Tag: Jack Straw

Below is the text of the speech made by Jack Straw, the then Secretary of State for Justice, at George Washington University on 15th February 2008.

Good morning, I am honoured to be here at the magnificent George Washington University.

This morning I want to set out some observations about the enduring and unique relationship between our two countries, and in particular to look at how our very conceptions of government and the constitution, whilst on the face of it very different, are borne out of the same root, and have to face up to the same challenge of remaining relevant in a twenty-first century democracy.

This challenge of remaining relevant has beset every government of every age.

It calls to mind the old adage of the man who walked into a bookshop in the French Third Republic asking for a copy of the Constitution. ‘We don’t deal in periodical literature’, the bookseller replied.

So, in this speech, I discuss three things:

First, our common constitutional heritage – how the US and the UK both have modernised the Magna Carta, and constantly adapted our constitutional arrangements to meet changing circumstances.

Second, to look at some of the steps we have taken in the United Kingdom to bring our constitution into line with modern expectations: the ‘quiet revolution’ over the last decade of the Labour administrations of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

And third, the lessons we can learn from the United States as to how we in the UK can shape the next chapter in the story of British liberty: towards a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

Part 1: Magna Carta

I would like to begin, where so much of our legal, governmental and social systems begin – with the Magna Carta.

In December of last year Sotheby’s in New York sold a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta for more than million – the world’s first million bill. It is both symbolic and fitting that it has been placed on display beside the Declaration of Independence just down the road at Washington’s National Archives. These two represent perhaps the most defining constitutional documents in the Western world. Their influence on the development of democracy in the United Kingdom, the United States as around the world cannot be overstated. Along with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution they are what James Madison called the ‘political scriptures’.

In the late eighteenth century, the Founding Fathers searched for an historical precedent for asserting their rightful liberties from King George III and the English Parliament. They found it in a parley which took place more than 500 years before that, between a collection of barons, and the then impoverished and despotic King John, at Runneymede in 1215. On that unremarkable field they did a remarkable thing. They demanded of the king that their traditional rights be recognised, written down, confirmed with the royal seal and sent to every county to be read aloud to all freemen.

Let us, however, prick the illusion, that the Magna Carta was precipitated by the equivalent of thirteenth century civil rights campaigners. The Magna Carta was a feudal document – designed to protect the interests, rights and properties of powerful landowners with the temerity to stand up to the monarch. Given its provenance, it is a paradox that a document which was founded on the basis of class and self interest has over centuries become one of the basic documents for our two constitutions, and one of the icons of the universal protection of liberty.

This is a measure of how constitutions evolve, grow, develop with changing circumstances; in this sense they can be very much like scripture. This is the process by which a document just shy of its eight-hundredth birthday still has a resonance and a relevance today. In more than 100 decisions, the United States Supreme Court has traced dependence on the Magna Carta for understanding of due process of law, trial by one’s peers, the importance of a fair trial, and protection against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. These are principles which similarly have long formed the bedrock of our system of common law in the United Kingdom – as admired as it is emulated in democracies around the world.

I dwell on this historical point to demonstrate that in spite of the very different systems of governance in the UK and the US, there is an enduring bond between our two democracies, a shared legal culture, a common thread which can be followed back to the Magna Carta.

At the heart of each, of both, is a powerful and everlasting idea of liberty and of rights. I often think that the commonality between us and our ideas is best reflected in the person of one man, that great Anglo-American, Thomas Paine. Paine was born and raised in a small town in the east of England called Thetford in Norfolk, but was to go on profoundly to influence the revolutions in America and France. Indeed, the name ‘the United States of America’ itself is attributed to his creation. That Paine is commonly considered among the Founding Fathers, and later was elected to the French National Convention are measures of his remarkable contribution to the dialectics of liberty.

But though Thomas Paine’s seeds were the same wherever he sowed them, they grew. And their progeny then evolved in ground that was different, differences today reflected in very different systems of governance.

From independence, the United States self-consciously chose to develop a system of constitutional sovereignty, to prevent the new-born nation from ever being subject to the yoke of a despotic ruler.

As Washington himself implored: ‘that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed’.

As with many nations which later have had to define themselves as a product of great social trauma – civil war, revolution, independence, or more recently breaking free of the shackles of apartheid – you put your belief in and structured your system of government around a set of overarching principles around which their nation could unite – a constitutional form of government.

In the United Kingdom we have remained faithful to principle of Parliamentary sovereignty – whereby no power is pre-eminent to Parliament, where any law can be made and unmade. The Swiss constitutionalist, and contemporary of Tom Paine, Jean-Louis de Lolme described this in practice: ‘Parliament can do anything but change men into women and women into men’ he quipped.

In an aphorism I remember from when I was studying for the equivalent of my high school exams, Ivor Jennings, a later British constitutional historian, went on to correct him: ‘like many of the remarks de Lolme made, it is wrong. For if Parliament enacted that all men should be women then they would be women so far as the law was concerned’. Such are the vagaries of the English constitution!

Of course we have significant constitutional documents, of which the Magna Carta is only one. These include the 1689 Bill of Rights, the great Reform Acts of the 19th Century, the Parliament Acts, the Human Rights Act 1998. But in no one document can be found what is called the ‘British Constitution’. The constitution of the United Kingdom exists in hearts and minds and habits as much as it does in law.

This divergence between the American notion of constitutional supremacy and the British doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, has, according to a predecessor of mine as Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg:

‘long been viewed as symbolising a fundamental difference of outlook between the United States and Britain on constitutional matters generally, and more specifically on the status of civil rights in our respective legal systems’.

The lesson of history is that declarations of rights – what Madison described as ‘paper barriers’ – are not in themselves enough. Look at Weimar Germany or Soviet Russia. For rights to be afforded their true significance they need to have legal expression and enforcement as well as symbolic value. Judges, lawyers, politicians and philosophers from both sides of the Atlantic have been grappling with how best to provide a practical legal mechanism to access rights and an ethical framework for decision-making.

The American constitutional system puts the individual rights of man very obviously and explicitly at its heart. The continuing challenge is therefore how to interpret the aspirational features of your constitution in such a way as to continue to provide legal protections to its citizens while remaining true to the historic purpose of its framers. The jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court (primarily) helps to constantly refresh and renew the interpretation of the Constitution. Through constant consideration and iteration, the Supreme Court has had the effect of continually breathing life into the constitution. It is not neglected but actively considered and – where necessary – renewed.

Part 2: The ‘quiet revolution’

The same cannot be said in the UK. The nature of our system of governance in Britain is such that constitutional amendment requires an Act of Parliament (but by no special procedure or majority). Our courts cannot change our constitution. The 1998 Human Rights Act was very careful on that point. So while the mechanism is different to the US, it remains underpinned by the same principle: constitutions must modernise to reflect the world in which they are operating.

The gradual development of our constitution was described by the Victorian lecturer AV Dicey as ‘historic’. Bagehot, another of the British greats, described it as ‘organic’, and the ‘product of evolution rather than design’. But that does not mean it is always easily understood, nor that it is always capable of changing appropriately to meet the needs of society

To put the constitution on a modern footing and to ensure that it is in a position to cope with the pressures facing it today necessitates regular and active constitutional maintenance. Without it, a logjam of constitutional adjustment builds up. Since 1997, when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, we have been clearing away the logjam which had accumulated. Aside, perhaps, from the years immediately prior to the First World War which saw the Parliament Act of 1911, historians have already suggested that the period since 1997 in which Labour came to power is unparalleled in the past one hundred years of our constitutional arrangements. We have staged, in the words of constitutional expert Vernon Bogdanor, a ‘quiet revolution’.

Change in role of Lord Chancellor

The great Victorian Prime Minister Gladstone suggested ‘that the British constitution presumes more boldly than any other the good faith of those who work it’. But good faith, for so long the ‘British way’, is no basis on which to construct a modern constitution. Changes had to be made if we were to have a system of governance in which the British public could have confidence.

