ConservativeHome's Parliament Page

Hague urges Miliband to send a strong message to South Africa that Mugabe's government is illegitimate

William Hague responds to David Miliband's update on Zimbabwe: "There will be much common ground on many of the matters that the Foreign Secretary has mentioned, not least the thoughts and good wishes that he extended to the President of Zambia. We are united in this House in our horror that over the last decade the world has witnessed the Mugabe regime’s relentless abuse of the Zimbabwean people and the systematic destruction of their country.

The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is probably the worst anywhere in the world outside a war zone. One in four Zimbabweans have become refugees, and those who remain are at the mercy of a regime that beats, kills and tortures with impunity. Allowing Mugabe to cling to power is to consign the people of Zimbabwe to years, possibly, of further depredation and hopelessness. That is why the international community’s response to the situation matters so much and why today’s all-too-short debate is so important.

There will be general agreement in the House about much of the response, although I wish to press the Foreign Secretary on some points. I expect that we all agree that the European Union should widen its sanctions, as he mentioned; that it was right to issue a presidential statement to the UN and to seek a strong Security Council resolution now; and that African countries should join in not recognising the legitimacy of the Mugabe Government, although regrettably some have. 

Hague says Brown has "simultaneously disappointed the Americans, upset the Europeans and handed Iran a publicity coup'

At the Joint Press Conference with President Bush on Monday, Gordon Brown announced that:

"Today Britain will urge Europe and Europe will agree to take further sanctions against Iran. First of all, we will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the bank Melli. And second, action will start today for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas.”

But no action has been taken by the EU or by Britain to freeze the assets of Bank Melli or impose sanctions on Iranian oil and gas. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague asked Miliband to explain this in the Commons today:

"The steps the Prime Minister announced have not been taken. According to press reports, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, explicitly denied that any agreement on sanctions had been reached.

The Financial Times today points out that Bank Melli is working in exactly the same way today as it worked yesterday. Its offices in London are open, it can use its assets in whatever way it likes, and indeed may be in the process of moving a lot of them to Dubai.

The FT also quotes a US diplomat who said that Mr Brown was ‘wrong’. ‘He made an incorrect statement’. ‘The problem is that the US delegation and the US press believed him’. He said ‘On the scale of diplomatic blunders, this is a seven out of 10’.

The Iranian Foreign Minister, quoted in the Iranian press today, said that “The European officials have rejected Brown’s statements and have announced that there is no new decision for intensifying sanctions against Iran.

There may be an explanation for these event of which the public is not aware. However the government appears to have simultaneously disappointed the Americans, upset the Europeans and handed Iran a publicity coup.”

If it is indeed the case, the Government will have taken the conduct of the foreign policy of this country to a whole new level of blundering incompetence. We expect a full explanation about what has happened, and I will be writing to the Foreign Secretary today to seek this."

William Hague responds to David Miliband's statement on the Lisbon Treaty

"The Irish referendum was an inspiring example of democracy in action. People say that there is a disconnection between the EU and its peoples. Thursday’s vote was proof that when you give people a real say on the EU they respond in vast numbers. Turn out was higher than in any European election held in this country.

It was also a courageous vote. Threats were made that Ireland would suffer if they voted ‘no’ but that did not deter the Irish from making their own decision on the Treaty.

And I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary did not find it in him to congratulate Irish voters on either of those points.

Following as it does the French and Dutch rejections of the original Constitution, a Treaty that was, in the then Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s words, ‘ninety per cent’ the same as the Lisbon Treaty, is it not now clear beyond doubt that there is profound opposition among the peoples of Europe to the substance of this Treaty?

Given that no one would ever call the peoples of France, the Netherlands and Ireland anti-European is it not now clearer than ever that it is absurd to describe as anti-European disagreement with a Treaty that further centralises power away from Europe’s nation states towards remote institutions?

William Hague makes the case for an inquiry into the Iraq war

The Shadow Foreign Secretary led an Opposition debate calling for an inquiry into the Iraq war.  The Government successfully defeated Mr Hague's motion but twelve Labour MPs voted with the Conservatives.  Highlights of Mr Hague's contribution and David Lidington MP's closing remarks are pasted below.

