Britain's prosperity and security depend on factors we cannot control alone. As such, global affairs must be a major factor in any decision on Britain's future.
UNA-UK is shining a spotlight on foreign policy in the run-up to the 2019 General Election by extracting passages from parties' manifestos on the subject of international cooperation, as well as on the key areas identified by our report 'Keeping Britain Global'.
This initiative is part of a set of General Election resources released by UNA-UK to stimulate informed debate on international cooperation and the UN, including our own manifesto and an exclusive set of statements provided by political parties on their attitude to the United Nations.
Understanding the results
When reviewing the results, please remember the following:
- The text included comprises verbatim extracts from political parties' 2019 General Election manifestos
- Parties are placed in alphabetical order
- We have attempted to analyse every political party that returned MPs in the most recent (2017) general election. However the Cooperative Party do not appear to have produced a 2019 manifesto. Cooperative Party MPs are simultaneously Labour MPs and so can be considered as covered by Labour's manifesto
- Different parties approach manifestos differently; some will be more detailed and discursive, others prefer to keep it simple
- Manifestos are not the only policy expression by political parties - the absence of information on a particular issue could be caused by a number of reasons and may not indicate the absence of a policy on this issue.
- For example, in addition to the information in the manifestos, UNA-UK has also obtained exclusive statements from parties regarding their approaches to the United Nations
- commendably many political parties have made climate change a specific focus of their manifestos this time around. To keep our exercise relevant and manageable we have therefore only considered the international elements of climate action in creating this report
- Given that responsibility for British foreign policy lies with the Westminster government, some parties based in devolved nations may choose not to include commitments on foreign policy
- While we aim to be as thorough as possible, we may have missed something so please do not take this as a definitive round-up of policies
- For definitive information, please read the manifestos directly (see links below)
- UNA-UK is a UK registered charity and is not affiliated with any political party. Read our statement on the Lobbying Act
