Orders of the Day — Foreign Affairs and Defence

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:46 pm on 11 December 2000.

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Photo of Robin Cook Robin Cook Foreign Secretary 4:46, 11 December 2000

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning what he describes as our "excellent" human rights report. I am glad that it has been welcomed. I shall happily inquire whether it might be appropriate to refer to events in Israel in a future edition of the report, but as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the events that are most in his mind have happened since the publication of the current edition.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not regard the comments that I am about to make as comedy. I think they are more tragic than comic. What depresses me most about the policy statements of Opposition Members, and their general approach to foreign affairs, is how little confidence they have in Britain. Their vision of Britain in the world is one of a timid, frightened little thing staying at home with the door locked, clutching a comfort blanket of vetoes in case a foreigner asks a question. It is a Britain with no leadership to offer the international community—a Britain surreptitiously sliding—