There are signs of things improving in Iraq: "For those of us who supported the invasion of March 2003, recent signs of hope in Iraq are welcome indeed. The security situation has improved, the Iraqi economy is growing, stumbling but genuine steps towards political reconciliation have taken place and optimism among the people of the country has risen. But we all have to recognise that the path to this renewal of hope has lain through a painful trauma, including the deaths of 175 members of our armed forces. While the 23 days of the initial military campaign to overthrow Saddam were astonishingly successful, the constant theme of those who have written about their involvement in subsequent events is that things went seriously wrong in the preparation for, and execution of, the occupation of the country."

An inquiry into the Iraq war will be less useful the more it is delayed: "As it enters its sixth year, the conflict in Iraq will soon have lasted as long as the second world war. The formative decisions—about the occupation of Iraq, the disbandment of the army, de-Ba’athification and the overall manner in which the military occupation was conducted—were made either in the immediate aftermath of the invasion five years ago, or in some cases well before it. Decisions and analyses relating to the origins of the war and its planning were therefore made up to six or seven years ago.  Any inquiry would presumably take many months to hear and assemble evidence; so even if the Foreign Secretary were to announce an inquiry at the Dispatch Box today, it would entail key participants of those early decisions trying to give a crystal clear recollection, by the time they gave evidence, of events of perhaps seven or eight years earlier. An inquiry announced next year or the year after would require those recollections to stretch back anything up to a decade, with accompanying documents, e-mails and files intact. With the best will in the world, that is going to be difficult for those involved. A continuing delay of months or years—for all we know, the Prime Minister may well mean years—is not merely the postponement of an inquiry, but the diminishing of its value. Its task at a later date would be more difficult, and the accurate and detailed picture of important moments and key meetings would necessarily be more difficult to assemble."

America has conducted searching inquiries without undermining the morale of troops: "There have been far more searching investigations and discussions in the US Congress—and, indeed, in the Iraq study group, as far as we can see—about the nature of the United States’ involvement in Iraq than anything that we have seen in this country. Indeed, there are far more regular reports to Congress—General Petraeus is about to testify to Congress again—than anything that we see here. This is a separate point that the Government should attend to. There should be regular quarterly reports about progress in any theatre of war."

Our soldiers are hardy enough not to be undermined by an Iraq inquiry: "I often speak to soldiers and senior officers who have returned from Iraq, and the notion that their morale would be in any way undermined by our commencing an inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war is one that most of them would consider truly laughable. The morale of those wonderful people is made of far sturdier stuff than that. It depends on their training, their colleagues, their leadership and their equipment. Far from their being undermined by an inquiry, there are few who would not welcome it, for they above all others want to know that all of us politicians have learned from mistakes for which some of their colleagues paid with their lives."

The Government has launched reviews into fifty other areas of policy: "Since the current Prime Minister took office, the Government have announced at least 50 separate reviews of different areas of policy, all presumably designed better to inform future policy making. They cover a vast range of subjects, from casinos to 24-hour drinking to the promotion of tourism and to sunbeds... Many of these reviews are in the military area, such as the review of support for the armed forces, the armed personnel review and the review of the role of the military. It defies credibility that there should be time and resources to review a vast range of subjects, including many in the field of defence, but that any review or inquiry into probably the most important events of the decade is too much of a distraction from the matters in hand."

Closing the debate David Lidington MP offered the following:

"I want to believe that the Government of my country, whichever party happens to be in government at any one time, measure the advice given to them by their professionals in the diplomatic service, the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces. I want to be confident that the Prime Minister and the full Cabinet have access to all the information, including the dissenting opinions, available in Whitehall and from outside advisers. I also want to be confident that the Government will be straight with Parliament and the public about the decisions that they recommend on the nation’s behalf.  The debate has shown that the Government are bereft of any plausible reason to resist an inquiry. It is in our national and democratic interest to press ahead with one, and I hope that hon. Members of all parties will feel able to support the motion this evening."

More from Hansard.

