Foreign Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 July 1968.

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Photo of Mr Francis Noel-Baker Mr Francis Noel-Baker , Swindon 12:00, 18 July 1968

In complying with your request, Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that I shall be unable to follow the thoughtful and constructive speech of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker)—I would like to call him my hon. Friend— to which we all listened with appreciation. The only point on which I disagree with him is that I do not believe that to announce a delay in the date of withdrawal from the Persian Gulf would have the effect of accelerating agreement between the successor States there. I believe that the effect would be to the contrary.

I want to make a rather difficult and rather personal speech about a subject on which I feel very strongly—Greece. What I say is based on frequent visits, both before and since the revolution of April, 1967, and on conversations with a wide range of friends and acquaintances, including members of the present Government, opponents of it, foreign observers and, recently, businessmen who are working on or negotiating for large British export orders, as well, of course, as the country people on the Island of Euboea, on which I grew up as a child and where my family has lived since 1832.

I have always done my best as a Member of this House to keep out of Greek politics, although I and my family are almost as much Euboean, by adoption, as most of the Greek inhabitants of the island. I have done so because, in my opinion, there are limits to the extent to which any Member should concern himself with the internal politics of a friendly country and obviously my position is particularly delicate.

I have decided, after careful thought., that the situation in Greece has been so misrepresented, that the reports reaching the public are so distorted, that I have a duty to this House as well as to my Greek friends to speak my mind as frankly and as truthfully as I can, however unpopular my conclusions and opinions may be in some parts of the House and outside it.

It is generally known, I think, that for much of the time when the House is not sitting and when I do not have to be in my constituency, I live and work in Greece. Not all my time is; given to the charitable foundation which I set up in Euboea some years ago. I also try to keep my family in the home which we have over there, and so I should, I suppose, formally declare that interest.

I do not think that the House would expect me to trouble it with comments on some suggestions which I have seen about my motives concerning Greece. But I would like to say for the record to the ignorant, impertinent and anonymous gossip writer who had the effrontery to insult my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) in last Sunday's Sunday Times that his facts are as in-accurate as his comment is idiotic.

Some hon. Members may remember that I was somewhat similarly placed during the Cyprus emergency, in which I first became personally involved at the request of Sir Anthony Eden and with the approval of Mr. Attlee during the early Harding-Makarios negotiations. I should like to say, in passing, how delighted, I am sure, every hon. Member must now be that at long last, thanks to great statesmanship in Nicosia, Ankara and, not least, in Athens, it now looks as if Cyprus is, at last, entering a well-deserved era of prosperity and peace.

Some hon. Members may remember the violent reactions that were aroused by some of my speeches during the Cyprus emergency, certainly no less violent than those aroused by the controversy about Greece today. Looking back, however, I find that the arguments which I used then, the predictions which I ventured to make and the conclusions I reached are now all generally accepted. No one is astonished now that Lord Colyton's famous "Never" has become a joke, that Cyprus is free and independent and that Archbishop Makarios is a respected Commonwealth leader.

No hon. Member of this House, whatever his views about the strains and defects of our Parliamentary system, can welcome the overthrow of parliamentary democracy in another country, although we have seen it in all parts of the world and in one former British territory after another until, now, Parliamentary Governments are a minority even among the Governments on the Continent of Europe.

There is a background to the Greek revolution of April, 1967, which was the culmination of a long period of corruption, instability and a gradual breakdown of law and order. Behind all that loomed, and still looms, the deep fear and loathing of civil war. Many other hon. Members, like myself, visited Greece during the time of the civil war, which killed and wounded more Greeks and wrought more destruction on their country than the whole of the Second World War and the occupation by the Germans, the Italians and the Bulgarians put together.

If there was no public support whatever for the attempted counter-coup on 13th December last, when not a single civilian lifted a finger against the present Greek Government and waves of relief swept over the country as soon as the danger of bloodshed was averted, this was because of the vivid memories of the horrors and atrocities of the civil war which ended only 18 years ago.

That war began, it lasted as long as it did and it finished when it did because of foreign intervention and then because of the ending of intervention by Marshal Tito in 1948. The Greeks are well aware of what the implications of another civil war in their country might be, and so, significantly enough, are their Communist neighbours and the Soviet Union.

I think that today's information about Czechoslovakia vividly illustrates the Soviet Union's deep preoccupation with maintaining the status quo and the existing balance of power in Europe. This goes for Greece, too, where, as one senior Communist official recently assured me, "We do not want another Vietnam in South Europe. One Vietnam is quite enough."

That is why, despite the occasional fulminations of Communist propaganda and the insidious activities of Communist front organisations—some of them in this country—official Soviet and East bloc policy is non-interference in Greece, normal relations with the present Government, including incidentally formal recognition of the Regent, and expanding trade relations.

Here, may I interpolate a word about British-Greek trade relations, which received a sudden shock three weeks ago from which, I hope and believe, they are now recovering. Politics are politics, but the balance of trade between Britain and Greece is about three to one in favour of the British. Last year, it was worth over £30 million in British exports, and at the moment large contracts worth many millions of pounds more are being negotiated by British firms. I hope that these negotiations will be successful and I believe that the Greek authorities, in spite of the resentment which was felt throughout the country by critics of the Government and by British residents as well as by supporters of the Government, share this hope.

This point raises a whole matter of outside pressures on Greece.