Britain in the World

The reality of British interests and the cloud of self-deception and misrepresentation exist in respect of Britain&s;s vital interests in the strategically important and oil-bearing lands of the Middle East. The benefits which Egypt derived from the period of effective British rule that followed were real, but they were the by-product and not the purpose of the British position in the country. Nevertheless public opinion would need a great deal of persuasion before a British Government could enter any sort of European political union with enough popular support to make its action anything but an empty gesture. A Liberal policy with regard to internal restrictions and monopolies, would have just the effect on the climate of British economic thought and make European free trade far more acceptable. A Liberal Government would regard UNO with the respect due to the only institution apparently capable of being developed into an instrument of a world-wide rule of law.