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Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that people who adopt the attitude that Israel has as much right to exist as any other country will be encouraged in the main by his remarks? The best service that the pro-Israelis can do now is to speak up, as my right hon. Friend is doing, for common sense and against the extremists in Israel--who, I hope, do not represent the views of the vast majority of Israeli people. At the end of the day, there must be a Palestinian state as well as Israel.
Mr. Cook: I believe that it is entirely possible for us to speak as friends both of Israel and of the Palestinian people.
We have a direct interest in the settlement of that issue. While I was in Israel, I happened to bump into Lord Archer, who I understand was scouring the country for votes for the Conservative party--an entirely legitimate activity. I spent one evening addressing a meeting of people who were minded to vote for the Labour party in this country. We handed out 350 forms, of which more than 300 have been completed and returned by people anxious to vote for a Labour Government in Britain. That is a demonstration of the historic, cultural and community ties between our nations. If those ties give us the right to canvass votes, they also confer on us the responsibility to
give friendly support in getting the peace process back on the road with--yes--the objective of peace with security for Israel, but with the recognition that that can be secured only on the basis of peace with justice for the Palestinians.
Before I turn to matters that divide the House, I shall respond to the Foreign Secretary's observations on Bosnia. We are one year on from Dayton. The House can take satisfaction at the implementation of the military side of the peace agreement. I salute the dedication, patience and professionalism of British troops participating in the implementation force and their role in achieving its objectives.
One year on from Dayton is a fair period to suggest that an explanation is owed by the commentators and politicians who claimed that a more robust approach to ending the war in Bosnia was impossible because the casualties would be too high and too many troops would be required. Since the NATO intervention that made possible the Dayton agreement, there have been fewer casualties among the international forces than in the preceding years, when they acted only as peacekeepers.
The implementation force has one major remaining task, which must be carried out if civilian and political reconstruction is to succeed. The war criminals still at large must be brought to book. It is difficult to comprehend why it is thought so impossible to achieve that objective. IFOR states that if it comes across Mr. Karadzic, he will be arrested. Pale is not such a big town--it is smaller than most traditional market towns in Britain. It is difficult to believe that it was not possible at some time during the past year to bump into Mr. Karadzic.
There is the real danger, as Carl Bildt pointed out that month, that the policy of arresting Mr. Karadzic if he is found is becoming a non-policy. The risk for Bosnia is that there can be no reconciliation in that country unless it is true that there is no immunity for war crimes. That principle extends wider than Bosnia. If the persons who committed atrocities in Bosnia are allowed to get away with them, the next time there is a similar civil conflict, that message will be absorbed by the individuals who give the orders in that conflict.
I think that I have managed to carry most hon. Members with me so far, and it is plainly time to inject a note of normal debate. I began by stressing the continuity of domestic concerns and global issues. In the modern world, nations are more interdependent than independent, and co-operation and partnership are not just desirable but essential to the quality of life of our people.
A central feature of foreign affairs debates in the House has been the increasingly strident demand on the Government to be as rude as possible to our immediate European neighbours. That is un unpromising platform from which to begin to achieve contact with the rest of the globe. The past year has seen the expression of the view that Britain should withdraw from Europe move from the fringes of the Conservative party to its main stream. In the past six months, the former Chancellor, the former Chief Secretary and even the present Chief Secretary have all, in various ways, suggested that withdrawal from the European Union might be practical. Not one of them was rebuked within 24 hours by the Minister of State, the Foreign Office's baronet in residence, appearing on "The World at One" telling them that they were out of line. I have to say that I would have
more sympathy if he were to do that to his colleagues who urge upon the Government a course of action which would plainly be disastrous for Britain's foreign relations.
I must say to Conservative Members who have in the past year expressed views about detaching Britain from Europe that they are in danger of believing their own speeches and falling for the myths that they peddle. Hon. Members may shake their heads, but three years ago I was one of the shadows of the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), who has been much in the news lately. It was a humble if not humbling role.