The ‘good faith’ described by Gladstone is the absence in our constitutional arrangements of a (formal) doctrine of separation of powers, one of the key areas identified by Paine and others as being a vital bulwark against tyranny. Ironically, nowhere was this constitutional anomaly more clearly seen than in the role of the office I now hold, Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor traditionally sat as part of the legislative, of the executive, and of the judiciary. He was Speaker of the House of Lords, a senior member of the Cabinet, and could, and did, sit as an appeal judge: a holy trinity of roles which contained a constitutional anachronism which had persisted for centuries, and which could not continue in any form of modern democracy.

Montesquieu argued that ‘there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and the executive’. Quite what he made of the role of the Lord Chancellor, history does not record.

But from my own perspective as the first commoner – that is an elected Member of Parliament – since Sir Christopher Hatton in the reign of Elizabeth I to be appointed Lord Chancellor I would like to add this. The separation of powers should not mean that the each ‘limb’ of state becomes dislocated. But as we move as a democracy to a model in which we enjoy a clearer separation of powers it is important that where there are connections these areas must be transparent.

First sentencing. It is an important principle that in any fair and just society, where the rule of law is predominant, that an impartial and independent judiciary is allowed to go about its business without impediment. Judges must be given the room to make their individual decisions based on the individual merits of the cases before them – without political interference. And this interference can also take the passive form in which sentencers and politicians each try to second-guess the other. To avoid this, I believe that we need to look very closely at a system such as, with different features, successfully operates in several states here, of a sentencing commission. Officials from my department have visited Minnesota and I myself look forward to heading to Virginia tomorrow to see how their commission works. In the UK we are looking very closely at whether a longer term mechanism better to control the supply of and demand for prison places is needed. In particular, we are looking from your experience at a model in which Parliament sets the overall framework for sentences, leaving judges free to concentrate on their individual decisions, within a clear set of parameters, and with capacity of the prison system taken into account in setting the framework, but not so that it interferes, in individual cases, with the sentence handed down.

The second specific area I would like to touch upon is the importance of maintaining accountability to Parliament via the Lord Chancellor. In a modern liberal democracy the judiciary are expected to act as a check and balance against the power of the legislature or the executive. But so too in a liberal democracy is that judiciary expected to be accountable to the public in ways which do not impinge on the fundamental principle of their independence. Accordingly such accountability is not expected to be direct – we have no interest in pursuing a route which would lead to the election of our judges – nor in a way which challenges their independence, but via the person of the Lord Chancellor, to Parliament.

The reforms enacted through the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 combine the best of the historical role of the Lord Chancellor, a strong figure within the executive who can defend the rule of law and the independence of the judges, with changes to our constitution which reflect modern conceptions of democracy: a final court of appeal – a Supreme Court -visible to the public as a court, and not as a committee of the upper house of our legislature; a judiciary with its head – the Lord Chief Justice – appointed from within the ranks of the professional judiciary and not a politician; a transparent, non-political means of appointing judges; and a Speaker in the legislature chosen by the legislative body and not by the head of the executive.

These reforms have provided the active maintenance that had been so needed if our constitution was to move with the times. The relationship they establish between the judges and the Lord Chancellor reflects our age. Judges should not be led by a politician. They need their own voice, and independent leadership. And it is clear that as part of this, judicial appointments must be made, and be seen to be made transparently, impartially and solely on the principle of merit.

The Supreme Court

Those familiar with our legal system will know that currently the final court of appeal for the UK court system is a committee of the upper legislative house, the House of Lords – the ‘Law Lords’. To be appointed a member of that court is to be appointed a member of the legislature. In an age where accessibility is paramount, the court is virtually invisible, save that it can hand its judgement down before the television cameras of the Chamber of the Lords. It works. No-one challenges its integrity or expertise. Yet it’s an odd set-up – in principle as odd as having your Supreme Court sit in the Chamber of your Senate. The Law Lords have no separate identity apart from the House of Lords. Whilst the public are entitled to attend the hearings, they are very difficult to find, and there is little thought given to the public’s attendance. The highest court in the land for far too long has been beyond the reach or understanding of a great number of the British public. As Bagehot argued as long ago as 1867 that a supreme court ‘ought not to be hidden beneath the robes of a legislative assembly’.

As befits the constitutional trend towards the greater separation of powers, a United Kingdom Supreme Court has taken over a century before finally becoming a reality.

There is much that we admire about the US Supreme Court and that we hope to see replicated in our own. It is a highly visible symbol of judicial authority and it is accessible to the public, appealing to the public, and important to the public. When you visit the US Supreme Court you are struck, not only by the quality of its proceedings and the authority it clearly has in the eyes of the American people, but by the huge interest in it and its deliberations from the public: lines of people outside waiting to get in to hear its deliberations, the body of the court filled to the brim with members of the public, as well as lawyers, who had managed to get in.

The place where the court sits is important – a symbolic institution which is not visible or accessible would be pointless. Our new Supreme Court will stand proudly in one corner of Parliament Square, surrounded by, and in sight of, the other distinctive pillars of our constitution – the Houses of Parliament opposite, the Treasury on one side, and Westminster Abbey, where every King and Queen of England has been crowned since 1066, on the other side. It is a setting that is befitting a court of such significance and importance. I believe that the UK Supreme Court, at the apex of our justice system will establish itself as a court of similar world renown to that here in Washington.

But there will remain differences in how the how the two courts will operate. Our constitutional arrangements will remain distinct. I make no comment here about your system, but the strength of our legal system in the UK, in part, depends on our judges being beyond politics. In seeking new constitutional arrangements we do not ignore our heritage. We have I think been able to find a solution by which the judiciary can play a visible and effective role in holding the executive to account – but to do so in a way which does not embroil them in partisan politics nor undermine the sovereignty of Parliament.

Part 3: British Bill of Rights

It is a few years ago now, but I remember being struck in 2002 by the results in the US of a Public Agenda national opinion poll, in which 67% interviewed said that it is was ‘absolutely essential’ for ordinary Americans to have a detailed knowledge of their constitutional rights and freedoms. And 90% of respondents agreed that since the 9/11 attacks ‘it is more important than ever to know what our constitution stands for’. The report concluded that whilst the actual text of the constitution might be very imperfectly captured in people’s heads, ‘its principles and values are alive and well in their hearts’.

I would be fascinated to see what the equivalent scores would be back in Britain. I would suggest that there is a wide understanding that English constitutional documents such as the Magna Carta are profoundly important to the way we have developed as a society. And I have said before that I think that the British people have developed an innate understanding of rights which has come from a centuries-old tradition – it is in our cultural DNA. But I think that most people might struggle to put their finger on what those rights are or in which texts they are located. .

The next stage in the United Kingdom’s constitutional development is to look at whether we need better to articulate those rights which are scattered across a whole host of different places, and indeed the responsibilities that go with being British.

We can learn a great deal from the United States example, and particularly with regard to the enviable notion of civic duty that seems to flow so strongly through American veins. It is made much easier to fulfil your civic duty when you have a clear sense of to what you belong, and what it is expected from you.

In the United Kingdom many duties and responsibilities already exist in statute, common practice or are woven into our social and moral fabric. But elevating them to a new status in a constitutional document would reflect their importance in the healthy functioning of our democracy.

But why now? It is not because we are a society in turmoil but because we are a society in flux. We live in a modern, individualistic, consumerist age, in which old social classes have eroded. Much of this is welcome. But the consumer society has shifted attitudes in ways that also present us with some challenges. As the political scientist Meg Russell has said:

‘It is difficult to find anything more antithetical to the culture of politics than the contemporary culture of consumerism. While politics is about balancing diverse needs to benefit the public interest, consumerism is about meeting the immediate desires of the individual. While politics requires us to compromise and collaborate as citizens, consumerism emphasises unrestrained individual freedom of choice.’

In the civic sphere, it has arguably given rise to the commoditisation of rights, which have become perceived as yet more goods to be ‘claimed’. This is demonstrated in how some people seek to exercise their rights in a selfish way without regard to others – which injures the philosophical basis of inalienable, fundamental human rights. Alongside that, some people resent the rights that are afforded to fellow humankind – we see this is in the media uproar around human rights being a ‘terrorist’s charter’ or there for the benefit of unpopular minorities alone.

