tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/anthony-eden-29038/articlesAnthony Eden – The Conversation2019-04-08T09:11:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1150222019-04-08T09:11:08Z2019-04-08T09:11:08ZIs Theresa May the worst prime minister of modern times? Here are her rivals for the title<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267849/original/file-20190405-180020-1e0dcsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Without a doubt, British politics is in crisis. Not only does any resolution seem impossible, but the actors have forgotten what they were arguing about in the first place. Nobody, it seems, has any ambition other than to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cross-party-brexit-talks-are-probably-heading-nowhere-and-are-a-major-risk-for-corbyn-114663">frustrate the actions</a> of their opponents.</p>
<p>In this situation, it is natural to blame the person in charge. Theresa May certainly has many faults as prime minister, and must take much of the responsibility for this mess. Few would claim she has shown great <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-impasse-where-have-all-the-political-leaders-gone-110405">political skill</a> during her time in Downing Street, and she is now in office only by default. Even her announcement of her <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-q-a-theresa-may-offers-to-stand-down-as-british-prime-minister-but-theres-a-catch-114414">forthcoming departure</a> has turned out to be a damp squib – less a glorious kamikaze move than a slightly squalid act of self harm.</p>
<p>But is she, as some would have it, actually the worst prime minister in modern history? It is tempting to see the problems one is living through as peculiarly awful, and to judge the present incumbent of Number 10 accordingly. But this can lead us to lose perspective.</p>
<p>Without doubt, May has some serious competition from previous premiers who have presided over other calamities. Even if a no deal Brexit does occur on her watch, nobody has yet claimed that it would be as catastrophic as either of the world wars – though neither of those, of course, was the sole responsibility of the respective prime ministers of the day.</p>
<h2>Neville Chamberlain</h2>
<p>If our focus is on the post-1928 era of universal suffrage, many would be tempted to label Neville Chamberlain as the worst of May’s predecessors. There is no greater insult in British politics than to compare one’s enemy to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement">“Man of Munich”</a>.</p>
<p>Chamberlain will forever be remembered as the man who agreed to let Germany annex part of Czechoslovakia, believing Hitler’s promise that he would make no further claims on European territories. The notorious 1938 deal turned out to be fatally flawed – even though one can make the argument that it was necessary to buy time to prepare for war, it is far from clear that that is what the prime minister thought he was doing.</p>
<p>Still, Chamberlain’s main shortcomings were not being weak and easily pushed around, as modern legend might have us believe. He was in fact arrogant and controlling. And, surprising as it may seem, he was also much loved by many of his colleagues. It may not be an excuse, but in promoting the appeasement of Germany, he was working with the grain of popular opinion. May, by contrast, has had to struggle with profound divisions among the public – though admittedly her own actions have exacerbated these.</p>
<h2>Anthony Eden</h2>
<p>The next contender is surely Anthony Eden. Unlike Chamberlain, Eden had considerable experience of foreign affairs when he picked up the keys to Downing Street, yet it was foreign affairs that brought him down. He may have initially failed to provide “the smack of firm government”, as the Daily Telegraph put it, but his tenure was not obviously disastrous until president Nasser of Egypt nationalised the operations of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml">Suez Canal company in July 1956</a>.</p>
<p>Eden regarded this as a political virility test and colluded with the French and the Israelis to launch an invasion which succeeded militarily but which, fatally, alienated Britain’s US allies. Whatever mistakes May has made, she has never engaged in an act of such deliberate and conscious duplicity.</p>
<h2>Labour contenders</h2>
<p>Labour leaders must of course be brought into the frame, too. <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/sterling-devalued-imf-loan.htm">Jim Callaghan</a> was an able politician who successfully resolved the 1976 International Monetary Fund crisis before the Winter of Discontent eventually brought him down. His tenure does not shine, but as even his nemesis Margaret Thatcher gracefully acknowledged, in different circumstances he could have been a great prime minister.</p>
<p>Gordon Brown, by contrast, lacked many of the personal attributes needed for the job, but at least can claim to have taken <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/feb/21/gordon-brown-saved-banks">successful decisive action</a> in the face of the global financial crisis. In some respects, May’s task has been even more intractable, but although she has shown personal resilience, she has shown little imagination or sureness of touch.</p>
<h2>David Cameron</h2>