I remember the hon. Gentleman addressing the Conservative party conference. He told that conference that the caramel directive of the European Union took 12,000 words whereas it took only 200 words to put together the Lord's prayer. I was impressed by the comparison and telephoned the European Union movement to ask if it could help me trace the caramel directive. A weary spokesman told me that there was no caramel directive and that that line had begun as an after-dinner joke by Sir John Banham some two years previously in Brussels. I telephoned the Minister's office and asked whether they were aware that the caramel directive did not exist. I received a weary reply from a spokesman in the Minister's office, who said that they were aware that the Minister was wrong about the caramel directive but that he was right about the length of Lord's prayer. I fear that that quality of research lies behind some of the knee-jerk anti-Europeanism to which we have been subjected during the past three years.
I know that the Foreign Secretary does not share those views, although he sometimes finds it convenient not to admit to that. There is a curious omission in his section of the Gracious Speech. The really big thing that is due to happen in Foreign Affairs in the next 12 months is that on 1 July next year Britain will enter the troika of the European Union and on 1 January 1998 it will become the President of the European Union. That is not referred to anywhere in the Gracious Speech, but it is likely to be the issue that will most preoccupy the Foreign Office--[Interruption.] None of the issues in the foreign affairs section of the Gracious Speech requires legislation.
I understand why the presidency of the EU is not mentioned. If we want to accept that role, we have to accept the role of leadership at the top of the table, not heckling from the bottom. We have to accept the objective of seeking out the point of consensus in the European Union, not constantly priding ourselves on being the odd one out. Finding themselves with that opportunity and the challenge of being President of the European Union would be as big an embarrassment to the Government as to the rest of Europe.
I read repeatedly in the newspapers that, from now until the general election, the role of Europe in the Conservative election strategy will be to provide an opportunity to demonstrate strength through confrontation. We have been here before. Earlier this year, the Government displayed confrontation with Europe on heroic technicolor panavision scale in the war over British beef, which the Foreign Secretary very diplomatically and delicately did not mention once in his review of world affairs. We demonstrated our strength by a policy of serial vetoing, which, I understand, the Foreign Secretary thought up, called the policy of non-co-operation in Europe or--as I have discovered it was known to his officials--PONCE.
It may now be an appropriate time to ask, what good did PONCE do? It did not do the Conservative party much good; successive opinion polls established that the public were less, not more, likely to vote Conservative as a result of PONCE. The reason is simple. The public knew that the BSE crisis was made in Britain by a Government who had failed to provide the regulations that would keep BSE out of foodstuffs.
Dr. David Clark (South Shields):
Indeed weakened the proposed regulations.
Mr. Cook:
As my hon. Friend corrects me, the Government weakened those regulations. After BSE appeared, they denied that there was a significant risk of its transmission to humans--a denial that looks doubly irresponsible in the face of today's heavy scientific evidence, which shows that that was a virtually certain transmission. The public knew that the stage-managed war with Brussels was another case of BSE--blame someone else.
The beef war not only did no good to the Conservative party, it did no good to farmers, as they loudly reminded us yesterday.
The beef war ended in the Florence agreement, hailed by the Foreign Secretary as a turning point. I understand why mention of the Florence agreement buries him in his briefing papers. I shall quote to the House what the Prime Minister said when he reported on the Florence agreement:
The House must ask some questions. What is the Government strategy for getting the export ban lifted? What will we now do to ensure that the continentals honour the Florence agreement, now that we have not honoured our side of the bargain? If we have written off the Florence agreement, what will we do instead? Most of all, surely we are now entitled to ask: what was the beef war fought for? Why did we take on the whole of Europe to achieve nothing?
I am bound to say that all previous Governments had the wisdom not to wage war with France and Germany at the same time. All previous Governments, even Conservative ones, ensured that, in any previous war, one or other was on our side. They sought to turn the balance of power on the continent to British advantage. Only the Government have fashioned a foreign policy that takes on the whole of Europe at the same time.