In this individualistic age, we would do well to remind ourselves of first principles: that rights come with duties.

This is hardly a new concept. Thomas Paine declared that:

‘A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man, is also the right of another, and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.’

I fully understand that there is not, and cannot be an exact symmetry between rights and responsibilities. In a democracy, rights tend to be ‘vertical’ – guaranteed to the individual by the state to constrain the otherwise overweening power of the state. Responsibilities, on the other hand, are more ‘horizontal’ – they are the duties we owe to each other, to our ‘neighbour’ in the New Testament sense. But they have a degree of verticality about them too, because we owe duties to the community as a whole.

In seeking to bringing greater clarity and status to the relationship between the citizen, the state and the community, we in the UK have to be constantly mindful of the scope and extent of their justiciability. I entirely agree with the words of former Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham (now the Senior Law Lord) when he said that the importance of predicatability in law must preclude ‘excessive innovation and adventurism by the judges’. That was echoed by Justice Heydon of the High Court of Australia who suggested that judicial activism, taken to extremes, could spell the death of the rule of law.

If, for instance, economic and social rights were part of our new Bill, but did not become further justiciable, this would not in any way make the exercise worthless. This city is a living testament to the power of symbols. As the jurist Philip Alston described, Bills of Rights are ‘a combination of law, symbolism and aspiration’. What he makes clear is that the formulation of such a Bill is not a simple binary choice between a fully justiciable text on the one hand, or a purely symbolic text on the other. There is a continuum. And it is entirely consistent that some broad declarative principles can be underpinned by statute. Where we end up on this continuum needs to be the subject of the widest debate.

A Bill of Rights and Responsibilities could give people a clearer idea of what we can expect from the state and from each other, and provide an ethical framework for giving practical effect to our common values.

Conclusion

In an enabling state, in a democratic society, it is far more than the law which binds us together. But the law has a powerful role to play. In Britain, we are alone with Israel and New Zealand, among all of the developed countries in the world, in not having a codified constitution – by this I mean a single overarching source of law. And much of what we regard as our unwritten constitution is contained in ordinary laws which can be changed by ordinary legislative process and in conventions (Gladstone’s ‘good-faith’). The introduction of the Human Rights Act was a landmark in the development of rights in the UK, setting the liberties we enjoy on a constitutional footing. But the question which we are now putting to the British people is – whether this goes far this enough? The ‘quiet revolution’ has brought about greater clarity in our constitutional arrangements, but we need now to think very carefully about whether a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities should be a step towards a fully written constitution, which would bring us in line with most progressive democracies around the world. But that is a debate for another time.

In Britain, we have not had to struggle for self-determination or nationhood; nor for three and half centuries have we been torn apart by social strife. We do not wear our freedom on our sleeves in the same way as here in the United States, or Canada, or South Africa.

But, do we in Britain value these rights less as a result? I don’t think so.

I think an innate understanding of rights is a part of our national psyche, it is the amniotic fluid in which we have grown, so too is an inchoate appreciation, at least, of the obligations we have to each other. But we could make them better understood.

If a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities which clarifies this relationship is to be more than a legal document and become a ‘mechanism for unifying the population’, it is vital that it is owned by the British people and not just the lawyers. For it to have real traction with the British people they must have an emotional stake in, and connection with it. We have to make a reality of constitutional expert Professor Francesca Klug’s assertion that the true meaning of human rights is about providing ‘a framework of ethical values driven not just by the ideals of liberty, autonomy and justice, but also by normative values like dignity, equality and community’.

There is a careful balance to maintain; between preserving the UK’s constitutional heritage on the one hand, and running the risk of our public institutions becoming antiquated on the other. And in this there is much we can learn from you.

That here in the United States a single framework of government can and has endured the changes necessary in taking the United States from an isolationist, agrarian nation of 3.5 million people in 1789 to an industrialised, international hyper-power with a population nearly 70 times larger today testifies to its adaptability and durability. In this sense, longevity means success. What better judge than Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

‘[The US] Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why [the US] constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced.’

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, on 7th February 2004 in Bangalore, India.

Let me thank Astra Zeneca for their hospitality. This research and development centre is focussed on the needs of the developing world, so it is appropriate that it is the first such centre which Astra Zeneca has opened in an emerging market. Its work on tuberculosis and other infectious diseases is hugely important and welcome: 5 000 people die from tuberculosis every day, almost all of them in the world’s poorest countries. Astra Zeneca is the first major pharmaceutical company to devote an entire research unit in India to a developing-world disease.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

No Briton can come to India and not be conscious of the legacy which centuries of shared history have left in our relationship. As Tony Blair said here in Bangalore in 2002, that history is present every day on the streets of modern India and modern Britain.

But today our relationship is much more about the future than the past. It has never been so good, and it is getting even better.

And the relationship is changing – with business at the forefront of that change.

Increasingly, our business links are a true two-way partnership. Britain has long been one of the biggest investors in India – we are currently the third largest. But over the last five years, India has also become an important investor in Britain – it is now the eighth largest. While Astra Zeneca, whose headquarters are in the UK, was opening this research centre in Bangalore, Dabur, an Indian firm, was investing in a pharmaceutical company in Britain to work on a new cancer drug.

That is a good example of the role played by cutting-edge science in our business relationship today. Britain and India have some of the best scientists and researchers in the world. The UK is a world leader for example in biotechnology, while India is building on traditional strengths in areas such as agricultural science and chemistry and developing new expertise in space sciences and energy technologies. Our governments, in partnership with industry, are working to encourage links between scientists by providing grants, fellowships and scholarships. The newly-launched Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Awards, worth £10 million, will allow top science PhD students from India and a number of other countries to study at leading research institutions in the UK.

The fruits of our closer scientific and research cooperation are tangible. About three quarters of Indian investments in the UK are in the knowledge-based sector. Indian IT, biotech and pharmaceutical companies recognise that the UK offers the best place from which to approach a growing European market, which is why 60% of Indian investment in Europe comes to Britain. That investment has created over 1 100 jobs over the last three years. The UK is now also India’s largest market in Europe for IT services, worth nearly $1 billion a year.

Already more Indian companies are listed on the London stock exchange than on the NASDAQ and the New York stock exchange combined. Our trade in goods is rising by 20% every year; trade in services is probably rising even faster. At least two thirds of all software professionals who come from abroad to work in Britain are from India. 14 000 Indian students come to the UK every year to study – four times as many as only five years ago. I have just come from the new British Library in Bangalore, where I was presenting awards to the latest group of Chevening scholars to complete their studies in the UK.

So our partnership is changing and prospering. The Indian community in Britain is playing a crucial role in that. Many Britons of Indian origin are amongst those forging the hi-tech links which are changing the nature of our business relationship.

People of Indian origin have always prospered in Britain. Today they number well over a million – the largest single ethnic minority in Britain today, and the most prosperous. Their links with traditional sectors are still strong with people of Indian origin running a large proportion of British retail outlets. But today, they are just as likely to make their money in IT or biotechnology or law. I see much of this for myself in my own parliamentary constituency of Blackburn, which boasts many people of Indian origin with strong links to the subcontinent.

Young British entrepreneurs of Indian origin are not just prospering in Britain – they are also prospering in India, and forming a vital bridge between our two countries. Take Karan Bilimoria, UK co-chairman of the Indo-British Partnership for trade and investment. Born in Hyderabad, he created a beer called Cobra which has become a household name in the UK. Now he is bringing it back to India by investing here. Or take the example of the many young British Indians working in the IT sector, who are establishing partnerships with Indian firms to help them develop new software.

Bangalore is playing an important part in our burgeoning business partnership. More than 70 British companies have operations here, including leading firms such as HSBC, Rolls Royce, BAe Systems, Logica CMG and Misys. Their work ranges from software development and electronics to aerospace, engineering or education. Bangalore’s links with Britain are also strong in the other direction, through the investments in the UK of Indian IT firms such as Wipro, Mindtree and Infosys, or through collaboration on cutting-edge biotechnology research.

