---

Adjournment (Summer Recess)

Tempted though I am to try to counter the arguments of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) about nuclear energy, I want to consider another matter. Last Friday, The Independent printed one of its iconic front pages. On the left were the flags of 189 countries that supported the United Nations call for a ceasefire in the middle east and on the right was a large white space with only three dots of colour—Israel, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. That is not where I want my country to be—isolated, tied to a US Administration run by neocons and headed by a religious zealot. I have no quarrel with the American or Israeli people but I do not share their leaders’ views of the world and I know that my constituents do not, as they frequently tell me. We must have a good working relationship with the US, as other European countries do. However, it is time to acknowledge the contradictions between fulfilling our wider international goals and responsibilities and trying to stay on side with George Bush. In so many ways, the Government have been a beacon of progressive thinking. We have a proud record in peacekeeping and democracy-building. We have been generous in response to disasters. We have worked hard to make the World Bank more accountable and we have done much to bring about reform of the United Nations. We have led the world on climate change, debt relief and poverty alleviation. We even pushed the EU into adopting better terms for the development round of the World Trade Organisation talks. All those and more are great British initiatives—British policies of which we are justly proud. However, are they reflected in the special relationship? They are not. The Kyoto treaty was concluded on terms that were believed to suit the Americans but they steadfastly refused to adopt it. They have consistently undermined the UN and this week, they collapsed the WTO talks. We have failed to make the special relationship work for us. It might not matter so much if we had not paid such a high price in supporting the United States military action in Iraq. In doing that, we began the separation from the world community that has become so stark in recent days. Let me be clear. I am no pacifist and I had no problems with military action in Afghanistan. Defeating the Taliban and rooting out al-Qaeda was in everyone’s interest. If it were not for the folly of Iraq, I believe that we would have made greater progress in that tragic country. Instead we have exacerbated the conditions in which terrorism flourishes. We all know that it is impossible to end terrorism in the middle east if there is no justice for the Palestinians. Only the US has the power to bring about that solution. Perhaps if we had joined the rest of the world last week in condemning Israel’s disproportionate use of force, an isolated US might have taken action sooner. It now lies in ruins, and support for Hezbollah, which is responsible for recklessly starting this conflict, has probably increased. This ought to give us cause to reflect on our role in the world, and particularly on our contribution to fighting terrorism and its causes. In a single decade, our world has changed so rapidly and violently that we need a completely new approach. As I said at the beginning of my speech, our Government have led so much of the progressive agenda. So often, however, we adopt contradictory positions. The recently announced proposal to replace Trident represents just such a contradiction. The UK has worked really hard to keep the non-proliferation treaty alive and to find a diplomatic route to containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In Trident, we have maintained an awesome nuclear capability, but we have made it clear that, following the end of the cold war, the weapons are no longer targeted. The non-proliferation treaty was designed to outlaw nuclear weapons, not to endorse them. Without any progress on nuclear disarmament, there can be no intellectual or moral argument against the acquisition of nuclear weapons by any other state. Someone has to break this logjam, and Britain is well placed to do that by forgoing a replacement for Trident. The deterrence theory that underpins our continued possession of nuclear weapons has long been found wanting. Those weapons did not deter Argentina in the Falklands, or today’s terrorist attacks on Israel. Neither has their mutual possession deterred war between India and Pakistan. On the contrary, all talk in the US now is of bunker-busting nukes and weapons designed not to deter but to fight and wage war. How can we possibly justify spending £20 billion on a weapons system for which we cannot even define a use? Our global enemies are failed states, terrorism, climate change, and the poverty and religious divides that fuel conflict. Nuclear weapons can play no part in meeting such challenges. An Adjournment debate at the end of a difficult Session such as this is a good place to ask what kind of country we want to be. Robin Cook, writing in The Guardian in 2004, said that"““the political values and global priorities of the US and Europe are diverging rather than converging. Clinging to an outdated special relationship is to stay in denial of that uncomfortable truth.””" How we miss Robin Cook! In this country, we have an extraordinary wealth of talent, entrepreneurship, rights and freedoms. We have a great history, and the greatest riches in our arts and cultural life. We have the most diverse capital city in the world. This is why we won the Olympic bid. It is time to choose not to be a country defined by its special relationship and its nuclear weapons, but to be one whose international status rests on an intellectual and moral authority exercised within the rule of law.