First Day's Debate

Part of Defence – in the House of Commons at 6:42 pm on 30 June 1986.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Gavin Strang Gavin Strang , Edinburgh East 6:42, 30 June 1986

I shall not give way again if that is the level to which the debate is to be reduced.

Fundamental to the debate is the "Soviet threat". I do not believe that western Europe should assume that the Soviet Union will not attack it militarily. I do not believe, however, that it has any intention of attacking us. I accept that, regardless of the motives of the Soviet Union, we in western Europe must recognise the power of the Soviet war machine. That is common ground.

The evidence of the past few years shows that the leadership of the Soviet Union genuinely wants progress on peace in world terms. It genuinely wants real reductions in its nuclear arsenal, the removal of nuclear weapons from central Europe and progress made in reducing the level of conventional forces in Europe, primarily because it wishes to devote more of the Soviet Union's resources to increasing the living standards of the people of the Soviet Union. I say "primarily", but I may be wrong about that. Given the developments that have taken place over the years, the Soviet Union no longer intends to try to spread its form of government — what it calls Communism—by military means, if it ever did.

It is interesting to read the first page of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates". There is a quote from Lenin, who said: As long as capitalism and socialism exist we cannot live in peace. One or the other will triumph in the end That was said in 1920, and that probably was the position in the times of Lenin and Stalin. There was the belief that they might extend Soviet domination, and thus Communism, through the use of military means. There is a quote from Brezhnev and lastly one from Gorbachev, which reads: We state again and again that the outcome of the historical competition between the two systems must not be solved by military means. Our commitment to the policy of peaceful coexistence is evidence of the strength of the new social system and faith in its historical possibilities. All the evidence points in that direction. I accept that, like any other leader, Mr. Gorbachev has his hawks and his doves, but all the evidence is that the Soviet Union genuinely wants progress.

What is the position of the United States Administration? At best it can be described as confused. I would not say that there is confusion. The hawks are clearly in the ascendency. These are people who are opposed to arms control. They are open about that. There were those who used to speak in terms of winning a nuclear war. We had the Haig statement on a limited nuclear war in Europe.

I think that certain members of the United States Administration have educated themselves since then and that there are few in the Reagan Administration who would talk in terms of winning a nuclear war. There is, however, a strong body of opinion—I believe that it is still in the ascendancy— which believes that competition between the United States and the Soviet Union will move more and more in the United States' favour as it forces the Soviet Union to compete with its expenditure on arms. It thinks that it will be able to force the Soviet Union to divert more and more of its resources to military spending, but I think that that is profoundly wrong. I happen to think that the Soviet system—I do not support it— is probably better designed to carry a high-spending military programme than the American system. We know that the people of the Soviet Union are unable to elect an alternative Government.

There is a gulf between European and United States thinking on the issues. It is an insult to our intelligence to suggest—it is repeated many times—that the new, slick Gorbachev approach has driven a wedge between western Europe and the United States. What about the strategic defence initiative? The British Government have been subservient to the American Government on almost every issue. Europe, and even the substantial Right-wing elements in western Europe, were unhappy about the SDI.

Reference has been made to the NATO force goal in terms of chemical weapons. We know that, in military terms, it would make sense to have new binary chemical weapons in Europe. But why are they confined only to the United States? Of course, it is in deference to the different European attitudes. We have read that European Governments—I think that, for once, we can count the British Government in on it—were prepared to amount a campaign against the United States' intention to breach SALT 2 later this year. Libya has had a profound effect on European attitudes. It has certainly had a big impact on me. The Libyan bombing has made a big impact on many people in this country and Europe.

It is alleged that there is a plan to give NATO an out-of-area role. It is not just a question of American F111s and planes in Europe being used to bomb Libya. NATO may actually embark on a policy of policing the world. That policy has been proposed by Mr. Weinberger. The role of the American Administration in South America and their recent decision to commit themselves to massive additional funding of the Contras against the Government of Nicaragua are crucial to European attitudes to NATO. These represent real developments and a divergence between the attitudes of American people and the policies pursued by the American Administration, and the attitudes of European people, and even European Right-wing Governments.

Hopefully, we will soon see a change of Government in West Germany and Britain. We will see a change in our position and Governments in western Europe which are more representative of the aspirations of the vast majority of the people of Europe. All hon. Members must recognise that the divergence between Europe and the United States is a reflection of our different history, perspective and attitude to the Soviet Union.

I turn to some of the initiatives taken in respect of nuclear disarmament. I make no apology for concentrating my remarks on that. I recognise the importance of our defences, but I also recognise that things have changed completely since debates of 50 years ago or more. The overriding responsibility facing all Governments is to avoid a nuclear holocaust. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), who opened the debate for the Labour party, pointed out that the Chernobyl incident was tiny compared with even a nuclear weapon battlefield in central Europe.

