South Africa (Sale of Arms)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 22 July 1970.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mrs Judith Hart Mrs Judith Hart , Lanark 12:00, 22 July 1970

It is my very pleasant task to say to our two maiden speakers—my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) and the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Haselhurst)—one on each side of the House, how very much we have enjoyed their contributions. The House will agree that they suffer a slight disadvantage in following two predecessors for whom the House has the very greatest respect—George Willis from Edinburgh, East, who had been with us for a very long time, and Denis Coe from Middleton and Prestwich, whom we had known less long but whom the whole House had grown to respect. Both maiden speakers, therefore, have a difficult task in following their predecessors. Having heard both of them today and the confident and intelligent contributions they have made to the debate—one of them conventional in observing all the procedures of the House and the other splendidly unconventional, but both of which the House enormously enjoyed—we shall look forward very much to hearing them again.

As I listened to the speech of the Foreign Secretary, I felt that I had never heard him so uneasy in a speech in this House. I thought that that was, perhaps, a good sign. When towards the end of his speech he went on to refer to the decision which has to be made at the end of the day, I felt that this was, perhaps, one of those infrequent debates in the House which may have a possibility of influencing events. The Government cannot be unimpressed by the difficulties which they are meeting in their efforts to pursue a policy which was, perhaps, arrived at somewhat rashly without the full knowledge of what the repercussions of that policy would be if it were carried into action. Certainly, I felt that the Foreign Secretary was uneasy and that there was a possibility that in the meetings of Cabinet committees which will take place before eventually a decision is made, wisdom may prevail. It is on that assumption that I want to make my remarks this afternoon.

The whole House would be right to regard it as essential, as does the Opposition's Motion, that the correct definition of what is in the interests of Britain should take priority in our decisions on this matter. What matters, however, is how we define the interests of Britain in the situation in which we find ourselves at the centre of one of the gravest issues that the world has faced.

If we seek to do that and to look at the position in terms of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, black Africa, trade and our responsibility to our own people in Britain, I believe that the only answer can be that the Government, and the Foreign Secretary in particular, are misinterpreting and wrongly defining what are the interests of Britain in this situation.

Can it be at any point in the interests of Britain to flout a resolution of the Security Council, or more than one resolution, as would probably be the case, or even, as the Foreign Secretary indicated, go to the length of either abstaining or using the veto against a new resolution of the Security Council seeking to strengthen the existing arms embargo? Can it be in our interest to take that kind of action at the United Nations in the full knowledge that, in doing so, we would be standing together with, perhaps, Portugal and South Africa? What a familiar ring that has to it.

I remember throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s, when the party opposite were in power, time and time again one was ashamed of hearing reports from the United Nations that on a given resolution there were two or three abstentions—Britain, South Africa and Portugal. Are we moving back into a period when Britain is to be shamefully isolated with the most reactionary nations of the world on issues of this kind?

The Security Council resolution is supported and on all these issues of race the present policy of the United Nations is supported by our European friends, by the Soviet Union, the United States of America and the whole black third world. Therefore, in seeking on a matter of this kind and of this degree of moral importance to oppose the whole of the rest of the world and then to say that this is in the interests of Britain is nonsense. It cannot be in the interests of Britain. Nor can it be in the interests of Britain to put at risk, as the Foreign Secretary is apparenty prepared to do, continued co-operation within the Commonwealth.

The Government must not think solely in terms of whether Tanzania will leave the Commonwealth or whether Zambia or Uganda and Kenya will leave the Commonwealth. They must think in terms of the possibility that it may be mooted among many of the countries of the Commonwealth that it is Britain's membership of the Commonwealth which should be suspended if we take this attitude. Tragic as that would be, I am not at all sure whether I would not prefer that the Commonwealth remained an integrated whole with the temporary absence of a Britain which had taken leave of its senses, than that we should risk the total disintegration of the Commonwealth.

Hon. Members opposite had better take seriously the consequences of their intention, because as my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) said, we know what the reactions of many of the Commonwealth countries have been. One could add other countries. From what we hear, Malaysia seems to have grave doubts. New Zealand has said that she would in no circumstances propose to supply arms to South Africa. We can be quite certain of the strength of the line that Canada will have taken So I think on this question of the Commonwealth that either the Government take the Commonwealth seriously or they do not, and to judge by the Foreign Secretary's speech this afternoon, they do not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East very rightly said, the right hon. Gentleman spent two or three minutes delivering a lecture to the Commonwealth nations on how they had better think twice before they seek to set their will against that of Britain.

I believe that here again the right hon. Gentleman and the Government are at risk of totally misunderstanding what the Commonwealth is all about, and perhaps this is at the heart of the Foreign Secretary's own dilemma, because I do not think he does understand this point; the Foreign Secretary does not appreciate that the concept of non-racialism is the very heart of the meaning of commonwealth and that, without that, the Commonwealth is as nothing. If we have the one who, until now, has been the leading partner in the Commonwealth—although we are now one of many equal nations in it—if we have Britain for one moment allying itself so clearly, as the black Commonwealth would think, with a racialist, apartheid, fascist—and I shall come to that point in a moment—South Africa, against all the meaning, as they believe, of what the Commonwealth stands for, then possibly irrecoverable harm will be done to the whole concept of Commonwealth. I hope that this will be thoroughly understood, and that the realisation of this, which is dawning, which must be dawning, steadily upon the minds of the members of the Government as they receive the replies to their letter on consultation, may indeed have some effect on them and may affect the course of their decision.

It is right that we should look to the future and to where we believe our British interests lie in relation to South Africa, to black Africa, and to the struggle between racialism and non-racialism, because I believe that we may now have reached the point—of course, hon. Gentlemen opposite can jeer about the fact that we still trade with South Africa; of course they can—at which we have to make new decisions, to re-examine exactly what our own relationship with South Africa should be in this situation which now dominates the whole of Africa, because otherwise I fear that what we shall be doing will be creating for ourselves and our own future a Vietnam in Africa. Therefore I think we must look very closely at whether we believe that we can co-operate further with, and offer further help, further manifestations of sympathy and identification to, a country which persecutes, which is oppressive, which is racialist, which does torture, which does imprison without trial, which is, in fact, the most vivid embodiment of fascism that we know in the world today.

The Foreign Secretary can talk about his hope that by contact, by the opening up of South Africa, we may change the minds of white South Africans, but what we see happening much more is decent South Africans escaping to Britain and a greater closing of minds. It may well be that, with all this, we have to face the fact that it is not appropriate any longer for a Britain which believes in the principle of non-racialism to be the country which, above all others, is offering succour and support to South Africa.

I will give the House one other reason why it is not in the interests of Britain to resume arms sales and to offer the kind of moral support which that involves. The House will remember that I was one of those in the Government who was concerned with the policy of sanctions against Rhodesia, the policy of sanctions which was supported by hon. Gentlemen opposite—