<p>David Cameron is seen by many as May’s closest rival for the prime ministerial wooden spoon award. He was a much more polished performer but the glibness of his political judgement was <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-the-worst-prime-minister-ever-david-cameron-got-britain-into-this-mess-109988">directly responsible</a> for his successor’s predicament.</p>
<p>Perhaps the ultimate verdict on May will be that she willingly put herself in charge of a problem that was self-evidently pretty much insoluble. It is still conceivable that she will solve it yet, in the sense of delivering some form of Brexit, however unsatisfactory. If that happens, she will at least meet the standard that she set for herself (“Brexit means Brexit”), even if it brings about catastrophe.</p>
<p>Ironically, if predictions about the consequences of no deal are correct, her best hope of avoiding the Worst Prime Minister label may be to fail in her own central objective of leaving the EU. Or, perhaps, she can hope to be replaced by someone yet more disastrous. Boris Johnson, step right up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Toye does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>No one is saying she has done a stellar job, but other prime ministers have made mistakes like May.Richard Toye, Professor of Modern History, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/658442016-10-31T17:10:48Z2016-10-31T17:10:48ZSuez Crisis shows what happens when friends don’t share<p>Sixty years ago, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/suez-crisis-29039">the Suez Crisis</a> triggered one of the greatest conflicts between allies in NATO history. Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, nationalised the Suez Canal. But far from supporting the invasion, the US president, Dwight Eisenhower, feared it would array the “third world” against the West to the benefit of the USSR.</p>
<p>The US <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/7218678">condemned its allies’ military action</a>, demanded their forces leave Egypt and used the considerable economic and diplomatic tools at its disposal to force compliance. </p>
<p>The term “Suez” became shorthand for discord among allies – and there were indeed many obstacles hindering cooperation. Most importantly, the perceived stakes were not the same on the American and European sides of the Atlantic. Compared to Britain and France, US holdings in the <a href="http://www.ebha.org/ebha2007/pdf/Piquet.pdf">Suez Canal Company</a> were insignificant – and America did not rely nearly as much on <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d72">oil from the Middle East</a> shipped through the waterway. </p>
<p>Paradoxically, however, the crisis was also exacerbated by excessive agreement between the allies – especially where Britain and the US were concerned. Leaders on both sides mistakenly believed their perceptions of the threat Nasser posed were roughly the same as their ally’s – and, interestingly, this mistake had been encouraged by their communications with one another. </p>
<h2>Common misunderstanding</h2>
<p>Historians have explained the allies’ misperception of one another’s positions during Suez by arguing that they were eager to cooperate, which in turn meant that they wished to avoid discussion of their potential differences. But this assumes that Eisenhower, Britain’s prime minister Anthony Eden and other senior leaders were aware of their disagreements about Nasser – and this is at odds with their private and public statements at the time. </p>
<p>Eisenhower <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d190">wrote to Eden</a>: “I do not, repeat not, differ from you in your estimate of [Nasser’s] intentions and purposes.” Eden told his cabinet that the firmness of Britain’s stance was winning over US sceptics – and Harold Macmillan agreed that Eisenhower was determined “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1989/03/19/englands-big-mac/794b18ee-b9d4-4541-aa55-8e0c7b2cb181/">to bring Nasser down</a>”. </p>
<p>Leaders did agree that Nasser was a threat and that it was undesirable for Egypt to exercise unilateral control over the canal. These beliefs were common information and were thoroughly discussed during allied meetings and in leaders’ correspondence with one another from August 1956 onwards. But unique to both sides were their beliefs about the magnitude of the threat Nasser represented </p>
<p>Given the risk to their country’s economic welfare and influence in the Middle East, Eden and other British leaders saw Nasser as a “Hitler on the Nile”. Those in Washington, although not fond of Nasser, saw him as much less menacing – more of a “stumbling block”, as Eisenhower wrote <a href="http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/what-eisenhower-and-dulles-saw-nasser?print">in his diary</a>. These divergent profiles of Nasser were not seriously debated at a high level until a month-and-a-half after the crisis began. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143942/original/image-20161031-15810-9cq3yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British tanks disembarking at Port Said, 1956.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Navy photographer, courtesy of Imperial War Museums</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even then, US and UK leaders erred in thinking their disagreements were a relatively minor bump in the road. In October, Eden’s secretary Norman Brook <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/01/egypt.past">confidently told the prime minister</a> there had been “a substantial advance in Anglo-American agreement on objectives and methods … The American agencies have joined with us in declaring that our joint objectives require Nasser’s removal from power.” As a result of these mistaken assessments, the US was caught off guard by the invasion of Egypt – and Britain was equally unprepared for the US response. </p>