Many of you will know that one aspect of these links in particular has recently hit the headlines in Britain – the decisions by some British companies to outsource services to India, and especially to this region. Increasingly, our mortgages are processed here, our bank transactions completed, our insurance claims approved, our telephone directory and rail enquiries answered – all here in Bangalore.

That reflects first of all the advantages this region has to offer. The concentration of service companies here is also part of a wider trend, as the Indian economy grows into an ever more important domestic market in its own right which service providers want to get close to.

Quite naturally, attention in Britain has focussed on the potential job losses when companies outsource work to India. The British Government, like any government, takes seriously the impact that such decisions have on local employment conditions. We share the concerns of those immediately affected by them, and we have put in place a comprehensive package of support for those facing redundancy.

But we must be realistic about the scale of this. The British newspapers will lead on the jobs lost when British companies source work abroad; but they are generally silent on the number of jobs created by companies from overseas choosing to invest in the UK. We read about the banks and insurers who are relocating jobs to India; but many people are less aware that in 2002, for example, inward investment in the UK financial services sector alone created 5 000 British jobs.

Inward investment is not coming to Britain by accident, but because we have an open, stable economy and a highly-skilled workforce; and because we are investing for the future in education, skills, infrastructure and innovation. Some call centres are moving abroad; but call centres in the UK are set to grow too. Some are even moving back to the UK. Many US companies source their services in Britain. We already have some 5 500 call centres employing 400 000 people. And of course Britain is part of the world’s largest single market in the shape of the European Union, set to grow on 1 May this year to 450 million people.

Globalisation creates jobs in India; but it creates jobs in Britain too. The overwhelming evidence is that open economies, where business can make its own decisions unhampered by protectionist barriers and bureaucratic over-regulation, prosper more than closed ones.

So we will not practice protectionism at home. If British companies benefit from working with Indian service providers in Bangalore and elsewhere, then Britain as a whole benefits.

And this belief in the virtues of open competition means we will also work to break down barriers and disincentives to trade and investment abroad. I believe for example that Indian companies and Indian consumers will benefit if British firms are allowed greater access to Indian markets in sectors where they are world-beating – such as banking, accounting, legal services and insurance.

It is also important that those foreign companies investing here have the right safeguards for their business. I could hardly visit Astra Zeneca, for example, without emphasising the importance for the global pharmaceutical industry of an efficient and properly-enforced intellectual property rights and patent system, in line with India’s WTO obligations. There is still some work to be done to achieve this; but the benefits it could bring in terms of greater investment in India make it well worthwhile.

I hope also that we can soon see an increase in air services between our two countries by resolving our differences and agreeing new flights in the ongoing negotiations. That is what business and consumers in both countries want.

Increasingly the barriers to mutually-beneficial competition between India and Britain are disappearing. Bureaucratic obstacles to investment in India by British companies continue to shrink. And India’s economic reforms over the last ten years have broken down barriers to trade, investment and competition. Those reforms have already paid off handsomely; and all the forecasts are that the impressive rates of growth of the last years are set to continue. India is already the world’s eleventh largest economy, and the fourth largest in purchasing power parity terms. The highest-performing regions in India are true Asian tigers, with growth rates of 10%. There is a real feel good factor here which is obvious even to visitors like me.

But India’s success is in my view not just down to market reforms: it is also the product of a solid framework of values and institutions. India’s democratic, pluralist society supports a vibrant diversity which helps innovation to prosper. A country with 5 500 daily newspapers and almost 46 000 periodicals is a country where discussion, debate and creativity thrive. It is no accident that India produces the largest number of films in the world. India’s other advantage is an education system which produces more than 3 million graduates every year. They are helping make this country a world-class player in cutting-edge fields such as biotechnology and IT, as this centre demonstrates.

And that economic success is not just making our bilateral business partnership stronger. It is also bringing us closer together in terms of our international interests. Nowhere more, perhaps, than in the importance we both attach to making progress on global free trade – whilst ensuring that we do so in a way which maximises the positive impact it can have on the world’s poorest countries.

The last fifty years have shown how much we all benefit from free trade world-wide. Since the GATT was launched in 1947, with a newly-independent India as a founder member, world trade has increased twenty times. That has helped deliver a six-fold increase in world output.

It is in all our interests to make sure that process continues. The European Commission has estimated that halving trade protection world-wide would boost world income by $400 billion per year, or 1.4% of world GDP.

The critics of globalisation argue, however, that this wealth will simply be amassed by powerful multinational companies and by the world’s richest countries, at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable.

But in fact breaking down barriers to free trade can help the poorest most of all. Since the end of the Uruguay Round in 1994, developing countries’ trade has grown at twice the rate of other countries’. The evidence is that relative to GDP, the poorest countries would gain most from further liberalisation. Taking again the example of a halving of trade barriers world-wide, the European Commission puts the possible gains to developing countries at $150 billion a year. That is three times what they get in aid, and it would lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015.

The Doha Round is a development Round – which makes it all the more urgent that we get the negotiations back on track. India’s active engagement is a condition of success – so I strongly welcome the clear statements that Minister Jaitley has made lately reaffirming India’s commitment to the trade Round.

You would not expect Britain and India to have identical interests in the Doha Round. But it is a sign of our growing and changing partnership that we have more in common than many would think. First and foremost, we share a strong interest in seeing the Round reach a liberalising conclusion. We have a common interest in avoiding protectionism, for example over steel tariffs. With our long legal traditions, we both want an effective global dispute settlement arrangement.

I know that agriculture is a frequent bone of contention between Europe and countries such as India. But in fact, we in Britain would like to see more Indian access to the European market for your farm produce. Agricultural subsidies are an example of how protection harms both rich and poor. In the OECD countries they amount to more than the national income of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. The more we can open developed-world markets to agricultural products, the more we help countries trade themselves out of poverty. And the more choice and savings we offer to consumers in the developed world – because agricultural protection increases the cost of food by an estimated $1 500 per year for a family of four in the EU.

Last June the EU took an important step to reform the Common Agricultural Policy by deciding to cut the link between subsidies and production. Over time, this reform has the potential to change fundamentally the direction of European agriculture – to make it more market-oriented and less trade-distorting. But there is more we can and should do – so re-engaging in the Doha round is vital.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Britain and India both want the Doha round to bring lasting benefits to the world’s poorest. That is part of our commitment to fighting poverty – a commitment which we have long shared, but which is also changing as our modern partnership evolves.

We share the Millennium development goal of cutting world poverty in half by 2015. Britain’s commitment to India’s poorest regions has never been stronger – we are spending £200 million on development in this year alone in India, more than we spend anywhere else. At the same time, Britain and India are increasingly working together as donors, for example in Africa and through the multilateral development institutions.

I think we have both come to realise through this shared experience that sustainable development is about much more than just raising incomes. If we do not also tackle environmental degradation, conflict, insecurity or disease, we cannot create the conditions where people can build better lives for their families. By promoting our shared values of democracy and the rule of law abroad, we are also promoting the conditions where stability and prosperity can take root. India’s example – of a stable, democratic framework which supports a vibrant and unparalleled diversity of people, languages, religions and opinions – shows that link very clearly.

In the same way, we strive for economic success not just because it creates jobs and improves the living standards of our citizens, but because it also cements their security. It is surely no coincidence that the historic steps forward in India-Pakistan relations in recent weeks come at a time of economic confidence in both countries. After half a century of tensions, both countries have a strong incentive to build a secure, peaceful zone where their citizens can continue to prosper. The rejuvenated prospects for SAARC’s economic cooperation will help reinforce that.

That process will, I hope, show how a virtuous circle of prosperity and security can be built. Greater security encourages business to invest for the long term, and the closer ties of interdependence created by trade and growth reinforce security. We have seen in Europe how former enemies can cooperate to build lasting peace and prosperity. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it is something worth working for.

In today’s interdependent world, the agreement to discuss a resolution of the Kashmir dispute is great news not just for people in the subcontinent, but for people everywhere.

