Unlike Labour and the Tories, we have no interest in supporting the US war machine. Britain shouldn’t be used as Washington's unsinkable US aircraft carrier.

WELCOME to the third in our series of ‘bite size’ articles looking at the National Liberal Party’s 2015 General Election Manifesto.

As National Liberals and Self-Determinists, it goes without saying that we’re completely opposed to all forms of imperialism. Thus, we have no interest in running around on the coat-tails of the US war machine. Indeed, we believe that many of the world’s problems can be traced to the globalist adventures of the self-appointed ‘world’s police force’ – the US – and its Deputy Dawg – the UK. Instead, we will adopt a position of armed neutrality.

As always, the NLP wishes to encourage debate and feedback – good, bad or indifferent. To let us know what you think of our ideas relating to Political Self-Determination, simply go to our Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/ and look out for this article – simply post your views in the comments section.

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Foreign Policy

Self-Determination

• We support self-determination for all nations and cultures across the world.

We consider it our duty to support oppressed minorities throughout the world. This would be done via economic, cultural and political means.

Economic Sanctions

• We will apply sanctions against those states that routinely oppress dissent, especially of self-determinists.

Sanctions may range in scale from travel restrictions being placed on senior politicians of oppressive regimes to a total trade block.

European Union

• We will renegotiate a meaningful reform of our membershipin the EU, and thereafter conduct a referendum on membership. While we remain in the EU, we will fight for UK interests within the EU parliament.

We oppose the way the EU seems to be heading – effectively a strong centralised state controlling all of human behaviour, social, political, economic. We prefer a ‘looser’ arrangement whereby nation states can ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ of various Europe-wide schemes.

Military Stance

• We will adopt a position of armed neutrality, and resist becoming embroiled in external wars.

We have already wasted too many lives fighting in wars that are not our concern. Our armed forces should be protecting our country’s borders, not crossing over into another’s.

Nuclear Deterrent

• We will conduct a referendum on whether to renew or replaceTrident, our nuclear deterrent.

We recognise that Trident relies on the tacit agreement of the USA for it to function.

There is considerable disagreement over what form our nuclear deterrent, if any, should take. We would put this forward for a national debate and referendum.

Overseas Aid

• We will re-focus overseas aid to developing small businessesand co-ops to reduce welfare dependency and poverty and demand government reforms.

Allegations that some foreign aid doesn’t reach its intended targets concerns us. We favour working directly with those aid workers ‘on the ground’ so that money could be spent where it is needed most.