<p>The illusion of unanimity between the senior political leaders in Washington and London was able to persist despite the “special relationship”, which included sharing large amounts of secret intelligence about Egypt. Officials in the two countries were looking at similar information but drawing different conclusions from it. </p>
<p>Eisenhower ordered the newly created Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities to <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/the-art-of-strategic-counterintelligence.html">conduct a review</a> of US intelligence services’ assessments made during the crisis to try to figure out how he had been so mistaken about British intentions. The president’s insistence on an investigation again shows that he was genuinely surprised by the episode’s outcome.</p>
<h2>Psychology of sharing information</h2>
<p>A novel explanation of the allies’ mistaken perceptions of one another in 1956 concerns the psychology of communication and decision-making in coalitions. Even when individuals have diverse interests and knowledge, they often unwittingly avoid areas of difference, instead disproportionately sharing and discussing information that all the members of their decision-making group already know. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143944/original/image-20161031-8691-huri5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British and US strategists differed in their assessment of Nasser’s threat to Middle East security.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliotheca Alexandrina</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This happens for several reasons. Most simply, information that all group members know (called “common information”, such as the belief that Nasser shouldn’t exercise unilateral control over the canal) is more prevalent than information that is only held by one or a few members of the group (“unique information”, like the British belief that Nasser was akin to Hitler). </p>
<p>Common information is thus more likely to be brought up by chance alone, because there is more of it than unique information. This also means common information is likely to be discussed first, which has the effect of establishing it as the “baseline” against which new evidence is judged and interpreted. Decision-makers’ beliefs are slow to move away from the initially discussed common information. In the case of Suez, because US and British leaders discussed their agreement that Nasser posed a threat early on, they inferred that their judgements about the size of that threat were roughly similar. </p>
<p>Lastly, people are predisposed to try to confirm beliefs they already hold. When a party to a discussion brings up information the other people involved already know and believe to be true, the speaker is viewed as more credible because it reinforces established beliefs. This positive reception encourages all parties to continue to offer up similar common information, pushing unique perspectives and differences of opinion into the background. Overall, this creates what psychologists <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1449693">Garold Stasser and William Titus call “hidden profiles”</a> of problems under discussion: unique information remains unshared and hidden from most of the group. These dynamics played out between Britain and the US during Suez. </p>
<p>The Suez crisis shows that a group of political leaders cannot assume a comprehensive picture of adversaries and threats will emerge simply because there is a diverse set of viewpoints present during allied deliberations. The bias towards common rather than unique information must be accounted for as well. Because Eden had assumed Eisenhower shared his fears about Nasser, just as US officials presumed the unique views they withheld were in fact known in London, the PM was taken by surprise when the US acted against British interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Rapport does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>60 years ago, Britain and the US believed they were on the same page when it came to Suez. How wrong they were.Aaron Rapport, Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659662016-10-31T11:33:56Z2016-10-31T11:33:56Z60 years ago, Suez crisis set a dangerous pattern for Western military intervention<p>By a delicious irony, UK prime minister Anthony Eden’s disastrous Suez adventure in 1956 coincided with the withdrawal from publication of Sir John Seeley’s classic text of British imperialism, <a href="https://archive.org/details/expansionofengla00seeluoft">The Expansion of England</a>. Based on a set of lectures he had given at Cambridge, Seeley’s 1882 text was the first attempt to provide a theoretical basis for British expansion and it included the famous claim that the British appeared to have gained an empire “<a href="https://web.viu.ca/davies/H479B.Imperialism.Nationalism/Seeley.Br.Expansion.imperial.1883.htm">in a fit of absence of mind</a>”. How appropriate it seems, then, that Eden seemed in 1956 to have sealed the fate of that empire in a similar fit of absent-mindedness.</p>
