The Special Relationship has been the keystone of UK external policy since the end of the Second World War. In 2001, the government provided an official description of the Special Relationship.

However, the shift from a partnership focusing originally upon the defence of west Europe and the UK against the Soviet Union to participation in the US-led ‘War on Terror’ has put the Special Relationship under considerable political strain.  Public opinion in the UK has become hostile at least to the occupation of Iraq, and military concerns at the highest level have increased that hostility.  The Prime Minister’s closeness to President Bush and his policies in the Middle East has also harmed relations with west European allies.

Historically Britain has always been the junior partner in the Special Relationship. This deference has become especially marked under Tony Blair’s premiership: “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there,” is the instruction that Sir Christopher Meyer says he received from Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, on being posted as ambassador to Washington.

Postwar Prime Ministers have almost all valued a close place alongside the most powerful nation in the west and now for the time being in the world. They have believed that the Relationship gives them insider status in the Washington policy debate, though there is much evidence that any such status has given them minimal influence on US policy. For its part, the US has placed  a premium on not acting alone in the world, for symbolic as much as practical reasons.

Two interlinking imperatives are central to the Special Relationship. First – and often unspoken – is the UK’s dependency upon the US for the supposedly “independent” UK nuclear deterrent, especially after 1962, and sharing in intelligence gathering with the US.  The sharing of information between the US and UK intelligence agencies is a significant aspect of the alliance.

Second – and widely challenged – is the idea that though no longer an imperial power, Britain exercises substantial influence in world affairs through its subordinate association with the US. However, recently it is being argued that standing “shoulder to shoulder” with the US in “War on Terror” has substantially diminished Britain’s influence in the Middle East, Europe and the wider world.

The Special Relationship is generally constructed in a personal and secretive fashion between the UK Prime Minister and US President.  The Prime Minister draws upon his powers under the Royal Prerogative to make crucial foreign policy decisions, even on the invasion of Iraq, in advance of informing or consulting cabinet colleagues or Parliament. Click here to view a description of the Royal Prerogative provided by the government to the Public Administration Select Committee in 2003 and the Committee’s consequent report.

Blair’s personal commitment to President Bush to join the United States in the invasion is simply the most prominent example of the unilateral use Prime Ministers have made of prerogative powers to make policy and involve the UK in military operations since 1945.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and intelligence and security agencies also play significant roles in the conduct of the Special Relationship – though the engagement is dominated by the Prime Minister and his senior aides.

In theory both the UK and the US, whether acting together or alone, are subject to international law, including the United Nations Charter. However in recent years the US has displayed a reluctance to be bound by international legal norms.

Significantly in 2002 the US issued the National Security Strategy of the United States of America which set out what has become known as the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive self-defence, a break with established understandings of the concept. The UK finds itself in a problematic position since its policy is to support international law, but its close ally is clearly ready to breach it. 

In advance of the Iraq war, the UK endeavoured to reconcile the invasion, which was carried out without a final UN Security Council Resolution, with the regulations set out in the UN Charter. Its arguments were widely criticised. While the UK is a member of the International Criminal Court, the US does not recognise its jurisdiction.

The United States executive has also broken away from international law and its norms through its detention of terrorist suspects for years without trial in severe conditions in Guantanamo Bay and secret prisons around the world. Its interrogations have involved inhuman and degrading treatment amounting to torture and the CIA also renders suspects to detention by oppressive regimes in order for them to be tortured (a process known as “extraordinary rendition”).

In theory ministers are ultimately accountable to Parliament for all they do and all decisions that they make - whether under the Royal Prerogative or statutory powers. MPs and peers may exercise scrutiny through written or oral PQs; participation in debates; and through inquiries conducted by parliamentary committees.  Each of these three main methods of scrutiny is subject to its own rules of procedure and limitations. As for judicial oversight, the courts observe deference to the executive in matters of foreign policy and national security; conduct of the Special Relationship under the Royal Prerogative makes it highly unlikely that the courts will intervene, even where policies or actions appear to contravene international law.

Ministers may often be evasive when responding to both parliamentary questions and any questions put to them during Select Committee inquiries.  They also may be reluctant to allow officials to give evidence, or withhold information using an exemption under Part II of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In 2004 the Commons Liaison Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee complained – with respect to the Iraq War – that the government was more willing to cooperate with non-parliamentary inquiries it had established itself than those carried out by the legislature.

The Special Relationship is anchored in a solid consensus in Britain’s political class which extends to the civil service and Parliament. It is not embodied in any one single formal treaty or document. It is therefore difficult for parliamentarians to exercise oversight of it, even if they wished to question this over-arching consensus. Thus while entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 was subject to three prior votes of principle in the Commons, and subsequently approved by a national referendum in 1975, no such democratic consent has ever been sought for the Special Relationship.

