Brown And Foreign Policy AWOL In Georgia

Ask Brown and the government about the Georgian conflict, UK foreign policy, a new all-powerful EU and the answers may come back, eventually. But only after they've checked with Bush, run it past Blair policy and got the OK from Brussels.

The Sun and Daily Telegraph make uneasy bedfellows, but today they are speaking with one voice on a central issue. 

The Telegraph points out - "Britain has been strangely absent from the Russo-Georgian conflict". The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh is a tad more blunt - "Hello Gordon - we still can't hear you."

However, taking sides and raising the spectre of the Cold War, does not help. Former chief of general staff, Mike Field's clear plea "Let's not start World War III", is ample warning on that.

Brown isn't the only thing that's gone missing. What's also gone AWOL is any glimpse of a UK foreign policy and the public's voice over the role of an ever expanding EU and its new constitution/treaty currently being pushed through member states. 

And, at times of international tension, can we rely on Brown and his Blairite side-kick Miliband? 

Brown and Mliband's strange absence can be partly explained. They've dusted down Blair's position at his meeting with the Georgian president, disclosed here. That sets out the Blair vision for a super NATO, all-powerful EU and how Georgian troops can be used to prop up the war in Iraq. 

They've taken a look and thought - we'd better keep our heads down. Neither want to be seen as getting too close to all that.

Instead, it was left to the confusion of France's Nicolas Sarkozy to broker a peace. Acting as the EU rotating president, sure - but at all times very clearly speaking as the French President. And as the voice of newly emerging EU foreign and military muscle which played a part in the conflict.

An expansionist EU, with Brussels now firmly in control of foreign policy and military matters, has been allowed to slip in under the radar of the voters and public. The current row over the new  EU constitution/treaty is ample proof of that. 

The true scale of a powerful, unaccountable and expansionist EU, embedded in the new EU constitution/ treaty, lies at the heart of the matter, eluded to in the Telegraph Leader: 

"But before being able to implement such a policy, we must first recover control, in practice as well as in theory. Britain is the world's fifth-largest economy and fourth military power. If we cannot act independently on the world stage, it is hard to see who can."

Over at the Sun, the ever politically astute Kavanagh, pulls no punches:

"We are led by a man who issues press releases about his phone calls to Tbilisi from holiday in Scotland. As David Cameron flies to Georgia with warnings about Russia’s threat to world peace, Gordon seems more preoccupied with the date of the Fife by-election."

After the Georgian conflict, these are the issues which require some very serious, clear and rational public debate.