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North Africa and the Middle East

The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating speech. Frankly, the comparisons with 1989 are wrong, because this is more like the crushing of what happened in Hungary or Prague than a gentle transition to democracy. We should never forget that Mrs Thatcher did not support German unification at that time. In 1980, when Solidarnosc was suppressed, many countries were quite happy to see stability restored and caution was the watchword of the day. On the hon. Gentleman's narrow point about how we treat Tunisia, when I was Europe Minister I tried to get Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria switched to the European department of the Foreign Office, but the Africanists put their little feet down and said, ““No, they belong permanently to Africa.”” Will he talk to his colleagues at the Foreign Office and get those countries treated as part of the broader south Mediterranean and European hinterland rather than African ex-colonies?