Foreign Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:34 am on 14 July 1989.

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Photo of Mr George Robertson Mr George Robertson , Hamilton 9:34, 14 July 1989

My hon. Friemd makes an accurate point. One of the most indecent acts during the events last year was that while the Foreign Office was correctly expressing its outrage about the deployment of chemical weapons—as verified by the Government's defence research establishement—the Government sent a Cabinet Minister, no less, to the Baghdad fair to announce the doubling of trade credits to Iraq. How the Government can hold their head high when practising such double standards defies description.

This debate can cover only a small number of issues. It is a dramatic time; a time of real decision in the world. In South Africa, central and Latin America and the far east, the process of change is breaking up all the old preconceptions and stereotypes. It should be a time for Britain, in all the arenas where we still have influence, to play a decisive role in shaping the sort of world that will emerge. If we have become observers instead of players, marginal instead of central, ignored instead of listened to, that is a reflection of how British foreign policy has become an extension of the Prime Minister's increasingly personal and unstable style of Government at home. That style was on trial in the European Parliament elections last month. The Tory vision of Britain in Europe faced the test of the ballot box—the ultimate test of the British people. That vision and that style at home, in Europe and beyond, was solemnly rejected by the people of Britain. As the right hon. Lady ploughs on relentlessly, incapable of learning any of the lessons of that electoral disaster, she heads for an even worse result when she finds the courage to face the British electorate again.