William Hague won't commit on post-ratification strategy but says he favours some legislative action to affirm supremacy of Parliament

Click the graphic above to enlarge the screen capture of Tory MPs listening yesterday to the Shadow Foreign Secretary.  Earlier David Miliband paid tribute to William Hague: "He has prosecuted his case in an absolutely brilliant fashion and re-established his reputation as one of the outstanding debaters of our times."

Two Labour MPs questioned William Hague on whether the Conservatives would grant a post-ratification referendum:

Denis MacShane MP (Labour): "If I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s logic correctly, he is saying that the treaty that we are debating now is the same as the old constitution, and that a pledge was given to have a referendum on that constitution, which must be honoured. Is he therefore saying that if we pass into law tonight the treaty that he avers is the same as the old constitution, the position of his party will be to have a referendum on that? We need to know; the nation needs to know."

Mr. Hague: "The right hon. Gentleman says that the nation needs to know. I am saying that a referendum should be held on this treaty; that is the clear implication of everything I am saying. As I have frequently explained, quite a lot of water has to pass under the bridge before there will be any possibility of moving on to the question raised by the right hon. Gentleman, to whom I should also have paid tribute for his many interventions in these debates, including the most memorable one, when he said that the Prime Minister had been wrong about the weight of European regulation—which means that we look forward to his interventions from the Back Benches for many years to come; we have all that to look forward to."

Later in the debate:

Geraldine Smith MP (Labour): "Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the British people have a right to know what his party would do about the treaty if the Conservatives ever came to government? He will not answer that question. If the treaty is so bad for Britain—if it is so bleak—what will he do about it? I happen to think that the right hon. Gentleman and not their current leader may be the next Tory Prime Minister."

Mr. Hague: "I can certainly rule out the last part of the hon. Lady’s question, which was a most mischievous thing to come up with—she need never consider that possibility. The answer to the first part of her question is that people know from the vote on the referendum last week how the Conservative party approaches the matter: we are the only party leadership in the House who stayed true to what we stated in our last election manifesto. At the next general election, we will be true to what we state in our manifesto then."

Bill Cash and Ed Davey quiz William Hague on whether he supports legislative action to protect the supremacy of the UK Parliament:

Bill Cash: "I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend for fumigating the Government’s speeches on the whole question of the treaty and the referendum. Does he accept the importance of stating, in line with my reasoned amendment, which was not selected, that we will defend and protect this Parliament’s supremacy to ensure that we are not overridden by the European Court of Justice, or by our own courts, and that we have a sound constitutional position for any further renegotiations?"

Mr. Hague: "Given the growth of the EU’s powers, British sovereignty and the ultimate supremacy of Parliament need a constitutional safeguard, but I also say to my hon. Friend that the legal implications of any such provision must be absolutely clear. More work would need to be done in the future on the context and formula by which it is achieved, but I have great sympathy with the constitutional safeguard of ultimate supremacy."

Later in the debate:

Ed Davey MP (Liberal Democrat): "The right hon. Gentleman seems to be extolling a new potential Conservative policy when, in response to the hon. Member for Stone, he talked about a new constitutional safeguard. Does he mean the possibility of using article 49A, which, as he knows, gives member states a right to secede from the Union, or does he have something else in mind—possibly something that he might wish to renegotiate with our colleagues if he were to pull out of this treaty?"

Mr. Hague: "I mean none of those things. Only the Liberal Democrats have gone on about the article that allows a withdrawal from the European Union. It is one of the least likely treaty articles to be employed, which is why our consideration in these debates must be on the many other articles that will be employed. I am simply saying what I said a few moments ago: given the steady growth in the EU’s powers, I can see the case for a constitutional safeguard. I would have thought that many Members across the House would also be able to see that."

William Hague on Europe and Defence

This is the text that William Hague prepared for this afternoon's debate on the Lisbon Treaty.  Because it is the prepared text, tomorrow's Hansard may record very slightly different words.  This text doesn't include interruptions etc either.  Liam Fox's contribution can be read here.

