Orders of the Day — Liberated Europe (British Intervention)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 December 1944.

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Photo of Mr Anthony Eden Mr Anthony Eden , Warwick and Leamington 12:00, 8 December 1944

I am not going to be led away by the hon. Gentleman. What are the charges? The first charge which the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) put forward is that, as victory is approaching, British policy is inclined to support worn-out regimes against more popular forces. My right hon. Friend dealt this morning at length, and, I think the House will agree, faithfully, with those charges so far as concerns Belgium and Italy. I do not propose to say anything more about either of those two countries, but simply to concentrate what I have to say on the situation in Greece. The hon. Gentleman concluded his appeal by asking the Government immediately to put an end to all this fratricidal strife. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I really hope to show how that was precisely our purpose at every stage in the policy we have pursued, not only in these last days in Athens, but for many, may I add, weary months of attempting to secure Greek unity before the Greek Government went back. I will tell the House how we tried to follow that through.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg), who, in a very remarkable speech, if I may say so, spoke of the honour it was for Britain to take part in the liberation of Greece. I think that is true; but I repeat that our purpose is to enable the Greek people to express their own will and their own decision. We must though insist that that expression must be through the ballot box, and not by the bomb. How have we tried to follow that course out? The first question I am asked—and it is a prefectly reasonable question—is, do the present Greek Government—or shall we say the Greek Government up to a week ago—represent the people of Greece? Have they a basis of popular support? How in the world can that be finally ascertained except by a method which is familiar to all of us—the ballot box—and how could that have been practicable in Greece in the last few years since the German occupation? The Government were perfectly conscious at one time that the Greek Government in Cairo was not wholly representative of the Greek people, and that is why we sought to bring out representatives of the various parties in order to make that Government representative. We brought out a number of persons from Greece, including, among others, the present Prime Minister of Greece—about whom a word hereafter—and, as a result of these representatives, including those of E.A.M. and the Communist Party, having been brought out, eventually a conference was held at the Lebanon among the Greeks themselves. They arrived at an agreement and a Government was set up.

Now, unfortunately—as in my experience sometimes happens and not only in Greek politics—though the leaders agreed on a policy in the Lebanon, when the E.A.M. representatives got back to Greece they had not a little difficulty with their own followers. That is not unique in political life, and I certainly do not want to embarrass anybody by stressing it unduly. Such may be the proper expression of the popular will. After that slight hiatus, the ranks were closed again and, eventually, a Greek Government was formed at the end of August, the Lebanon Conference having been in May. Last August, a Greek Government was formed composed of all parties, including E.A.M. That is the Government which we recognise and which all our Allies recognise, and which eventually went into Greece. I want to draw the attention of the House to this, because the hon. Member for Broxtowe said that this is not a representative Government, but that it is an uneasy alliance and so on. I want to give the words used on the 15th September before this Government went back to Greece, by Professor Svolos, leader of the E.A.M. party, who called on M. Papandreou and assured him, in the name of all the E.A.M. Ministers that, whatever readjustments might have to be made when they got back to Athens, it was their desire that a Coalition Government, on the lines of the existing Government, should continue in office under M. Papandreou's presidency until elections could be held.

I stress that because it was M. Papandreou's original intention, as I know, to resign as soon as he returned to Greece. As the result, however, of representations from the E.A.M. Ministers in the Government, he decided, and I think rightly decided, to continue in office when they returned to Greece. So much for the "uneasy alliance" of the hon. Member for Broxtowe. Nor do I think that his aspersions were in any way representative of the union which had been arrived at. What is the present Greek Government? It is well worth looking at. It is a Government consisting of 22 Members—quite a large Cabinet for a relatively small country. I will give the parties to which its members belong. There are the Social Democrats. The Prime Minister himself is a Social Democrat, and I am advised that that party is slightly to the Left of the official Labour Party in this country. I am very careful to say that I am so advised. I cannot guarantee it. There are four Liberals—and they are to the Right of the Social Democrats. There is a Democratic Union Party and a Party called E.K.K.A. I hope I shall not be asked to describe them, because I do not know a great deal about them. They have each one representative. Then there is the National Union Party and the Agrarian Party, and, finally, the Popular Party, which, I am told, is one which may be said to be somewhere between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in this country. That is the composition of this Government. There are 22 members of this Government, and this is the point I wish to emphasise. Of these 22, so far as I have been able to discover, every single one is a Republican.

Here, I want to kill the story that the present difficulties or troubles in Greece are something to do with the quarrel between Royalists and Republicans. That is really not so; it is a quite ludicrous over-simplification of the matter. When the seven E.A.M. Ministers walked out of this Cabinet, in circumstances which I shall shortly describe, they left behind the remainder, who are the Government to-day. They are Republicans and none of them is more dangerously reactionary than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith (Mr. Ernest Brown). I think that is a correct description of the Government, and I think the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Harold Nicolson) was justified in the admirable balance which he brought into these affairs. When the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) talks about a reactionary group, he is making a fantastic travesty of the facts. When he says this is a war between the people of Greece and a few Quislings, backed up by British bayonets. I cannot believe that he really thinks this is so. And, if he does, how does he explain that every known Greek party was in this Government, brought there from Greece at great trouble by us and at some risk to our people, to create a national front? What is the good of describing that Government, even after the E.A.M. Ministers walked out of it, as a reactionary group?