As I see for myself in my constituency, it is certainly great news for all those who have come from that region to make their home in Britain. More widely, we all have an interest in seeing peace and security entrenched, because insecurity and tension, however far away, can affect us all. A peaceful and secure India is good for Britons who want to do business here, or simply to visit as tourists to enjoy the marvels India has to offer.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I started by saying that our relationship, steeped in shared history, is today prospering and changing. Our business links are strong and growing stronger, and they are at the heart of our deepening partnership.

Britain and India have long shared common values. More and more, we share common interests too, and a common approach – whether on globalisation and free trade, promoting sustainable development, or fighting terrorism and building peace and security. Ours is a modern partnership which is firmly oriented towards the future. Let me thank you all for the role you play in that.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, in Paris on 12th January 2004.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The relationship between France and Britain reminds me of a family. Families are not optional, and they are not always easy. When there are rows they are often all the more intense. But family members know they have a special bond.

The Kings and Queens of England from 1066 until the fifteenth century spoke French and spent most of their time in what is now France – and many are still buried here. When in the 19th century Queen Victoria asked for the remains of Henry II and Richard the Lionheart to be ‘returned’ from the crypt at Fontevrault, the then Préfet of Maine-et-Loire declined, on the basis that the Plantagenets were ‘French citizens who had long since returned home’. While English and French kings – often linked by family ties – fought for the throne of France in the Hundred Years War, Scotland forged the Auld Alliance. Later the Huguenots who arrived in the seventeenth century greatly enriched British life.

The next time that you in France worry about the spread of the English language, you can comfort yourselves by thinking of the legacy French has left on my side of the channel. Our royal motto is ‘Dieu et mon droit’ – and if you object to that, ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’. Indeed the English language is a hybrid of Anglo-Saxon and the Norman French which William brought with him in 1066, which means there are often two words for the same thing. We rear swine, bulls or sheep, good Saxon words; but we eat pork (porc), beef (boeuf) and mutton (mouton).

Our history has always been close; but it has often featured rivalry and conflict. No Frenchman who takes the Eurostar to Waterloo station and walks across the Thames to Trafalgar square can forget that – nor can a Briton visiting one of France’s many monuments or museums dedicated to Joan of Arc.

But in fact we have not fought each other seriously since 1815 and today, thankfully, our most passionate rivalry is confined to the sports field. England and France will open their Euro 2004 campaigns in Portugal this summer against each other – and let’s hope the same two teams meet in the final.

Although we had fought no wars against each other since 1815, by the end of the 19th century Britain and France, as the world’s two pre-eminent colonial powers, were vying for influence in Africa, Asia and beyond. The great achievement of the Entente Cordiale of 1904 was to temper that rivalry and mark the beginning of a new, closer relationship which has now endured 100 years of troubled European history. The Entente laid the basis for our military alliance through the last century, including in the two World Wars.

GENERAL DE GAULLE

No Foreign Secretary can forget the importance of our alliance against Nazism. During the second world war, my official Residence in London was the home of General de Gaulle. His portrait hangs to this day on the wall, his statue opposite – constant reminders of the bond forged between our countries during Europe’s darkest hour. Together, our two countries helped free Europe from the grip of Nazi terror. This year we have another chance to remember that when we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

Despite our shared goal and our shared victory, Britain’s and France’s experiences of the second world war were profoundly different. Britain’s memories are of lonely and dogged resistance of 1940, and of the support of the Empire and of the United States in winning final victory. France remembers not just the contribution of the Resistance and French forces to the eventual defeat of Nazism, but also the horrors of invasion and occupation.

Inevitably, our approaches to Europe in the decades after the war were shaped by these experiences. France’s overwhelming priority was to build a framework where war with Germany, which it had suffered three times in seventy years, would be made impossible. And General de Gaulle was determined to recover French national pride through leadership in Europe. Britain’s first reaction to European integration was to treat it as something which did not concern us; only later did we decide to be part of it. Our experience during the war convinced us deeply that keeping the strongest possible relationship between Europe and the US was the cornerstone of our security and prosperity.

These differences of history are important, and they are still visible today. Any relationship, especially one of neighbours with more than a thousand years of interlinked history, is bound to be complex and involve differences and disagreements. But our differences can too easily be exaggerated. This year’s Entente Cordiale celebrations are a chance to remind ourselves that what unites us is much more than what divides us.

Most obviously, we share today a commitment to Europe and a conception of how the European Union should work.

Britain and France are both strong and proud nations with firmly-entrenched national traditions of democracy and political debate. At the same time, however, we both recognise that no nation can deal alone with the threats which confront it. Nor can we alone make the most of the opportunities of today’s world. We are stronger when we pool some of our sovereignty in order to achieve objectives we could not achieve on our own.

Neither of us wants a federal European superstate. It would not work; and our citizens would not be comfortable with it. Both of us want a Europe of nations – and a Europe which works.

The negotiations on a new constitutional treaty for the EU have been living proof that the EU is an organisation of sovereign member states who have to reach agreements among themselves for the work of the Union to go forward.

EU INSTITUTIONS

We need time to build consensus on EU institutions; but we cannot let this be a time of inaction in Europe. All the recent focus on institutions, necessary as it has been, has I am afraid done little for public approval of the EU. According to a recent poll by Eurobarometer, fewer than half of people across the EU thought their country’s membership of the Union was a good thing.

We have to remember that institutions are only a means to an end. What people want is a Europe which delivers security and prosperity to its citizens.

Britain and France are well placed to help deliver this.

The European single market – the largest in the world – was a huge, historic achievement which enhanced the prosperity of all of us. Today we need to keep the EU focussed on delivering reforms which will create more jobs and higher growth. Together we can meet the challenges of a globalised and fiercely competitive world – but we cannot do so by standing still.

France and Britain are also committed to helping the EU develop a stronger, more coherent voice in foreign affairs commensurate with its economic standing as the world’s largest trading bloc. Again, we are well placed to do so. Our history as colonial powers left us with networks of friendship, culture and language – and also ties of obligation and responsibility – which cover almost every region of the world. We are members of more international organisations than any other countries in the world. We are both natural multilateralists. When we work together, it increases our influence and that of Europe as a whole.

I visited Iran last October with my French and German colleagues, Dominique de Villepin and Joschka Fischer. All three of us went as foreign ministers of sovereign nation states. But together, acting on the basis of an EU consensus, we got commitments from Iran on its nuclear activities which are now being turned into concrete action as Iran co-operates with the IAEA. And we are following this through by continued engagement with this dossier.

SECURITY COUNCIL

As permanent members of the Security Council and with our effective armed forces, Britain and France have also led efforts to develop an effective European Security and Defence Policy. This enables Europe to act on its own to protect and advance its interests, to act with NATO support, or indeed better to support NATO through stronger military capabilities. France played the key role in both of the first two operations – in Macedonia and in the Bunia province of the DRC. We are now working to plan for an EU-led force to replace NATO in Bosnia.

Behind our foreign policy is our shared and profound interest in maintaining the authority and centrality of the rules-based, multilateral international system. We both, rightly, attach great importance to our permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Despite our differences on Iraq, on almost every other UN issue our views are very close. When we agree between us, our influence with other members of the Council is persuasive.

But our influence in New York is only as strong as the UN itself. That means we have a strong common interest in keeping the US and others fully engaged in the multilateral system, and in making that system as effective as possible.

Our differences over Iraq were, in essence, differences over how best to maintain the authority of international rules. I respect the position which France took, and it is a matter of regret to me that we were divided over it. But Britain went to war in Iraq, as a last resort, because Saddam Hussein was still defying the international community after 12 years of discussion and 17 UN resolutions. We felt that international law without enforcement would become a dead letter. If we had failed to live up to the tough words of the unanimous Resolution 1441 and its many predecessors, we would have not only been left with the continuing threat from Iraq: our ability to persuade others to respect international standards would also have been much diminished.

Whatever our differences over military action in Iraq, today we share a commitment to bringing security, prosperity and representative government to the Iraqi people. Under the plan proposed by the Governing Council and endorsed by the UN, power will be fully handed over to a provisional Iraqi government by July. For the first time in more than a generation, the Iraqis have the chance to build the kind of country they deserve.

