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Debate on the Address

My Lords, it is good to follow the thoughtful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, much of which I agreed with. I suspect that I agree with rather more of it—in particular his critical view of the United States—than one or two people on the Conservative Benches. I think I also heard him criticise the Government for not providing a sufficiently positive European leadership. It is good to hear a Conservative make that criticism of the Government. Furthermore, I agree strongly with what he said about the links between foreign policy and national identity. I recall Gordon Brown saying, in a thoughtful speech about Britishness the summer before last, that we cannot resolve the long agonies of Britain’s relations with continental Europe until we define more clearly what we understand by British identity. As I have pointed out before, that has to be resolved in a debate across the parties. The Conservatives have a slightly different view of Britishness than the Liberals or the Labour Party; we need to have a broader discussion, one for which this House is entirely appropriate, about how to improve the consensus on our diverse society’s nationhood. That has to involve the teaching of history and citizenship in schools, and clearly it relates to foreign policy. Like the noble Lord, Lord Howell, I shall not cover the full remit of foreign policy, defence and international development. I am happy to leave a number of defence issues to my noble friendLord Garden in his closing speech and those on development to my noble friend Lady Northover. I used to think that the nightmare for me as a Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman would be to turn around at the beginning of a debate and see behind me my noble friends Lady Williams and Lord Ashdown sitting together and to wonder what on earth they would say, because they will say something far more intelligent than I. I look forward to their contributions. I want to focus on one of the closing phrases of the Queen’s Speech: "““My Government will work to foster a strong partnership between Europe and the United States of America””." I note that the phrase does not refer to two partnerships, one between Britain and the United States and the other between Britain and continental Europe, but one partnership between a coherent Europe and the United States. It has been a core principle of my party’s approach to foreign policy since the 1960s that British interests were best served by such a balanced transatlantic partnership, in which Britain worked closely with its European partners and, with them, built a more equal partnership with the United States. We have held to that view as first Labour and then the Conservatives have gone through violently anti-European phases. We have held to that view as the present Government have tied themselves so closely to the Bush Administration that they have virtually handed over major decisions on British foreign and defence policy in the Middle East to the United States. If the Queen’s Speech commitment really means what it says, we welcome it wholeheartedly, but we remain to be convinced. British foreign policy since the Second World War has attempted to strike a balance between close relations with our neighbours—France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the other continental states of western Europe—and the transatlantic relationship with the economic and military superpower, the United States. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, remarked, Tony Blair has been fond of referring to Britain as the transatlantic bridge, the link between continental Europe and the United States and thus a country which wields greater influence in world politics because not only does it help to shape European policy, but also on its own has a reputation and voice in Washington. Year after year in the Mansion House speech he has used the same analogy, until this year. Perhaps he has at last understood that Britain cannot on its own claim a special privilege in interpreting, for example, between the German Government and the US Administration, or between the Spanish and the US Administration, or the Dutch, the Italian or the French; they, too, have their special relationships with Washington. But we have most influence in Washington together, when we manage to speak as a group. Britain on its own, loyally following the twists and turns of American policy, has little influence, as the Prime Minister has sadly and bitterly discovered. Fifty years ago, in pursuing the Suez intervention together with France, without securing American support or informing his own Cabinet or Parliament of the full reasons for the intervention, the British Prime Minister first alienated our American ally, then abandoned his French partners and finally had to resign. Three years ago, our current Prime Minister fell off the transatlantic bridge in the opposite direction. It is now clear that he committed Britain to war in Iraq in closer consultation with the White House than with many members of his own Cabinet. My party opposed the moves towards war in Iraq then. We were not convinced by the flimsy evidence offered in successive dossiers. We knew how strongly lobbyists and ideologues in Washington were pressing for regime change. We saw how expert advice on Middle-Eastern politics had been pushed aside in the neo-conservative drive to impose democracy on the region. Yet the British Prime Minister committed himself to follow the Bush Administration. From that commitment has followed a series of setbacks which still shape British foreign and defence policy. The United States, and Britain as its ally, neglected the reconstruction of Afghanistan once the Taliban had been overthrown. Four years later, our troops are struggling with a task that would have been far easier to carry out with local support in 2002-03 had we not followed the Bush Administration instead into Iraq. We went into Iraq alongside the Americans, although without any influence on American strategy or tactics. British representatives were then deliberately excluded from influence over the conduct of the post-war occupation. I regret that we are not able yet to read Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s account of how we attempted, but failed, to gain a voice over the Pentagon nominees who imposed their simple assumptions on the complexities of post-conflict Iraq. British troops, again, are now struggling to cope with the consequences of mistakes made by officials of another Government three and a half years ago. We are now waiting for the Iraq study group in Washington to tell us what American policy—and, therefore, British policy—will be. It was kind of it, at least, to hear evidence from our Prime Minister by video. I hope it will give British views a mention, at least, in its proposals. To his credit, the Prime Minister attempted to extract from the Bush Administration a commitment to return to the Middle East peace process and, in particular, to revive the quartet in pursuit of a two-state solution. Like many other British friends of Israel, I am convinced that the only secure basis for long-term security for that country is through a negotiated peace settlement for a viable Palestinian state. The ambiguity of Israeli policy towards settlements in the