eurosceptic in the EU’s history and the least loved in mainland Europe.” The FT accuses the Tory leader of raising the reduction of British influence abroad to "formal party policy". In the USA too, Nobel-winning economists Stiglitz and Krugman slam the Conservatives. Writing in the New York Times, the latter commented:

"The Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own.”

In Africa, Kenya’s Saturday Nation is similarly unequivocal:

“It doesn’t speak well of the frivolity of today’s media-hyped politics that the guy with the dash may actually get voted in. But if Kenya and Africa were to join the voting, there would be no doubt whatsoever as to their preference. […] Mr Brown’s upbringing in a family of devout Scottish Presbyterians forms the basis of his moral compass.”

Meanwhile Angela Merkel has all but suspended relations with the Conservative Party, snubbing Cameron on a visit to London, whilst a planned visit by the Tory leader to Berlin was called off. Nicolas Sarkozy has called the Conservatives’ European policy "stupid" and his Europe Minister recently accused the party of "castrating" British influence by breaking from the mainstream centre-right. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are said to be concerned at the risk of an isolationist Tory government in London, the latter having been “distinctly unimpressed” by Cameron.

So why this partisan consensus? It boils down to culture; that in Conservative circles there prevails a fundamental suspicion of The Outside is widely acknowledged, not least in those countries that have been the objects of Tory hostility. Marc Roche, a leading French commentator, criticised George Osborne in particular for making jokes “always at the detriment of foreigners”. David Cameron affected a German accent when talking about ID cards, and has referred to Nicolas Sarkozy as a "dwarf", eliciting a formal complaint from the French President. William Hague blusters about the "wine guzzling" French. And when Gordon Brown was praised in the European press for his economic leadership, the Telegraph responded with a commentary dripping with sarcasm and arch scorn towards Britain's neighbours.

It is perhaps this culture that gives the localism agenda such appeal to right-wingers who would otherwise recoil from Red Toryism. For many in the Conservative Party, Cameron included, the idea of 'localism' not only evokes church bells, WI meetings and farmers' markets but also a nostalgic vision of British exceptionalism, of the UK as an independent patchwork of horizontal micro-economies serving as many Burkean platoons.

The European Union, with its global trade, secular liberalism, culture of diplomacy and international integration, is anathema to these instincts. And surveys of Tory candidates have showed not only overwhelming support for "fundamental renegotiation" of our relationship with the EU, but a corresponding indifference towards international development and climate change. In short, the Conservative Party (egged on, it must be said, by much of the British media) is totally at odds at the principle of global engagement, causing offense and bafflement in countries whose equivalent political movements are less insular. Small wonder, then, that Britain’s partners would rather a Labour government.

Does this really matter? Take the example of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose poor English means that international summits invariably produce embarrassing clips of the Spanish premier sitting alone at the negotiating table whilst the other leaders wheel and deal informally over coffee. Similarly, not one of Cameron, Osborne or Hague speaks the ‘language’ of the world village. They are political monoglots.

The G20 reconvenes in South Korea in November; will our representative at Seoul be the one in the corner, sidelined as Merkel, Obama and Sarkozy map out the future of the world economy? In December, will Britain attend the COP16 Climate Conference led by a man apparently incapable of convincing his own party of the need to tackle climate change? Will Timothy Geithner bypass London and its anti-European, "intellectually lightweight" Chancellor and go straight to Brussels for discussions on financial regulation?

The significance of this is not to be underestimated. The UK owes its prosperity, security and cultural dynamism to its being a disproportionately important global nexus. If the country punches above its weight, this is thanks to its unique position as a link between the USA, Europe and the Commonwealth. A sad reality, then, that even those beyond Britain’s borders see the Conservatives for the Little Englanders they are.