Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy in Great Britain

Parliament has today perhaps less supervision over foreign policy than over any other field of governmental activity. Such has been the case for over a generation, and such is still the case in spite of the Labor party's efforts to democratize the control of foreign affairs. That such a situation should exist is particularly strange, since the generally accepted theory of the English constitution assumes that foreign affairs are under the strict control of Parliament. Indeed, the governmental practice of the last forty years has largely violated theories formulated somewhat earlier. How this situation originated, and what its significance is, can best be understood after some examination of the theory and practice of foreign policy control.What may be called the classical theories of the English constitution are largely the product of the writings of Bagehot and J. S. Mill working on the imagination of the generation which Gladstone dominated, and given emphasis by the Liberals of the seventies. Somewhat unthinkingly, perhaps, these theories won acceptance by Liberals and Conservatives alike. Authoritative statements of the constitutional theory of the control of foreign policy will be found, for instance, in Anson's Law and Custom of the Constitution and Halsbury’s Laws of England. Both of these works express a Liberal conception of foreign policy control; yet both ate the works of Tories.