<p>Rather like the “moment of madness” that otherwise law-abiding people describe when arrested for an out-of-character breach of the law, Eden’s invasion of Egypt can seem to be the result of a lapse of concentration on a genuinely imperial scale. It’s as if he momentarily forgot he was living in the post-war world of superpowers and atomic weapons and somehow imagined he was Lord Palmerston, the Victorian gunboat diplomatist who did indeed once send a fleet of gunboats to bring a recalcitrant Egyptian ruler to heel. </p>
<p>Interpreted as the disastrous doddering of an imperialist daydreamer, Suez can seem like a fitting epitaph to an empire that was already hastening towards an inglorious end.</p>
<p>That interpretation makes for good exam questions, such: “To what extent was Suez a turning point in the story of British imperialism?” But this is not the only way of looking at it. Far from being an embarrassing throwback to Victorian days – and a revelation of how out of touch Eden was with the modern world – Suez might be better understood as a model for a pattern of liberal interventionism that has grown in scale and frequency in the 60 years since 1956, though with a depressingly similar litany of disastrous results.</p>
<h2>Reponding to a ‘new Hitler’</h2>
<p>The key lies in taking Eden’s reasoning more seriously. He saw Nasser as a new incarnation of Hitler and the nationalising of the Suez Canal as the equivalent of Hitler’s remilitarisation of the German Rhineland 20 years earlier. Historians tend to take this as evidence of Eden’s lack of grip on reality, but his judgement was not so very different from that of others – both before and since. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143809/original/image-20161030-15793-foz5t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new Hitler? Nasser in India, 1960.</span>
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</figure>
<p>Gladstone took a similar view of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Urabi-Pasha">Egyptian nationalist leader Arabi Bey</a>, whose anti-foreigner uprising prompted the 1882 invasion that established British control in Egypt in the first place. Mrs Thatcher made overt comparisons with Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in <a href="http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/114324">denouncing the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, it’s common practice for leaders to denounce their opponents as criminals or terrorists – and equally common for journalists and academics to ridicule the comparisons. But Eden’s claim merits more serious consideration, not because it was precise – historical comparisons can never be that – but because it set the tone for modern liberal interventionism.</p>
<p>Nasser’s <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/26/newsid_2701000/2701603.stm">nationalisation of the canal</a> may seem justifiable and even reasonable to modern eyes. But it was nevertheless of highly debatable legality in international law. Similarly, Hitler’s remilitarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/GERrhineland.htm">seemed perfectly reasonable to many</a>, especially as the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir1/thetreatyrev1.shtml">Treaty of Versailles</a> which he was breaking was widely regarded as far too draconian. The French, who had insisted on the demilitarised zone in the first place, were regarded in London and Washington as taking far too aggressive and self-interested a tone in their relations with Germany – very like Eden and Egypt, in fact. </p>
<p>Nor was Eden alone in seeing Nasser as a new Hitler – to the Israelis, whose <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/israel-invades-egypt-suez-crisis-begins">invasion of Sinai</a> actually precipitated the crisis – he represented a danger to their new state every bit as hostile and dangerous as Hitler’s regime had been.</p>
<h2>Judgement call</h2>
<p>The questionable nature of Eden’s judgement was not in the comparison he drew but in his decision about what to do about it – and in this he proved not so much backward-looking as prescient. His belief that the dictatorial nature of actions by a foreign leader can justify military intervention has since proved to be the justification of choice for a succession of Western democratic leaders. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143810/original/image-20161030-15821-1swtwnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could have learned a lot from Suez.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Executive Office of the President of the United State</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>These have included American intervention in Nicaragua, Granada and Somalia, NATO’s bombing of Kosovo, British intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 and more recent western military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria.</p>