Jordan valley, the incursions which the wall, or the fence, is making into Palestinian land, the continuing destruction by Israeli troops of houses, orange and olive groves can only fuel further resistance from an embittered and impoverished Palestinian population. My noble friend Lady Williams will be arguing later in the debate that we need a more active European approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than waiting for the United States to move. Sadly, the American domestic debate on Israel and Palestine is twisted as much by fundamentalist Christians as by an unrepresentative but superbly organised Jewish lobby. These fundamentalists support Israeli annexation of the whole of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, implicitly involving the ethnic cleansing of much of the Palestinian population. We recognise, uncomfortably, that any substantial progress towards peace will call for a large number of peace-keeping forces from dependable states to provide reassurance to both sides as they disengage from conflict. The US Administration brought strong pressure on European Governments to provide troops for the expanded UN force in southern Lebanon. I regret that British forces were already far too overstretched to provide significant numbers for this force, but welcome the response from other European Governments. This is, after all, our neighbourhood. Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict iscentral to our future relations with the Arab and Muslim world. The state of denial by the Bush Administration that their policy and rhetoric have fuelled antagonism to the West and offered a cause for radical clerics to foment and for alienated but misguided young men to follow is a threat to British and European security. That is why our party has welcomed and supported the initiatives the Government have taken towards Iran and Syria. Neither regime is easy to deal with; neither is in any way friendly to European, or western, interests. But ““jaw-jaw is better than war-war””, as Winston Churchill famously said. It serves no useful purpose for the Bush Administration to label them as evil and to refuse to engage. We have to find a way, if we can, to persuade the Iranian regime that the outside world is not unremittingly hostile. We need Iranian co-operation, after all, in Afghanistan and in Iraq if we are to succeed in stabilising either of those countries. The Prime Minister said in his Mansion House speech that there was no halfway house in choosing to be an ally of America; either you are an ally or you are not. But as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, strongly remarked, a good ally is at times a critical ally. I regret that Tony Blair did not use the reputation he acquired within the United States to explain in public where British—and European—interests and values differ from those of the United States, at least as defined by the current Republican Administration. That applies not only on policy towards the Middle East but on climate change, where concerted European efforts are needed to persuade Washington and the US public. I agree with the Government’s chief scientist that climate change is in many ways a greater long-term threat to global order than terrorism; I only wish I had heard our Prime Minister say this clearly to American audiences. I welcome the signs that American opinion is moving in the right direction, with California and other states beginning to take action on their own. Here British interests are identical to those of other European states; we need more Europe if we are to have more effective action to limit global warning. We need more Europe, too, if we are to manage relations with Russia. President Putin’s regime is suffering all the status anxieties of lost empire, compounded by an apparent willingness to use gas supplies as a political weapon. But more than half of Russia’s overseas trade is now with the European Union; the Russians need us as much as we need them, if not more. Here, as in other areas of European co-operation, we have suffered from President Chirac’s idiosyncratic views of international politics in his efforts to undermine European and western solidarity. Thankfully, he is reaching the end of his long period of office, and the British Government should be actively pursuing a more coherent European strategy. We need more European co-operation, too, in political relations with the rising Asian powers, China and India. When I was in Beijing last week, I was impressed by the degree of interest that Communist Party officials showed in the potential differences between a Blair Government foreign policy and a Brown Government foreign policy. However, in most of the discussions I held there, it was difficult to discover any substantial differences in political and security interests among the European Governments represented there, whatever the economic competition between them. The Chinese Government are interested in strong relations with Europe as a whole, rather than with individual European states. I hope that the Government will now follow through on the commitment in the Queen’s Speechto ground British policy in a partnership between Europe and America rather than to pursue the illusion of a special relationship with the United States Administration somewhere on a bridge between the United States and Europe. I hope, too, that the Government will start to tell Parliament and the British public about the benefits of European integration and about Britain's contribution to it. I am constantly surprised to be told by officials in other Governments, for example, about the positive contributions that Britain is making towards the development of European security and defence policy when we hear so little about it at Westminster. It is almost as if the Government are ashamed of what they are doing, or perhaps they have agreed with Rupert Murdoch, as the conspiracy theorists suggest, to downplay our European commitment to avoid upsetting this American-owned newspaper conglomerate. I welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, on the transformation of NATO and the creation of a more effective relationship between the European Union and NATO. We all agree on the goal of transforming European forces into a format that is capable of deploying at long range and sustaining operations for extended periods, but I have some reservations about those in Washington who want to transform NATO into a kind of global, white man’s alliance, with Australia and Japan as closer associates. I have some reservations, too, about the pace of further NATO enlargement. Russian anxieties stem from the fact that early membership for Ukraine and Georgia, together with American bases in central Asia and the Middle East, look like hostile encirclement. It is not entirely irrational, therefore, for the Russians to feel hostile towards them. I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, what position Her Majesty's Government will take on these issues at the forthcoming Riga summit. We on these Benches believe in a strong partnership with the United States, but we believe, as the Queen's Speech states, that it should be a partnership of equals between Europe and the United States, not of leadership and followers. We look forward hopefully to the change of course in government policy that, this suggests, may now develop.