That approach has met with incomprehension in the rest of Europe. It was well expressed by the Foreign Secretary's immediate predecessor, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), who has retired to the Back
Benches but continues to take an interest in such affairs. At the time of the beef war, he wrote:
I should like to share with the Foreign Secretary my total agreement with the priorities he attributed to Labour's policy towards Europe. Yes, we will sign up to the social chapter. Is he aware that three dozen of the biggest and most efficient British companies have already signed up to the social chapter by implementing works council agreements? In doing so, they have said that having an agreement with their work force on the future strategy of their company is an aid, not a barrier, to competitiveness.
Yes, Labour has allies in Europe in the party of European Socialists--three of whom were kind enough to send messages of good will to our party conference. We offer Britain a Government who will have the respect, not the contempt, of the Governments of the other member states of Europe.
Yes, jobs will be at the top of our agenda and our bottom line--the alpha to omega of our European policy. I should mention one of the other spheres in which the Government are becoming isolated. I understand that the Government intend to persist in blocking an employment chapter in the treaty of union when they go to the Dublin summit and intergovernmental conference.
What possible national interest does Britain have in blocking the promotion of employment becoming an objective of the European Union? The Maastricht treaty, after all, sets out precise, tight objectives on Government spending, public debt and inflation. The Government did not object to those objectives being written into the treaty of European Union. A fortnight ago, I saw the Prime Minister on television taking credit for drafting those objectives. I suspect that the rest of Europe are now willing to let him have that credit, given that the period in which they have been aspiring to those objectives has coincided with lower growth and higher unemployment in their economies. That is why, across Europe, there is now growing support to balance those financial objectives with a commitment to employment.
In their time in office, the Government have promoted a dramatic shift in the nature of work. When they came to power, 60 per cent. of the work force were in full-time permanent jobs. This year, 60 per cent. of the work force are in temporary, short-term or casual forms of employment. Job insecurity is the barrier to the feel-good factor for which the Government are searching.
Against that background, I should tell Ministers that we will be delighted to take them on in a general election which they fight on the basis of their commitment to stop the European Union promoting stable employment. The fact that they will go to Dublin to fulfil that commitment demonstrates exactly how out of touch they are with the
public's real worries. The people want a Government who do not delight in posturing over the fact that they refuse to agree with the rest of Europe. The public want a Government who can do business with Europe and get deals done in Europe.
The public do not want a Government who regard with fear the other member states as threats, but a Government who recognise those states as neighbours with whom we share common problems and must share common solutions. They want a Government who do not constantly block any measure to improve social conditions, and are determined to provide the people of Britain with the same rights at work as the rest of Europe--not with the worst rights in Europe.
The public want a Government who believe sovereignty rests with the people. They want a Government who understand that the real threat to the freedoms, rights and liberties of the British people is not from Brussels but from the ever increasing power that the Government are centralising in Whitehall. The people want a Government who will practise real subsidiarity, devolving power back to the regions and local communities of Britain. A Labour Government offer that.
"We aim to be in a position to tell the Commission by October that we have met the necessary conditions for decisions to lift the ban on two of the five stages--that is, certified herds and animals born after a specified date".--[Official Report, 24 June 1996; Vol. 280, c. 21.]
By October. I think I will carry the House with me on a bipartisan approach to the fact that this is the month of October, that there are seven days left and that not one hon. Member believes that, by next Thursday, those two of the five stages of the ban will have been lifted. The main reason why they will not be lifted is that the Government, having hailed the Florence agreement as a triumph, chose not to implement their side of the bargain.
"In the past few weeks, I have listened to Danish, Irish, French and Dutch friends of Britain. They do not see anything heroic about our present debate. They look on us rather as an elderly and respected relative suffering from a spasm in the corner of the room. They cannot do much to help us; they hope that the fit will pass before we do ourselves too much harm."
The clear lesson of the past three or four years is that the repeated confrontation with Europe--the fits and spasms referred to by the Foreign Secretary's predecessor--will pass only when the Government pass.
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