<p>Eden’s absolute belief in the rightness of his cause led him to concoct a dishonest conspiracy to overthrow Nasser. His big mistake, however, was not his dishonesty but his <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/27/examining-the-1956-suez-crisis/">failure to involve the Americans</a>. His reasoning was not so different from American reasoning over regime change in Iraq, or even involvement in Vietnam. Instead of condemning Eden for misjudgement and living in the past, we should take more note of his face staring back at us in the political mirror.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Lang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>British prime minister Anthony Eden justified attacking Egypt as necessary to restrain the country’s ‘dangerous’ leader. We still hear similar things before every Western intervention.Sean Lang, Senior Lecturer in History, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659702016-10-28T09:24:41Z2016-10-28T09:24:41Z60 years after Suez: a tale of two prime ministers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143486/original/image-20161027-11271-1d4ii4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">United States Army Heritage and Education Center</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does history repeat itself? Never perfectly or precisely, but some of the parallels between Anthony Eden’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml">handling of the 1956 Suez Crisis</a> and Tony Blair’s role in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36712735">2003 invasion of Iraq</a> are worth pondering. In both cases prime ministerial decision-making dictated the course of British policy and laid bare some of the weaknesses of the British political system.</p>
<p>First, take the conjuring of the threat. Both men framed their struggles in existential terms. For Eden, the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company at the end of July 1956 by the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, represented a threat to national survival. </p>
<p>A man whom Eden likened to Hitler or Mussolini would have his fingers wrapped round the nation’s economic windpipe. Whenever Nasser wished he might squeeze and strangle the country. “It’s either him or us. Don’t forget that”, Eden warned.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143489/original/image-20161027-11268-9ouild.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The ‘new Hitler’: Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser.</span>
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<p>For Tony Blair, meanwhile, after 9/11, a whole new world had dawned. Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction together formed “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/mar/18/foreignpolicy.iraq1">a fundamental assault on our way of life</a>” and “the central security threat of the 21st century”. Blair’s fears focused once again on an Arab dictator, this time the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. His supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction now formed “a clear danger to British citizens”.</p>
<h2>Déjà vu</h2>
<p>The path to war on both occasions has certain eerie parallels. Both men resorted to the creation of a sort of inner circle or kitchen cabinet of key ministers backed by sympathetic officials. For Eden it was <a href="http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1503&context=td">the Egypt Committee</a>, a select group which included the key hawks in the Cabinet such as the chancellor of the exchequer, Harold Macmillan. </p>
<p>For Blair <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/18/labour.whitehall">the group was more fluid</a>, but it included the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and his Number 10 advisers, Jonathan Powell, David Manning and Alastair Campbell. In both cases, despite the doctrine of collective responsibility, the full cabinet was largely cut out of the decision-making process. Remarkably given the drive towards military action, both men’s ministers of defence – for Eden, Walter Monckton, and for Blair, Geoff Hoon – were not part of the inner circle. Indeed, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Suez.html?id=WGCwQgAACAAJ">Monckton was opposed to the use of force</a>, leading Eden quietly to shunt him out of the way. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143485/original/image-20161027-11278-zvugdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Key strategic position.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yolan Chériaux</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>For both men, the military timetable also overshadowed diplomacy. A deadline for military action was imposed by weather conditions in the region. For Eden, an amphibious assault on Egypt had to be launched before the middle of November 1956 – while for Blair the deadline was late March 2003, after which the heat of the Iraqi spring and summer would hinder operations. Admittedly in Blair’s case that deadline was also imposed by American war plans.</p>
<h2>‘Legal war’?</h2>
<p>Both leaders resorted to the United Nations to prepare the ground for war. Neither got what he wanted. While Eden’s foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, made some progress at the UN in agreeing principles for the operation of the Suez Canal, the pretext for war Eden sought – which would put Egypt clearly in the wrong – was elusive. Meanwhile, for Blair, <a href="http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf">Security Council resolution 1441</a>, passed in November 2002, proved a double-edged sword. While it was later used as the legal justification for war, it also crystallised the division in the international community. Without a second resolution explicitly justifying war, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/05/iraq.politics">France and Russia opposed military action</a>.</p>