Mr Speaker, it was our contention, when the timetable for debating this Bill was discussed three weeks ago, that the vital areas of Foreign Policy and Defence merited at the least two separate days of debate, and I suspect it will be clear, both from the uncertainty surrounding some of the issues to be debated today and the enormity of them, that far more time should have been given to them. At the outset, let us be clear that the Foreign, Security and Defence provisions of the EU Treaty provide a classic illustration of how closely the Treaty now before us mirrors the EU Constitution, usually down to the smallest detail.

The Foreign Affairs Committee of this House, a Committee of course with a Labour majority, concluded in their report, “that there is no material difference between the provisions on Foreign Policy in the Constitutional Treaty which the government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied.”

No rational person could come to any other conclusion. The title of the proposed EU Foreign Minister has been changed to “High Representative”, but everything else is there: the existence of this position and the simultaneous membership of the European Commission for the person holding it, the appointment of the High Representative by Qualified Majority Voting, the extension of Qualified Majority Voting to proposals made by the High Representative and the design of the EU Diplomatic Service, the creation of a new EU Foreign Policy fund, the requirement on Britain and France to invite the High Representative to present the case of the EU at the UN Security Council when a Common Position has been determined, the creation of a single legal personality for the EU, and, a series of Defence commitments which include a mutual Defence commitment, an objective of Common Defence and so-called structured co-operation of an inner group in Defence matters – all of these, the subject of our six hour debate today, were present in the EU Constitution and are present in the EU Treaty. Some of them were indeed among the aspects of the Treaty which in the opinion of the former Foreign Secretary and now Lord Chancellor made it a Constitutional Treaty. He told the House on 6 June 2005 that the creation of an EU Foreign Minister as well as an EU President were “points central to the European Constitutional Treaty” and he saw “no prospect of their being brought into force save through the vehicle of a Constitutional Treaty.”

Hague and Heathcoat-Amory's statements on the EU Treaty

William Hague MP: It is all too typical of the Government’s management of our affairs that the House of Commons has been left with less than five hours to debate a measure of far-reaching importance in which there is widespread public interest. It is typical, too, that the reason for that is two statements, both of which derive from the unremitting incompetence of the Government. It is still more typical that the Prime Minister, having signed the treaty without having the courage to turn up for the ceremony, wants to force the Bill through Parliament but lacks the courage to vote for it himself.

I must compliment the Foreign Secretary on his speech. We expected him to put the case for the treaty, but not to do so in such a hugely entertaining way. When the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) asked him about the legal force of preambles, he was not really able to give an effective reply. When the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) asked him about support from House of Commons Committees for his view of the differences between the treaties, he was not able to think of any. When he listed the NSPCC among the supporters of the treaty because of its child protection provisions, he omitted to say that the Government opposed those provisions going into the treaty. It seems like an important omission. They were opposed at the European Convention by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), when he was the Minister for Europe, on the grounds that they would extend the competencies of the European Union—or perhaps that was just an early incompetence from the right hon. Gentleman. If that is to be the quality of the Foreign Secretary’s argument, it is a good job that he has the committee of bishops on his side, because there will be nothing left for him but to pray."

"... We can all picture the scene at a European Council sometime next year. Picture the face of our poor Prime Minister as the name “Blair” is nominated by one President and Prime Minister after another: the look of utter gloom on his face at the nauseating, glutinous praise oozing from every Head of Government, the rapid revelation of a majority view, agreed behind closed doors when he, as usual, was excluded. Never would he more regret no longer being in possession of a veto: the famous dropped jaw almost hitting the table, as he realises there is no option but to join in. And then the awful moment when the motorcade of the President of Europe sweeps into Downing street. The gritted teeth and bitten nails: the Prime Minister emerges from his door with a smile of intolerable anguish; the choking sensation as the words, “Mr President”, are forced from his mouth. And then, once in the Cabinet room, the melodrama of, “When will you hand over to me?” all over again."

More from Hansard here.

David Heathcoat-Amory MP: "How can we have permanent dialogue with the European Union when it produces a draft treaty only 48 hours before it is agreed? It is a totally two-faced procedure, and it is a scandal that the House and the Government went along with it. Of course, the reason is obvious: the Government never had the slightest intention of consulting the people. That was done in France and Holland, which said no, and the Government are not going to make that mistake.