France has much to contribute to this by way of expertise – in policing, in constitutional development, in reconstruction. Tragically, two French civilian experts lost their lives last Monday while working on that reconstruction, and our thoughts are with their families and friends.

Their deaths are another reminder of how important it is to defeat the terrorists, who want to stop Iraq becoming the free, stable and prosperous country its people want. The Multi-National Force in Iraq is committed to stay as long as the Iraqis want and as mandated by the UN Security Council, to help the people of Iraq create the secure environment they need.

France’s and Britain’s commitment to an effective, rules-based international system does not just apply to relations between states. We are also well placed to lead efforts to promote better governance, the rule of law and human rights within states around the world.

Between us we have produced many of the greatest thinkers on the rights of man and the good governance of public business: Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Paine, Mill, to name just a few. We both have long and entrenched traditions of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in our own countries. So we are uniquely placed to advance these values in less fortunate parts of the world, including Africa, to which our history gives us a special shared commitment. We have increasingly come to recognise that without promoting these values, and the sustainable development which they can help facilitate, we cannot hope to create the more stable and prosperous world we both want.

STATE VISIT BY HM THE QUEEN

We shall mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale with a State visit by HM the Queen to France in April, and a return visit by the President of the Republic to Britain in the Autumn. But the celebrations are not just about big official occasions. We also want them to be the chance for people to get to know each other better, to celebrate the links they have and to build on them further; and to break down the stereotypes which are there on each side of La Manche. Many events will be designed for young people, and occasions such as friendly sports matches will raise money for our joint fight against the ravages of cancer.

Ties between people across the Channel are already very strong. A quarter of a million French people live in the UK today. In the other direction, at least 100,000 Britons have homes in France, the largest settlement since the Hundred Years War, bringing cricket and cream teas to the Dordogne and Normandy. These are not only people retiring to enjoy France’s climate and quality of life. We have farmers, carpenters, teachers – younger people from all walks of life settling and working in France without difficulty. This is Europe at work. Meanwhile, France gets 12 million visits a year from Britons – and 3 million French visit the UK.

Each of our countries sells 10% of its exports to the other – that’s €60 billion of trade every year. 1 300 French companies have invested in the UK; 1 800 British companies have done so in France. Four and a half centuries ago Mary Tudor lost Calais; in 2001, the Conseil Général of Seine-Maritime bought the English port of Newhaven in order to maintain the ferry service to Dieppe. More French students study in Britain than anywhere else abroad. 1270 UK towns are twinned with partners in France – more than in any other country. My own constituency of Blackburn was the first town ever to twin with a partner abroad. It did so formally in 1926, and informally before that, with the little town of Péronne in the Département de la Somme, because so much blood had been shed by the young of both towns on the soil there, in a terrible but common endeavour – and because the people of my town wanted to help Péronne in its rebuilding.

I don’t believe the talk of cultural rivalry between France and ‘les Anglo-Saxons’. We enjoy the best of both cultures – look at the lasting success of the musical we call ‘Les Miz’ in London. The same is true in sport. French sportspeople such as Thierry Henry at Arsenal, or British ones such as the sailor Ellen MacArthur, have hundreds of thousands of fans on both sides of the Channel. English football and rugby would be less exciting than they are without the many French players in the top clubs – or their French managers.

Whatever field you take, our links are strong. But we still know less about each other than we like to think. In a recent poll conducted in France, 75% of respondents said they didn’t know the UK very well. Though a majority thought the relationship important, most felt it was more between governments than between people.

The challenge for this year’s Entente Cordiale celebrations is to understand each other better and to make our links even stronger than they are. France and Britain share goals and ambitions in everything from creating jobs and safeguarding security at home, to promoting justice and sustainable development abroad. Our economic and social agendas are coming closer to each other. We both want more energetic international action to tackle AIDS and global warming. The list is long.

No-one would expect two great nations like ours to agree on everything. But we can achieve even more together than we already do – and this year gives us a great opportunity to make that a reality.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, at Chatham House on 12th February 2004.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As ever, it’s a great pleasure to be here at Chatham House and to have the chance to speak to such a distinguished audience. I want to talk today about the Strategy for the Foreign Office which I published in December, and the wider international debate on the nature of foreign policy today.

When I was Home Secretary from 1997-2001, my job – as defined by the mission statement of the Home Office – was ‘to build a safe, just and tolerant society’. As Foreign Secretary, it is ‘to work for UK interests in a safe, just and prosperous world.’

That similarity is no accident. Much of what we want to achieve in Britain is dependent, to at least some extent, on being active abroad. If we want to keep drugs off British streets, we must tackle poppy cultivation in Afghanistan; we must fund judicial reform projects in South America and the Balkans so that drug barons cannot escape the courts; and we must get European Union police forces to work more closely together against drug gangs. In the face of terrorist or criminal networks who operate globally, as we saw so tragically at Morecambe Bay last Friday, we must maintain a foreign policy which is closely integrated with our domestic agenda.

More widely, a multicultural country such as Britain is by definition somewhere where foreign policy matters at home. The relationship between India and Pakistan is of special interest for the many hundreds of thousands of British people with family links to South Asia – and those people, as I noted last week when I visited India, form a vital bridge between our countries. Likewise, our relationship with the Islamic world is inseparable from our own society – it is just as much about how I interact with my 25,000 Muslim constituents in Blackburn as it is about Europe’s or America’s relationship with the Middle East.

As the world becomes more interdependent, the boundary between ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ policy is increasingly blurred. Foreign affairs are no longer very foreign. And that means that they matter more, perhaps, than ever before.

The end of the Cold War brought liberty and democracy to millions, and lifted the threat of global nuclear confrontation. But as the superpower stand-off came to an end, the world also became more complex, and new threats to our security emerged. Conflicts in the dissolving Yugoslav federation brought instability to the borders of the EU, along with the related influx of refugees and the spread of organised crime. In Africa, the collapse of state authority in former superpower clients allowed chaos and conflict to spread far beyond its original borders.

We began to realise then that far away had a direct impact on our own security. The attacks of 11 September 2001 brought this new reality into even sharper focus, as the violence and repression of the Taleban tragically struck New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. It was clear that there was no such thing any more – if indeed there ever was – as a far-away country of which we knew nothing and to which we could afford to be indifferent.

NEW ERA IN FOREIGN POLICY

We understood then that we had entered a new era in foreign policy. We needed better to understand the new threats we face today, which are as likely to come from non-state groups such as terrorists and international criminals as they are from other states. We needed to work out how best to tackle them, and address the conditions in which they could thrive, as well as looking ahead strategically at the context in which threats and opportunities for the UK were likely to evolve.

It was also clear that we could not hope to act on every issue: we would need to prioritise those which were most important, or where the UK could make a difference.

And because of the close link between foreign and domestic policy, we would need to agree international priorities not just for the Foreign Office, but for the whole of government. In the Foreign Office, we would need to look hard at how best to organise ourselves to pursue our goals.

Those were the challenges to which the Strategy which I published in December last year aims to give at least some initial answers.

The Strategy identifies eight international priorities for the UK, based on an analysis of the threats and opportunities we face and of how we expect the world to develop over the next ten years. They are set out in full in the highlights of the Strategy which you have on your chairs today.

Our conclusion in the Strategy is that Britain’s safety and prosperity depend more than ever on working for a safe, just and prosperous world. To protect the UK from threats such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and international crime, and to promote our economic interests, we must be active and engaged in the world. Our aim must be to build lasting safety and prosperity underpinned by justice – by sustainable development especially for the poorest and most vulnerable, and by democracy, good governance and human rights.

This is an integrated agenda, with justice as its pivot. There is no longer, if there ever was, a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ foreign policy, between pursuing your interests on the one hand and pursuing your convictions on the other. We cannot pursue lasting safety and prosperity if we do not also promote justice.

And to act on this integrated agenda we need to use the tools at our disposal in a joined-up way. So this Government’s record levels of development aid help lift people out of poverty and disease, and tackle environmental degradation. Our diplomacy helps prevent and resolve conflicts, and build trust and peace. We work with countries around the world to reinforce good governance, human rights and the rule of law.