<p>Both Eden and Blair grappled with the concept of legality. Eden didn’t want the government’s law officers consulted at all. “The lawyers are always against our doing anything. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i9zyRYYIJK4C&pg=PR3-IA10&lpg=PR3-IA10&dq=the+lawyers+are+always+against+our+doing+anything.+For+God%E2%80%99s+sake+keep+them+out+of+it.+This+is+a+political+affair&source=bl&ots=00FS2Mz2mf&sig=Ij9pUhk-Bzte35_84uNddeuQxBY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRge6B8_rPAhUCKsAKHe5FDaUQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=the%20lawyers%20are%20always%20against%20our%20doing%20anything.%20For%20God%E2%80%99s%20sake%20keep%20them%20out%20of%20it.%20This%20is%20a%20political%20affair&f=false">For God’s sake keep them out of it</a>. This is a political affair”, he complained. But the attorney-general, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/01/egypt.past">stood up to him in private</a>, warning that if he was asked a question in parliament as to whether the Suez invasion was legal, he would have to declare that it was not. The Opposition missed its chance and the question was not asked. In 2003 by contrast, the attorney general Lord Goldsmith proved more malleable, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8481759.stm">changing his mind at a late stage</a> about the authority granted by resolution 1441.</p>
<h2>Public opposition</h2>
<p>The actions of both leaders brought huge crowds on to the streets of London in protest. Against Eden, the banners called for “law not war”, while for Blair the message was even more direct: “B-liar”. In both cases, war split the nation and led to a fundamental debate about Britain’s role in the world and the justification for military action.</p>
<p>But there, perhaps, the parallels end. Eden’s action over Suez was thwarted by American intervention while Blair acted in concert with Washington. Eden fell over Suez, while Blair held on to office after Iraq. No formal public postmortem was ever carried out over Suez, while over Iraq every detail of decision-making was pored over by the <a href="http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/">Chilcot Inquiry</a>.</p>
<p>Still, Blair’s testimony before the inquiry does show that he and Eden shared at least one more trait in common: the belief that whatever the consequences they were both right all along.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Ashton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are striking parallels between Eden’s handling of Suez and Blair’s march into the Iraq War.Nigel Ashton, Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/620612016-07-06T11:00:25Z2016-07-06T11:00:25ZBrexit: 60 years on and the ghosts of Suez have come back to haunt the Tories<p>As a broken David Cameron made his dramatic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/jun/24/david-camerons-full-resignation-speech-i-will-go-before-the-autumn-video">resignation statement</a> outside Number 10 Downing Street on the morning after the referendum, the ghosts of Suez seemed to hover ominously in the air.</p>
<p>It was 60 years ago that Britain and France, acting in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt in an attempt to seize the Suez Canal, which had been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78kiUQ-I5Y">nationalised by President Gamal Abdel Nasser</a>. When a furious Dwight David Eisenhower (“Ike”), then US president, demanded a ceasefire, and threatened to cut off Britain’s oil supplies, the Anglo-French <a href="http://www.historynet.com/suez-crisis-operation-musketeer.htm">Operation Musketeer</a> was halted, leaving Nasser emboldened, London humiliated, prime minister Anthony Eden’s reputation and political career in ruins – and Britain isolated internationally.</p>
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<p>In the aftermath of the EU referendum result, commentators have been quick to draw parallels with the Suez Crisis. As <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/25/brexit-has-exposed-the-chasm-between-the-establishment-and-the-r/">Jeremy Paxman put it</a> “no prime minister has made a bigger miscalculation since Anthony Eden”, while in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/29/key-lesson-of-brexit-globalisation-must-work-for-all-of-britain">Gordon Brown’s judgement</a>, the outcome of the referendum has “left us more isolated from our international partners than at any time since the humiliation of Suez”.</p>
<p>The similarities are striking enough. An Old Etonian prime minister, convinced that he knew best, forced to <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-resignation-why-british-pm-david-cameron-had-to-go-61594">resign</a> in disgrace, just a year or so after winning a general election. A dramatic run on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brexit-triggered-a-global-market-meltdown-61535">pound</a> that threatens economic collapse. Bitter domestic divisions, and diplomatic isolation. </p>
<p>And, as was the case 60 years ago, the ruling class now faces something of an existential crisis. After all, almost the entire British establishment – including the leaders of all the major political parties, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-lose-lose-for-unions-in-the-eu-referendum-60487">unions</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-do-89-of-businesses-really-support-remain-60897">businesses</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/insularity-is-not-the-way-forward-three-university-vice-chancellors-on-brexit-60660">universities</a>, and the cultural great and good – was united behind Cameron’s efforts to remain within a “reformed” European Union. </p>