Parliament was given a vote on entry into the Korean war in 1950 – an important early moment in the Special Relationship – only after Prime Minister Clement Attlee, acting under the Royal Prerogative, had announced the decision to participate. More recently, while votes were held on substantive motions in advance of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, their wording and timing was determined by the government, which had already begun “spikes” of military activity directed against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

In 2004 the UK renewed the part of the Mutual Defence Agreement with the US which allows for the transfer of nuclear materials – crucial to the “nuclear Special Relationship” – without a vote or even debate in Parliament. Because the renewal took place under the Royal Prerogative, none was formally required.

Various other factors serve to restrict the ability of Parliament to oversee the special relationship. There is a convention that the advice provided by government Law Officers is not disclosed publicly – meaning that MPs may be asked to endorse an operation carried out in conjunction with the US, without knowing the official view of its legality.

Parliament has never carried out a thorough scrutiny of the Special Relationship. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee produced an uncritical description of it in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. It carries out ongoing assessments of foreign policy aspects of the War on Terror. The work of the Defence Committee touches upon critical aspects of the special relationship, for instance with a report it produced on the future of the UK nuclear deterrent in June 2006. The Commons Liaison Committee often questions the Prime Minister about the Special Relationship during the sessions it holds with him every six months. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has inquired into British collusion in ‘extraordinary rendition’ by US intelligence operatives of terrorist suspects to countries where they may be tortured, in a report published in 2006.

Intelligence cooperation is central to the Special Relationship. The work of the British intelligence and security agencies is shrouded under almost total secrecy and protected by the criminal law.  It is only recently that the agencies have been given statutory status and semi-judicial oversight has been established over their activities.

The political oversight of the agencies rests with the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) which is not a parliamentary committee, rather a committee of senior parliamentarians drawn from MPs and peers in the three main political parties. The committee has access to the agencies themselves, but it does not take evidence widely in the manner of a select committee. The Prime Minister appoints its members after consulting opposition parties and the committee reports to him. Its reports are published, with deletions for security reasons. One 2005 inquiry revealed participation in human rights abuses by UK personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.

UK membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is an important feature of the Special Relationship. NATO is a military alliance formed out of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, a product of rising concern in the west about the Soviet Union’s military and political intentions in Europe.

Following the end of the Cold War in 1991 former Eastern Bloc countries joined NATO and its membership now stands at 26. In theory through its participation in NATO the UK cedes significant sovereignty since Article 5 of the Treaty requires those party to it to treat “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America” as “an attack again them all”. This article was not triggered until the terrorist attacks on the US of 11 September 2001, though NATO had already taken military action against Bosnian Serb aircraft in 1994; and to prevent atrocities in Kosovo in 1999. Britain has a prominent role in the ongoing NATO operation in Afghanistan which began in 1999. This engagement  - entered into under the Royal Prerogative – did not receive formal parliamentary approval; nor were MPs consulted on the substantial increase in the UK troop deployment in Helmand in 2006.

NATO is highly secretive, not only in itself but also in its influence on the release of official information in member countries. It has resisted attempts to make its security of information requirements public, despite the fact that these impose strict conditions upon the freedom of information regimes of member states. There is a NATO Parliamentary Assembly comprising parliamentarians from member states. But it does not hold the council formally to account, though the NATO Secretary General responds to its recommendations. There is no formal mechanism for members of the Assembly to report back to Parliament.

UK’s initial entry into the North Atlantic Treaty and its agreement to its subsequent expansion was carried out under the Royal Prerogative, meaning the formal consent of Parliament was not required – and not sought. In 1999 the Commons Defence Committee noted that of the then 16 member states “only Canada shares with the UK a ratification process which requires no formal involvement from the legislature”. The Defence Committee has carried out valuable scrutiny of NATO organisation and activity, including a detailed report on the Kosovo action.

1.  Royal Prerogative powers, through which the Special Relationship is conducted, should be placed on a statutory footing, thus making this and other aspects of foreign policy subject to scrutiny and debate in Parliament. Parliament should be the ultimate authority for diplomacy, treaty-making and the conduct of war – with as much consultation in advance as is feasible. This change has been advocated by others, including the Commons Public Administration Committee in a 2004 report, Taming the Prerogative.

2. Democratic Audit has proposed the establishment of a committee of both Houses to take responsibility for strategic review of external policy– as opposed to a departmentally based one – including matters of international security; and that more substantial research resources made available to all parliamentary committees. One of the first tasks such a committee could undertake would be a review of the impact of the Special Relationship upon Britain’s international, domestic and economic interests.

3. This reform could work in tandem with the mainstreaming of external policies into the work of departmental select committees. There is also a need for the establishment of a parliamentary legal counsel office to provide MPs and peers with their own legal advice on the conduct of foreign policy and UK collusion in the extraordinary rendition by US agencies of terrorist suspects.