INTEGRATED AGENDA

We do so not just because it is right, but because it is firmly in Britain’s interest. By working on this integrated agenda we are tackling the conditions where frustrated hopes and crippling injustice can allow terrorism and extremism to prosper. And we are helping build states which are reliable partners for the UK, and stable and prosperous places for Britons to do business with or to visit.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Having set out what we need to do, across government, the Strategy also sets out our initial thoughts on how the Foreign Office can best play our role in implementing this agenda. Its overriding conclusion is that our global network of 223 posts in over 150 countries around the world is our vital asset. Not everything they do can or should hit the headlines. But the contribution British diplomacy makes to building peace, promoting reform and good governance, defusing tensions and tackling threats to our own security and prosperity is very real. And that diplomacy pays. Sorting out Bosnia, where conflict had been allowed to spread, cost the British taxpayer £1.5 billion. Kosovo, where we took military action to avert humanitarian disaster, cost £200 million. Macedonia, where we have been able to prevent conflict through early common action, cost us just £14 million.

Our posts also provide high-quality public services around the world. 50% of all our staff work in service delivery. Our consular staff provide assistance and advice to 1 000 British travellers each week. The Travel Advice on the FCO website gets 700 000 hits every month. UKVisas handles some 2 million visa applications every year. Last year UK Trade and Investment helped bring on nearly 1,800 new exporters, helped nearly 4,400 companies break into new markets and recorded over 700 decisions by foreign-owned companies to locate in the UK creating 34,000 new jobs.

We do all this with an operational budget of £950 million per year – about a quarter of one per cent of government expenditure. So the Foreign Office’s global network delivers real value and results which matter to people’s lives. Now, the Strategy gives us a framework for getting better value still, by focussing our resources on the Government’s strategic priorities.

We are now looking at how best we can adapt our organisation to do this. It is already clear that we will need to maintain an effective network with global reach in order to achieve our priorities and to deliver high-quality services to the public. We will also need to build in more flexibility to respond quickly to crises and to new opportunities. We are getting better at this: at one point last year 5% of all our staff in London were redeployed to working on Iraq.

But we must also recruit and retain a more diverse workforce, against the backdrop of the threat to our staff from terrorism and from difficult conditions, and the challenges of global mobility. We still have a long way to go in achieving levels of diversity which truly reflect the diversity of the UK which we represent.

And lastly, we will need to work more closely across Government and with outside players such as Parliament, NGOs, Trades Unions or business. All these actors have a growing role in international affairs, and a shared stake in developing British foreign policy.

‘THE CHALLENGES WE FACE ARE GLOBAL’

But whatever efforts we make in the Foreign Office and across the Government, Britain can achieve none of our priorities on our own. The challenges we face are global, and they require a global response. That means our uniquely strong network of alliances and cooperation around the world, combined with the global connections which our history and language provide, are more important today than ever.

Our membership of the European Union and our relationship with the United States are central to almost everything we do internationally. It is also of paramount importance to our future prosperity and security that the relationship between Europe and the US continues to be strong. That transatlantic partnership is deeply rooted in shared values, economic interdependence and common interests, and is essential to pursuing progressive change and global order. But we will need to keep working in order to maintain its strength. That will mean building a shared agenda, with Europe more effectively pursuing our shared security interests, and the US working with Europe and others on the wider economic development and environmental priorities that are so closely linked to our security.

The Strategy also highlights the historic opportunity we have to develop strategic relationships with emerging powers such as China and India as they play a greater and changing role in the international system. Russia and Japan will also continue to be key global powers and central to achieving our international priorities.

The backbone of all our relationships internationally is the multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, we have a fundamental interest in keeping that multilateral system strong and effective.

But the challenge for us now is to help strengthen the international system so that it is fully adapted to today’s international challenges. International rules, embodied in the UN Charter, have provided the framework for world order since the end of the second world war. But the world today is very different from that of 1945 when the UN Charter was signed. We need today to be able to act together, through the United Nations, to prevent the breakdown of order in states around the world, because it directly affects our own security. Decisions by states which fifty years ago would have been considered a matter of domestic policy – for example on developing certain kinds of weapons – are today of urgent interest for the whole world.

We manage our interdependence through common rules; but to be truly effective we also need to be prepared to enforce them with all the tools at our disposal, including military force as a last resort.

WMD

Take for example the global threat from the proliferation of WMD. I welcome the fact that this threat is now being taken as seriously as it must be by the international community – as demonstrated for example by the European Security Strategy. We now have a chance to reinforce our common action against it, for example through agreeing a UN resolution setting up a mechanism similar to the Counter-Terrorism Committee established by Resolution 1373.

Common action gets results. Iran has chosen to work with the IAEA and with Britain, France and Germany supported by the EU to resolve the outstanding issues surrounding its nuclear programme. Libya has chosen to engage with the UK and the US, and now with the IAEA and other appropriate bodies to disarm itself of WMD – a courageous step forward which will bring greater security to the whole region. North Korea remains a difficult case, but is engaged with China and others in the six-party talks, which we hope to see resume in the near future.

I know that many disagreed with the action the British government took in joining military action against Iraq. But I ask them to reflect on how dangerous the world would be today if we had shown that 17 mandatory UN Resolutions over 12 years were merely empty words. The big question left unanswered by those who still disagree with our military intervention, is this: what would you do to protect global security from a regime which threatens regional or international stability, and places itself defiantly beyond the reach of the international system on which our security depends? These are questions we and our partners must now grapple with, co-operatively and creatively. We cannot ignore them. The modern world is too dangerous for that.

We also need to discuss another key strategic challenge for the next decade: how we engage with the Arab and wider Islamic world. This will be crucial to most of the international priorities I have set out today. We need better to understand the forces that give rise to the hostility that some feel so deeply towards the West. And we need to show that we will help those who recognise the need for political, economic and social reform to deal with rising unemployment, low growth, low levels of human development and increased discontent.

Reform must come from and be shaped by the region itself, not be imposed from outside. But we in Europe, working with the US and in other groupings, must demonstrate how we can assist. Whatever our differences over Iraq, as Joschka Fischer said last weekend, we need to put those behind us. We must all recognise that the structural problems confronting many countries in the Middle East are not just their problems, but ours.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

‘A SAFE, JUST AND PROSPEROUS WORLD’

I began by noting the similarity between my two most recent jobs, between a safe, just and tolerant society and a safe, just and prosperous world.

Everyone in society has a stake in its safety, justice and tolerance. States such as the UK have centuries-old traditions of the rule of law with which people identify and which form the bedrock of all civilised life. The challenge for international diplomacy in the 21st century will be to build an international order in which states and people feel something of the same stake in working for a safe, just and prosperous world as they do in their own societies.

Safety, justice and prosperity are inextricably linked to each other; and achieving our goals means working on all three in an active and engaged way. How the UK uses our global network of relationships and influence to meet that challenge is the central theme of the FCO Strategy.

I want the Strategy to be the beginning of a process of debate, not the end. The post-Cold War world is complex and uncertain and presents new risks and opportunities. We have not yet reached a global understanding on what those risks and opportunities are, or how we should deal with them. But we are at a pivotal time for international policy. The European Security Strategy, or the formation of a High-Level Panel by the UN Secretary General, are examples of increasing efforts to develop an effective common response to today’s complex challenges. I hope that the FCO Strategy can start to frame Britain’s contribution to that global debate.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, in Davos, Switzerland, on 21st January 2004.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

2003 was momentous for Iraq, bringing the end of a regime which had for more than a generation brought the people of Iraq only violence, impoverishment and isolation. From this historic turning point the challenge for 2004 is to build the new Iraq which its people want – an Iraq governed by its people, secure and prosperous, at peace with its neighbours and reintegrated into the family of nations.

No-one argued that this was a process which would be over in a matter of months, and we still have a long way to go. The security situation is of course my number one concern; and there have been difficulties in other areas too, such as reconstruction – perhaps more than some expected.