<p>In a broader sense, 2016 is, <a href="http://www.faber.co.uk/9780571312320-1956-the-world-in-revolt.html">like 1956</a>, shaping up to be a year of extraordinary drama and international upheaval.</p>
<h2>Different rulebook</h2>
<p>When Eden tendered his resignation on January 9 1957, it was the constitutional responsibility of the Queen, under the power of the royal prerogative, to appoint a new prime minister. Unlike today, there were <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-political-parties-choose-their-leaders-41534">no formal rules</a> governing the election of a new Conservative Party leader: no campaign launches, leadership hustings, or formal votes – and certainly no question of balloting ordinary party members. </p>
<p>Instead, it fell to party grandees David Maxwell Fyfe, the Lord Chancellor, and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the Lord President of the Council, to advise the palace on the succession. The two men canvassed the views of cabinet members (who were interviewed individually) and gauged opinion among backbenchers and constituency chairmen. Edward Heath, the chief whip, John Morrison who was chairman of the backbench 1922 committee, and Oliver Poole, the party chairman, were consulted. </p>
<p>While commentators appeared certain that R A Butler, the leader of the house and Eden’s de facto deputy, would prevail, opinion within the party swung overwhelmingly behind Harold Macmillan – and so it was the chancellor of the exchequer who, on the afternoon of January 10, was summoned to Buckingham Palace. During his 30-minute audience with the Queen, Macmillan <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Bf8kOUHOfJ8C&pg=PT380&lpg=PT380&dq=macmillan+six+weeks+queen&source=bl&ots=26vMeZaxMe&sig=tAC4M1cyhYSsHkGCn-r2qwG1A1E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiywaH-3tzNAhViLsAKHehxCnkQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=macmillan%20six%20weeks%20queen&f=false">famously predicted</a> that his government was unlikely to last six weeks.</p>
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<p>That Suez had delivered Macmillan the keys to Number 10 was ironic, given that he had done a good deal to cause the crisis in the first place. He had egged on the prime minister and argued that the military objectives should be expanded to include the destruction of Nasser’s armies and overthrow of his government. </p>
<p>Catastrophically, on the eve of the crisis, Macmillian also assured his cabinet colleagues that, if presented with a <em>fait accompli</em>, Washington would simply acquiesce. “I know Ike,”<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uGw9CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT271&lpg=PT271&dq=%22I+know+Ike+he+will+lie+doggo%22&source=bl&ots=guBze5dsXu&sig=18zZje6duZ62LUVeUa9TvxP2v2A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZsJHy8NzNAhXBA8AKHdPpDNAQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=%22I%20know%20Ike%20he%20will%20lie%20doggo%22&f=false"> explained Macmillan</a> – who had worked closely with Eisenhower during the Second World War – “He will lie doggo!” He couldn’t have been more wrong.</p>
<h2>Clearing up the mess</h2>
<p>Rejecting calls from Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour leader, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/10/newsid_3783000/3783251.stm">to call an immediate general election</a>, Macmillan – who was unfairly derided by his critics as a mere “showman” – worked assiduously to mend the transatlantic alliance. He made the most of his personal connections and considerable charm: although the ultimate price was, effectively, subservience to Washington. </p>
<p>In Whitehall, it became something of an article of faith after Suez that no significant gap could ever be allowed to open up between the UK and the US on a major question of war and peace. And, as the British Empire was dismantled in Africa and the Caribbean, Macmillan sought to re-orient British foreign policy towards Europe, leading the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vRHj29Zww">failed attempt to join the Common Market in 1963</a>. </p>
<p>At home, Macmillan focused his efforts on restoring the confidence of the nation (as well as that of his shattered party), and governed as a one-nation Tory during a period of rising economic prosperity. A patrician figure, Macmillan sought to exude a spirit of calm authority – hanging up a sign in Downing Street that declared “Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.” In 1959, he won a landslide victory in the general election, campaigning under the slogan <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393287.stm">“Life’s Better with the Conservatives – Don’t Let Labour Ruin It.”</a></p>
<p>In 1956, those who believed that Britain was a great power, entitled to act independently to safeguard what were seen as vital national interests, learned a harsh lesson about the economic and geopolitical realities of the post-war era. In the end, those who had helped to cause the disaster proved able to save the country from ruin. It is too soon to be able to predict with any confidence whether history might be about to repeat itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cameron has followed in Eden’s footsteps, but in the 1950s the leadership race was a different ballgame.Simon Hall, Professor of Modern History, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.