Conspiracy to Commit Offences Outside the United Kingdom

Part of Jurisdiction (Conspiracy and Incitement) Bill – in the House of Commons at 9:45 am on 14 February 1997.

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Photo of George Galloway George Galloway , Glasgow Hillhead 9:45, 14 February 1997

That was one of the most extraordinary sights in modern times. The whole world of course rejoices if a sinner repents. None the less, even in my time in the House, which is less than 10 years, it was routine for Conservative Members to denounce President Mandela as a terrorist leader. Indeed, their co-party workers used openly to sell and wear "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts at Conservative party conferences. That was just in the past few years, when the whole world, apart from such dinosaurs, had come to regard Mandela as a world statesman of premier rank and indispensable to the solution of the crisis in southern Africa.

How much more the argument would have applied to Nelson Mandela when he was in this country organising armed action almost 40 years earlier. What would an Attorney-General have done if the proposed power had been available of Mr. Mandela's clandestine trip to London to gain funds for and help organise terrorist action? There is no getting away from that point, although some of my hon. Friends would like to. Under the Bill, Nelson Mandela was involved in commissioning, inciting and conspiring to commit terrorist action; he was organising people to carry guns to shoot members of the security forces of the sovereign Government of South Africa—a recognised Government with whom we had diplomatic relations.

Nelson Mandela was conspiring, organising, commissioning, and inciting people to cause explosions, which they did, without number. Such explosions were organised from here and states adjacent to South Africa. The famous example given on Second Reading was that of explosions among electricity pylons. It was used because it sounds the most innocuous possible definition of terrorism. Not all the ANC's bombs went off under electricity pylons, though. Some of them went off in very much more damaging places. If the power in the Bill had been available when President Mandela was here, one can imagine the hue and cry that we would have heard from the Conservative Benches in order to ensure, untrammelled by the amendment, that the legislation was used to stop him commissioning, inciting and conspiring to commit such terrorist acts.

10.15 am

I gave unconditional support to the ANC's armed struggle against apartheid, but not every Member was prepared to. I make no apology for it. It gained me a warm embrace from President Mandela, which is one of the most treasured achievements of my life. The reality, however, is that on many occasions there would have been a majority in the House of Commons in favour of deploying the Bill to clap him in irons. The South African Government would have been demanding that it be done; the British multinational companies which profited so hugely from the slavery of apartheid would have been pressing that it be done; memos would have gone backwards and forwards between captains of industry, the military industrial complex, and Ministers and other forces, the Bernard Levins and the rest, who would have no doubt taken to the columns, as others would have taken to the airwaves, to create an atmosphere that would have led the Attorney-General to say, "This man's conduct is in breach of this law. The amendment does not stop that being so and we will prosecute him." Where would we have been in those circumstances? How would we have faced President Mandela in Westminster Hall? I have dealt with the issue of President Mandela because he would not have been protected by the amendment, contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth sought to imply.