Britain should reject the “temptingly simple narratives” of “pseudo-realism” and double down on its commitment to the international rules-based order, Attorney General Richard Hermer has today argued.

Delivering a speech on national security and international law at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in central London, Lord Hermer claimed that “raw and wild power […] was not and is not a realistic way to advance national interests.” Instead, approaching geopolitics with a “cool head and warm heart” in the manner of “progressive realism”, as previously described by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, is what will underwrite Britain’s safety and position on the world stage. Progressive realism, Hermer said, is a rejection of the idea that “Britain must abandon the constraints of international law in favour of raw power.” He added: “There is a temptation among some critics to see international law as inflicted upon us by others, that it is undemocratic and somehow foreign.”

These comments come a week after the UK finalised its controversial deal to cede control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that Britain would subsequently pay the East African country £101 million per year for 99 years to lease the crucial Diego Garcia military base which is shared with the US. In an interview with the New Statesman back in February when the Government’s chief lawyer was under fire for his work on the Chagos deal, the Labour peer Lord Glasman accused Hermer of being “the absolute archetype of an arrogant, progressive fool who thinks that law is a replacement for politics”.

Hermer — who along with the Prime Minister was “intellectually bred at Doughty Street Chambers”, a law firm which focuses on human rights cases — has also been accused of conflicts of interest. In January, Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald dismissed Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick’s demands for Hermer to be investigated over his previous legal work for former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Sri Lankan asylum seekers to the Chagos Islands who took action against the British Government.

The Attorney General has come under pressure from some Labour MPs who allege that his commitment to international law is “putting a freeze” on Government action. In January, Hermer told the Council of Europe that Britain will “never withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, or refuse to comply with judgments of the court”.

Positioning the Labour government’s foreign policy as a rational via media in his speech today, the barrister and life peer set up a dichotomy between “romantic idealists” and “pseudo-realists”. While the idealists view international law as a panacea and are happy for it to supersede national politics, the “pseudo-realists” want to abandon international law and moral principles.

“They [pseudo-realists] say we are witnessing the unravelling of the postwar international order and that the nation state must once again be superior to any international norms. They are essentially arguing for a return to Bismarckian notions of realpolitik,” Hermer argued.

Quoting from the 19th-century German statesman’s Blut und Eisen speech, he claimed that realists subscribe to settling matters not through diplomacy but through “blood and iron”. Hermer alleged that Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch and her Shadow Attorney General David Wolfson “wholly buy” this critique. This ideology “not only misunderstand[s] our history and the nature of international law, it is also reckless and dangerous, and will make us less prosperous and secure in a troubled world”.

He claimed that the “Cold War peace is over”, and that this is a “truly changed environment”. He added: “If the international law framework fails and international institutions fall, then cui bono? Who benefits? And the answer is obvious: it’s our enemies.”

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Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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