This is the last treaty on which any public vote will be possible, because it now becomes self-amending. Never again will it be brought before the intergovernmental conference, and never again will it be put to a referendum. That is why the treaty is incomprehensible. The position is not, “The treaty’s complicated, so we can’t ask the people”; the treaty is complicated because the European Union knew that it had been relieved of the obligation to simplify it for our voters and our electorate. That is why it resorted to the old process of drawing up legal texts by politicians and lawyers for other politicians and lawyers.

If one reads the text of the treaty, as I had to, one can see that we are talking about an entirely unreformed European Union. It remains one of the most old-fashioned organisations in the world—centralised, harmonised, and obsessed with standardisation and over-regulation. It is completely out-manoeuvred by the rest of the world. For example, no other group of countries on earth has followed the European Union in becoming a customs union. Instead, they have all gone down the route of free trade agreements, which achieve the same circulation of goods and people, without binding member states to a trade policy about which they can do nothing, and which prevents them from helping the poorest countries on earth through bilateral agreements.

The EU is entirely an old-fashioned structure, unreformed in every respect."

More from Hansard here.

William Hague reaffirms Conservative anger at Brown's failure to hold a referendum on the EU Treaty

"It is worth remembering that no one in this House has any democratic mandate from the British people to agree to this Treaty. All three main parties stood on manifestos promising the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution. No one’s manifesto said that there would be a referendum on the EU Constitution, but if another country voted ‘no’ in their referendum the British referendum would be scrapped, the Constitution would be given a new name and a few tweaks and the Treaty would be shoved through without the British people being given any say on it at all. Because that is the extraordinary thing ministers are proposing – if they get their way the British people would have absolutely no opportunity to vote on this Treaty, either at the ballot box during a general election or in a referendum.

The whole story of this Treaty has been of this Government’s total failure of leadership, in Europe and in Britain. If ministers are to be believed, they never wanted the Constitution or this Treaty, they were defeated again and again in the negotiations – of the 275 amendments the Government made to the original Constitution text only 27 were accepted – and now they have accepted a Treaty which practically the whole of Europe agrees is only cosmetically different from the Constitution and which this Government dares not put to the British people.

Everyone knows what the Government is up to. No one serious believes that this Treaty is significantly different from the Constitution. Indeed some, like the Constitution’s chief draughtsman Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, can’t stop pointing it out. After the October summit he told European newspapers that ‘the difference … is one of approach, rather than content’. Last month he told the BBC that ‘you wouldn’t be honest to tell the British voters the substance of the text has changed - because the substance has not changed’. He has written with satisfaction in his blog that the Constitution’s ‘nine essential points … reappear word for word in the new project.  Not a comma has changed!’

Everyone knows what is really going on. No impartial commentator thinks that the Government are up to anything other than cynical and calculated manoeuvrings to avoid holding a referendum on a Treaty they know the British people would reject. Ministers have neither the courage to fight an election nor the courage and honour to keep their own promise of a referendum. It is as if they are deliberately setting out to confirm the belief that they are happy to treat the people of this country like fools.

The British people deserve better than this drift. Trust and confidence in this Government are draining away. There remains one notable way for the Prime Minister to repair some of the damage – to honour his promise of a referendum. We will see if he has the courage to admit he was wrong, act like a statesman and give the British people – the people who put us in this place – the chance to have the say we all promised them."

William Hague on a Government that is "too scared" to hold a General Election and "too scared" to hold a referendum on the EU Treaty

William Hague to David Miliband on the EU Constitution: "No one believes the Foreign Secretary any more when he argues that this is not the EU constitution. When the Prime Minister met the Irish Prime Minister on 17 July, even he referred to it as the European constitution. Do we not now have an extraordinary double of a Government who are too scared to hold a general election that they had planned and too scared to hold a referendum that they had solemnly promised the people of this country? Is it not time that the Foreign Secretary summoned up the courage that his predecessor but one showed to the previous Prime Minister and told the Prime Minister that he needed a democratic mandate for such a far-reaching treaty, rather than colluded in this cynical betrayal of the promises made to the country?"

More from Hansard here.