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Speech made during the debate on Trident
I wish to make three points in the short time available tonight. First, the decision does not need to be made now, and the argument that it must is an effort to embarrass the Liberal Democrats and is not credible. The Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s Question Time that the next Parliament could revisit the decision, which makes it clear that the decision does not have to be made tonight. The case against making it today was adequately summarised in an editorial in today’s Financial Times. The Prime Minister is trying to lock the Labour party into policies that he supports, and the Chancellor is suddenly trying to prove that he is tough on security by spinning on the back of a speech about the economy his support for a replacement for Trident, without any proper debate about Britain’s foreign policy and its role in the world after the disastrous mistakes in Iraq.
Secondly, there is no argument in the White Paper, in the Prime Minister’s introduction to the White Paper, or in the speech by the Conservative spokesman, that could not be reasonably made by Iran and many other countries. The greatest threat we face in the nuclear context is proliferation. The non-proliferation treaty is unravelling. The decision that we are asked to make before it needs to be made means that Britain will not consider how it can best contribute to driving forward and re-establishing the strength of the non-proliferation treaty, and is in danger of weakening it.
The United Kingdom has a nuclear weapon targeted at no one, with no one targeting a nuclear weapon at us. Iran is in an extremely unstable region, with Israeli nuclear weapons undoubtedly targeted at it. If the argument is made that the future is uncertain, what right does anyone have to say that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon? If Iran gets a weapon, Saudi Arabia will want one, as will Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and perhaps even the Gulf states, which have made some moves towards getting a capacity in nuclear technology. There will be very dangerous proliferation in the most unstable region in the world.
That is the real threat that the world faces and that we face, and it is being cast to one side by the blanket decision to replace our existing weapon in 20 years, rather than concentrating on how we in the UK could contribute to strengthening the non-proliferation treaty and preventing dangerous proliferation, particularly in the most dangerous region in the world.
The third reason why the UK should reconsider its approach to nuclear weapons is that they chain us into the role of US poodle. We acquire the weapons from the United States and we have to send them back to be repaired and serviced, so we can retain the weapons only if we are always on good terms with the US. That means that we do not have an independent foreign policy, as has been demonstrated so disastrously in Iraq. That has humiliated our country and helped to make the world more dangerous by dividing it more deeply and undermining international law.
I do not believe for a moment that we should seek to fall out with the United States. We have a long shared history, a common language and so on. However, every post-war Prime Minister apart from Edward Heath, bless him—because he was so focused on entrenching us in the European Union—has been obsessed with the special relationship as the centrepiece of our foreign policy. Why? It goes back to Britain losing an empire and failing to find a role. We are not the big power that we used to be, but we are best friends with the biggest power in the world, so if we can get a weapon from the US and stand alongside it, we are still important and powerful. That is an almost pathetic role to see for ourselves in the world. It is like the child who is frightened of others and therefore makes best friends with the biggest bully in the playground.
As has been said by other hon. Members, the biggest risk that we face is global warming, which could threaten the future of human civilisation. There is no question about that. I do not believe we will reach the international agreements that are needed to prevent that threat without establishing a much more equitable world order. Doing so should be the centrepiece of British foreign policy, seeking strong multilateral institutions, a much strengthened United Nations, much more equitable trade rules and so on, so that we can achieve the environmental agreements that we need to preserve the future of humanity.
Enormous threats are also posed by the growth of population that is coming. We are moving from a world population of 6 billion to 8 or 9 billion by 2030 to 2050, and 90 per cent. will be born in the poorest countries where the environment is under strain and states are weak. That threatens to bring not only terrible human suffering, but massive movements of population that will cause enormous instability and aggravation in the world.
Another major threat is the anger in the Muslim world about the injustice that is being suffered in the middle east. Instead of seeking to arm ourselves with a weapon because we fear that disorder, we should seek to unite with others to bring about a just settlement in the middle east. We say that we are committed to resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but we always line up our policy with that of the United States, which does not act in that way. The situation is thereby constantly aggravated and the danger of large numbers of angry young people throughout the Muslim world concluding that the only way to resist state force is with non-state violence, which threatens the future of all of us, is growing and growing.
Lots of the speeches that have been made today have sought to re-run the old arguments about unilateral nuclear disarmament, but that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about whether we commit ourselves to replacing our weapon in 20 years’ time or whether we could look for a strategy that uses our influence and our willingness to disarm to strengthen non-proliferation, with a stronger multilateral system, greater equity, more authority for the United Nations and a just settlement in the middle east.
What Britain needs is an independent foreign policy to make a real contribution in the world and to make up for the humiliation that we imposed on ourselves with our dreadful policy on Iraq. To decide to replace Trident in 20 years’ time is to continue to tie us to that mistake and continue to humiliate our country.
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