Rhodesia

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 November 1973.

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Photo of Mr Reginald Paget Mr Reginald Paget , Northampton 12:00, 8 November 1973

He may have spoken differently in private from what he has said in public, but that is no good at all. Certainly, I should be very interested to hear any public statement, by anybody who, by any stretch of the imagination, could be called a moderate in Rhodesia, that has favoured the maintenance of sanctions. I should be very interested if anybody could produce such a public statement.

Therefore, what are we doing here? In a word, this is a policy of appeasement. It is precisely this same policy that we discussed last week in regard to supplying spare parts for the Centurions with which we have provided Israel. We thought that, by that very dishonourable let-down of our plainest obligations, we could appease the Arabs. Maybe we have saved our weekend motoring, but not at a price that I care to pay for it.

Now this same idea is applied in Africa, and it is imagined that we can somehow appease black Africa by feeding our friends to them. It will go on. This policy of decadent appeasement, which is the real basis of what is happening tonight, happened in Biafra. But that is not true of this side of the House, because many on this side believe that it is nonsense. But, the Government think that this is a way by which they can appease.

I have a strong feeling that I am living in eighteenth century Venice, and am suddenly feeling the numbness which has come to a society with a lack of the will to assert its interests, to assert its point of view, to stand up for itself. There is this idea that something can be obtained by apologising for oneself, but when one does that the boot will always be put in. In the days when we had a better standing, South Africa was our friend and we traded with her. None of these African nations says "We will not trade with you if you trade with the apartheid people", because that trade is established. But if it started now, we should have the same trouble. Rhodesia is just something which they think they can kick us over.

We shall get out of this impasse only when we are prepared to stand up once again and say "No", to say that we are going to do what we think is right, that we are going to write our own foreign policy and not have it written for us either in Brussels or in NATO. Until we can show a little courage again we shall move from one miserable situation of surrender to another. Here again we are being asked to consent to a policy, which everybody on the Government side of the House knows is wrong, in order to appease.