The Gulf

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 5:38 pm on 6 September 1990.

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Photo of Mr Tony Benn Mr Tony Benn , Chesterfield 5:38, 6 September 1990

Many hon. Members have said that this is the gravest crisis that we have faced since 1945, and I share that view. In the light of that, can anyone doubt that it was right to recall the House of Commons so that we could debate the matter outside the television and radio studios and without relying upon the mass media? There has also been a demand—quite properly in a crisis—for a degree of unity, and that unity has been present in a number of important respects. No hon. Member supports the act of aggression by Saddam Hussein against Kuwait. So far as I know, no hon. Member is other than strongly supportive of the sanctions taken by the United Nations against Saddam Hussein and the resolution for their enforcement. We also have something else in common—none of us will be killed if a war breaks out.

But as Members of Parliament, we have responsibilities which cannot simply be subordinated to the role of the Government. This is not the place to deal with it, but under our constitution, military deployments, acts of war and treaties of peace come under the Crown prerogative. Parliament has no legal or constitutional right whatever to decide the matters that are before us for debate.

But we have a duty to represent people. We have a duty to represent—as far as I can make out, some Conservative Members have done it with tremendous energy—British citizens in Iraq and Kuwait. We have a responsibility for them and their families. That has hardly been mentioned except as an instrument for denouncing, quite properly, the man who is detaining them. We have service men and women in the middle east, and perhaps more are to go there if the stories in today's papers are right. They and their families are entitled to have Members of Parliament to represent them. There are the refugees, thousands of them without water and food, and as human beings we have a responsibility to them. I might add that the tragic pictures that we have seen of people in the desert without proper food or shelter would be as nothing to what would happen if war broke out.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, because we discussed it yesterday, I intend to oppose the motion tomorrow that the House should now adjourn. The motion to adjourn the House is usually a formal one. The House adjourns at night and meets again at 2.30 pm. But this is the one rare occasion when whether we should adjourn for another six weeks while events take their course is the real question.

If anyone says to me, as some have said in the face of the crisis, that we should send a united message to Saddam Hussein, I remind the House that on 5 May 1940, when Hitler was at the gates, there was an Adjournment debate on the handling by the Government of the Campaign in Norway, and a vote. The then Prime Minister won the vote and resigned, and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. So let us not be told that the duty of the House of Commons is to unite behind whatever the Government of the day does, because that is not what the House is there to do. We are here to represent people and to contribute our own opinions as best we can. I have no complaint of any speech made today about how we feel that the crisis should be handled.

I will use plain language. I fear that the United States has already decided that, when it is ready, it will create a pretext for a war. That is what I believe. I acquit the Foreign Secretary of being in that hawkish clan because, in so far as one can penetrate the inscrutable corridors of power and the minds of their inhabitants, he seems to be a bit of a dove. But let me say this, too, without offence. Britain is a minor player in this game. We have had a debate today as though everything hinged on whether the Prime Minister decided to go to war. The Prime Minister, too, is a minor player in this unfolding tragedy. She decided to go in with President Bush, perhaps because of the transatlantic relationship, the so-called "special relationship", or as thanks for the Falklands, or because she did not want to get mixed up with the EEC.

But she is a minor player and once she and the Cabinet decided to commit even a notional number of forces—including the RAF and the RAF regiment and now the troops—she was locked into what President Bush intended to do. It is important that we should not discuss, as if we were in a position to decide the post-cold-war order, what the Prime Minister will be doing here and there. We are a minor partner in an American strategy.

It must be known by now that I am opposed to a war against Iraq. I am opposed to action outside the United Nations. I believe that it would divide the Security Council. It might not exactly unite the Arab world, but it might bring many Arab countries together against us. The outcome of such a war could not be sure, because President Saddam Hussein would certainly have the capacity, were he to choose to do it, to destroy so many oil installations that, even though he himself might be destroyed, it would inflict a burden on the world economy and the middle east which could not be contemplated.