I may be missing something, but as far as I can see, the government’s agreement to “review” the asylum cases of 91 interpreters who have worked with British armed forces in Iraq marks the first successful, or at least partially successful, British political campaign begun in the blogosphere. I first came across the campaign via a Daniel Davies post at Crooked Timber, but as far as I can see it was kicked off by one Dan Hardie, on July 22nd. Both Davies and Hardie made reference to a Channel 4 News report produced in April, but it wasn’t until the campaign spread across the blogs, and eventually into the press, that the government began to pay attention.
The interpreter asylum case was a perfect campaign for the blogosphere—it had clear, well-defined aims, and it cut across partisan pro-war/antiwar lines to provide a cause behind which almost everyone could unite. Meanwhile, the government has much to lose by standing firm—it will appear bureaucratically mean-spirited and pedantic, not to mention ungrateful—and little to lose by giving in—the 91 interpreters would be a drop in the asylum ocean, and the slippery slope argument doesn’t really hold, as it’s easy to argue that this is a special case. Assuming that the review does result in the interpreters being granted asylum, it’ll be interesting to see where the campaigning energies of British blogs turn to next.
As (sort of) predicted here at First Drafts over a month ago, it looks as if Michael Williams, currently UN envoy to the middle east, will soon be returning to British government service as the prime minister’s own middle east envoy (a post last filled, of course, by Lord Levy). The Guardian, which broke the story on Saturday, suggested that the appointment could lead to clashes with Tony Blair, who is of course himself plugging away in the middle east, on behalf of the international “quartet.” It’s not quite clear why such a clash would be any more likely now that Williams will be working on behalf of No 10 rather than the UN; in fact, as pointed out in Prospect a few months ago, a turf war with Blair was more likely when Williams was at the UN, given that the UN is one of the four members of the quartet on whose behalf Blair is working.
Personality politics aside, Williams’s appointment is good news for the region, says Benny Avni of the New York Sun—but bad news for the UN, which is losing one of its most able diplomats. Avni also suggests that the idea that Williams will act as a “counterpoint” to Blair’s “perceived pro-Israel bias” is overdone.
In the immediate aftermath of the cabinet reshuffle, most of the discussion seems to revolve around what the appointment of David Miliband as foreign secretary—who has made critical remarks about Israel’s conduct in Lebanon last summer, and who is widely supposed to have deep misgivings about Britain’s role in Iraq—will mean for British foreign policy. In terms of “giving signals,” however, the appointment of Mark Malloch Brown—on which more later—as foreign office minister for Africa, Asia and the UN seems even more provocative; as deputy secretary-general of the UN, Malloch Brown made himself a hate figure in the US last year when he criticised Washington for allowing “too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping.”
Meanwhile, as Prospect predicted in May, Malloch Brown’s former UN colleague Michael Williams may have found himself embroiled in a turf war with Tony Blair in the middle east, to where, of course, the dethroned Blair will be acting as the “quartet’s” representative. For the last few weeks, Williams has been acting as the UN’s special envoy to the middle east, but is the region big enough for two British diplomatic big-hitters? There are rumours that Blair will take over Williams’s office in Jerusalem. Might we even see Williams return to London?
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