During the Secretary of State's speech I intervened regarding the comprehensive test ban treaty. The evidence is that the British Government are moving position. The British Government have argued, as did the then Foreign Office Minister in reply to an Adjournment debate over a year ago, that the only objection they have to progress towards a comprehensive test ban treaty is the need for adequate verification. They wanted a comprehensive test ban treaty. That was their position at the non-proliferation review conference last year. That is different from the American position. The Americans stopped the talks on a comprehensive test ban treaty in 1980 because they wanted to continue testing. They made no bones about that.

Tremendous scientific progress has been made on verification. Leading United States scientists—I say this without fear of challenge — believe that we can have adequate verification. The Soviet Union has agreed to the installation of seismological centres in the Soviet Union to make verification effective. Only a few months ago American scientists agreed with Soviet scientists on the seismological centres which could be established in the Soviet Union. That is why the Secretary of State, in reply to my intervention this afternoon, left himself a cop out. He said that verification is the most important objection. The verification argument is becoming less tenable.

I believe that the Government were hypocritical when they replied to my Adjournment debate last year. Now that verification is becoming less tenable, they will adopt the American argument that they want to keep testing the weapons for storage reasons, and so on. The Americans want to test for SDI. They plan a nuclear pump for the X-ray lasers. We want to test the Trident warheads. It is fitting that the Government initiated a test last week, just before this debate.

A comprehensive test ban treaty is important because it will help to put the brake on the development of nuclear weapons in other parts of the world. It is tragic that the Government, who were one of the three signatories—the others were the Soviet Union and the United States—to the agreement on the initial partial test ban treaty have adopted such a negative stance at the conference on disarmament in Geneva.

I remind the House that the Soviet Union announced a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing — just as Kennedy did—which led to the partial test ban treaty. Instead of Britain responding to the moratorium and saying, "Let us see if we can make some progress on the basis of the Soviet moratorium", we are adopting a completely negative attitude. Mr. Gorbachev's proposals of 15 January are crucially important. They are probably the most important proposals to come out of the Soviet Union in 10 years. They attempt to make progress towards nuclear disarmament. They are so good that the Prime Minister did not understand them. She said in reply to a question by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that they did not involve the zero option.

There are three stages in the Gorbachev proposals. I shall concentrate on the first stage because it is designed to take us into the 1990s. The proposal involves the 50 per cent. cut in strategic nuclear weapons on which it is hoped the United States will negotiate seriously, and the removal of all intermediate range weapons from Europe—but not their transfer to Asia. The West used to put forward the zero option, that is, before it went ahead with the deployment of cruise and Pershing. The Prime Minister did not understand that. I do not think that she deliberately misled the House. I think that she genuinely did not realise how good the Soviet proposal was.

I do not suggest that President Reagan should immediately say, "We shall accept the proposals". The Soviet proposals have been improved since 15 January. They provide an excellent basis for progress. They have further developed the SDI proposals. They confirm that the United States can continue with research into SDI provided it negotiates a reasonable deal regarding the maintenance of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, and provided it avoids taking SDI further than the laboratory stage. Soviet scientists agree with leading American scientists that there is no way that SDI will work. It is backed by a huge military industrial complex, and I believe that it will be difficult to stop it.

I turn to the Vienna talks on mutually balanced force reductions. To hear some hon. Members speak, it would seem that they want to have American troops in Europe for ever. Labour party policy is for the mutual dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw pact. We hope that progress will be made, and that there will be real reductions in Soviet forces. We hope to reduce our forces also. Perhaps one day the American forces will return to America. Some hon. Members think that that is a terrible option in the future. It may be that progress can be made in Vienna. It may be that the proposals which the Soviet Union has put forward will be taken in a wider arena.

All the evidence points in the direction of the Soviet leadership wanting real progress. I urge the British Government to change their attitude. When the Prime Minister visited America to set the seal on her support for the strategic defence initiative I think that she described herself as Mr. Reagan's biggest fan in Europe. I thought that that summed up the relationship of the British Government with the American Administration. The relationship has been one—I say this on the basis of the Government's policy in the past six years— of supine subservience in every area of defence.

The Government may be in office for another 18 months. For goodness sake, let them stand up for the future of our people. Let them take an independent view. Let them be prepared to consider Europe's position. We do not want an anti-American policy. However, we want a British Government who are prepared to stand up for Britain. We want a Government who are prepared to argue for progress. If it is the case—I believe that it is—that the Soviet Union wants progress, let the British Government speak out.