Mr Speaker,
The right of the Member for Dagenham to act as avatar of the labour movement - if it ever existed - was surely forfeit the moment he became an apologist for the mass murder of the Hungarian people. How can any working man or women truly believe that the Communist Party has their best interests at heart, when it is so willing to sanction their annihilation in the name of socialist progress? It is the duty of the Labour Party to uphold the welfare of the British people. I doubt this goal would be served by death squads and show trials.
If the Member has an impoverished insight into the mindset of the British worker, he is positively destitute when it comes to his depiction of the conditions in Spain. How is Spain free, when it has been impressed into the Warsaw Pact, that 'freedom-loving' alliance from which the Hungarians desperately tried to divorce themselves, only to be compelled back into captivity by force of arms? How is Spain democratic, when the Communists exploited the revolution to seize control for themselves, abolished all other parties and suspended competitive elections? Is this the brave new world that the Member of Dagenham would urge the British people to embrace? His 'Road to Socialism' sounds more like a road to ruin.
Yet the Member for Dagenham implores us to disregard the enervation of the Spanish people, as well as the bloody treatment of the Hungarians. No, no; the real threat is clearly the United States! I would ask the Gentleman: has the United States ever threatened this country? Have the Americans ever occupied Britain, rounded up its citizens and shot them down? Have they ever interfered in our political system, regulated the formation of our parties, meddled in our economy? If you would believe the pundits, Anglo-American relations were at the nadir in recent times, yet at no point did this leave the United Kingdom at risk of military reprisal, let alone invasion.
What the Member fails to comprehend is the consensual basis of this partnership. The special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States is founded on the consent of London and Washington. Like any relationship, it has been at times cordial and at other times strained, but as it was established on solid foundations, it has survived. We are not afraid to rebuff the Americans, though we would not do so frivolously, and we have done so in the past. Yet the alliance has been maintained because it is in the mutual interest of both parties, who have both consented to its perpetuation. Likewise, the United Kingdom joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation because it evidently enhanced our national security to do so, just as joining the European Coal and Steel Community demonstrably improved our economic prospects to the benefit of the British people. At no point were we compelled to accept membership of these institutions, and at any time - and for any reason - we could decide to withdraw from them. That is the nature of consent.
But consent does not exist in the Soviet sphere. We witnessed this in Hungary, where the decision to withdraw that country from the Warsaw Pact - at the instigation of the Communist Party, no less - was swiftly quashed by Soviet tanks. We know that many of the Communist states were in fact eager to partake in the Marshall Plan, but were restrained from doing so by Moscow. We know that the Spanish people were given no say in their accession to the Warsaw Pact, which was undertaken by a minority faction that has never won a popular election. This is why the Soviets pour so much treasure into their armed forces, and why they are so terrified of the democratic process: they know that their power rests on brutality and intimidation, not the consent of the governed.
So when the Member for Dagenham declares that Britain has lost its independence, I really cannot afford him the barest crumb of credibility. We are a free and sovereign state, pursuing our own path in the world, in accordance with our national interests. When we seek the assistance of the United States, or accept membership in NATO and the ECSC, we do not do so because we must but because we
can. By comparison, were this country, by whatever misfortune, ever to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence, 'can' would no longer exist in our vocabulary. The direction of our national affairs would no longer belong to the people and their elected representatives, but to Moscow. There would be no parties but Moscow's party; no unions but Moscow's unions; no liberty of the press or free speech or freedom of belief. No freedom at all.
Whatever the Member for Dagenham might claim, the labour movement is better off without a Soviet straitjacket.
Rt. Hon. Sylvia Leighton PC MP,
Secretary of State for Defence,
Member for Sutton and Cheam