SECURITY AND SERVICES

But I believe that overall life for Iraqis is slowly but steadily improving, some terrible terrorist outrages notwithstanding. Iraqi police and security forces, with the help of the Multinational Force, are building security based on the principle of consent, not on the repressive violence of Saddam’s security forces. Some 45,000 police are now on duty, with more being trained; their confidence and expertise are growing. Criminality has reduced significantly over the past months. I’m pleased to say that the British Police Service is in the lead in our sector in the south on police training.

Meanwhile 17,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, have already been launched. Almost 2,000 schools have been refurbished. 70 million revised textbooks are being printed and distributed. Over 30 million doses of vaccines have been provided since July.

I recognise that the provision of services does not yet meet the expectations of the Iraqi people. We are working hard to ensure that basic services are provided in an equitable way to all the people of Iraq. However, despite the obstacles posed by decades of severe underinvestment and by sabotage, electricity and water supplies have been improved as I saw when I visited Iraq in July and November last year.

TRADE

A newly independent central bank and a new currency are in place. You will have seen little of this in the papers. But the currency transfer has taken place remarkably smoothly. Iraq is developing more trusting and constructive relationships with its neighbours, and growing trade is boosting the Iraqi economy. We have made good progress on Iraq’s debt – the G7 has agreed to a substantial reduction of the debt burden in the context of a Paris Club settlement. Iraq’s natural resources, including its oil, can now be used for the benefit of all its people, instead of being held hostage to the ambitions and extravagances of a ruling clique. I have been privileged to have been to Iraq and it is only when you are there that you can see the scale of extravagance of the Palaces, plundered from the people. It is obscene.

GOVERNMENT

Approved by UNSCR 1483 the Iraqi Governing Council is a the most representative administration Iraq has ever seen. It embodies the diversity and complexity of Iraqi society. It is worth remembering that over half of the IGC are Shia. There is a political pluralism within the Governing Council which is wider than exists in many countries in the region.

Democratic campaigning followed by elections will be the key to forming a representative government for the people of Iraq. Specific dates have been set for an end to occupation, for a representative, sovereign Iraqi Transitional Government from July 2004; for a permanent constitution and for free and fair direct elections to a national constituent Assembly and Government in 2005.

The contribution of the United Nations to the electoral and constitutional processes in 2004-2005 will be vital. I welcome the fact that on Monday the UNSG – Kofi Annan – as requested by the Iraqi Governing Council, has undertaken to consider sending a UN technical team to Iraq to look into the feasibility of elections before June. The UN Secretary General has also confirmed his intention to appoint a Special Representative for Iraq at an appropriate time. This reaffirmation of the UN role is welcome. Of course we understand the security constraints they face, and no-one can forget the terrible nature of the attack on the UN last August. The Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition will of course help with appropriate security arrangements.

Meanwhile Iraqis are coming to terms with a real political debate, choosing between a host of rival sources of information – satellite dishes which were illegal under Saddam, more than 200 newspapers, unrestricted access to the internet. A dynamic Iraqi press corps is emerging, with journalists gaining experience and confidence in their reporting. Iraq already has a more vibrant press than many of its neighbours.

TARGETS

Looking ahead to later this year, the key event is the transfer of full authority to Iraqis by 1 July. The coalition will then move into a support role in partnership with the Iraqi people.

Our job is not to dictate Iraq’s future, but to support the consensus of Iraqi opinion. That means our policy will remain responsive as that opinion develops. Nonetheless, the fundamental principles of what the Iraqi people are working for, and what we should therefore promote, are already clear.

In partnership with Iraqis, we will work to promote stable, internationally-recognised federal government whose leaders they can choose, which respects their diversity and protects the rule of law and human rights. At the local level, we will help build democratically-elected administrations empowered to represent local populations. Already the Provincial Councils are being broadened to represent their constituencies more fully. We are also promoting an independent judicial system with strong courts and impartial non-political judges, upholding the rights of the Iraqi people.

Our commitment to reconstructing Iraq is firm. We will continue to help the new Iraqi public administration to run effectively, providing advice and guidance when that is what the Iraqis request. We are likely to channel a substantial part of our financial assistance to Iraq through the UN/World Bank International Reconstruction Fund Facility. We will also focus our assistance on reinforcing the capacity of the Iraqi civil service to administer the country effectively, and on rebuilding essential public services, most urgently in the poorest parts of the country which were the most neglected under Saddam.

LOOKING AHEAD

To achieve all of this, Iraq needs a stable, secure environment protected by non-partisan police and armed forces. If the Iraqi government requests, the Multi-National Force, with a strong British contingent and as mandated by the UN security council, will continue to work alongside Iraqi forces in maintaining security, while helping those forces to build the capacity to do this on their own.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The whole international community agreed on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, on his defiance of 17 UN Resolutions over 12 years, on the need to resolve the 173 pages worth of outstanding WMD concerns which UNMOVIC identified. However, the decision to take military action was and remains controversial. I respect the views of those who disagreed with us. But I would also ask them in turn to look back a year and consider the consequences of allowing Saddam Hussein to defy the final warning issued unanimously by the Security Council in Resolution 1441. I am in no doubt that if we had sat on our hands and not acted the world would today be a much more dangerous place.

And very few of the Iraqi people argue that Iraq is not a far better country today with Saddam out of power and answering to justice for his terrible crimes.

I make no secret of the fact that there are serious challenges ahead for Iraq – on security, on employment, on making a success of the political and constitutional process. But these difficulties can be overcome with determined and focussed effort. Whatever the differences a year ago, the whole international community today stands behind the Iraqi people. We are committed to helping them achieve their goal of building the free, secure and prosperous country they deserve.

Below is the text of the speech by the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to the Foreign Policy Centre in London on 27th August 2003.

Of all the changes the Labour Party undertook in the 1980s and 90s, one of the most significant was its attitude towards the European Union.

Twenty years ago, the party fought a General Election on an explicit and straightforward policy of withdrawal from what was then the EEC. To quote from that now infamous manifesto, we promised to “open immediate negotiations with our EEC partners, and introduce the necessary legislation, to prepare for Britain’s withdrawal from the EEC, to be completed well within the lifetime of the Labour government.”

Such a course was by then no longer a viable one and the British electorate took the view that a policy of withdrawal would have been wrong.

Ten years earlier – and, more particularly, in the 1975 referendum – Britain did have a genuine choice about the strategic direction of its future relationship with the rest of Europe. Those of us who campaigned for a No vote did so because we felt a viable alternative course existed at the time.

Withdrawal today would however be nothing less than a betrayal of Britain’s fundamental national interests.

Britain’s deepened membership of the European Union is a vital part of our country’s economic prosperity and wellbeing, and an increasingly important element of our political and diplomatic influence in the world.

Almost 60% of our exports go to the rest of the EU, and 3 million jobs rely on our place in the largest single market in the world – a market that is set to rise to 450 million people from next year.

And the benefits to Britain extend well beyond the economic. Our air is cleaner and beaches less polluted because of binding environmental standards agreed across the Union. Workers’ rights have been enhanced and British people can travel with ease across our continent.

As a party, we have always believed that nations co-operating achieve more together than they can alone. After all, that’s why we have felt so strongly about the United Nations and other multilateral international organisations working for the common good.

So as an active and engaged member of the European Union, our Labour government has helped achieve further benefits to British citizens on a range of issues from working hours to tackling cross-border crime, from more effective measures to deal with asylum to the whole Lisbon agenda for economic reform.

And as Gordon Brown made clear in June, if and when we believe that the economic conditions are right and the tests spelt out by Gordon have been met, we will propose to the British people in a referendum that the UK join the Single European currency.

But perhaps the EU’s greatest achievement is a more profound one.

It is easy to forget that but for the last 50 years or so Europe resolved its conflicts through violence and war. The visceral hatreds and animosities which existed between countries of our continent appeared to be insoluble to most of my parents’ generation.

Yet the EU has helped to provide a means of reconciliation and friendship between once hostile enemies. By encouraging a genuine sense of shared destiny, it has helped achieve the most basic goal of its creators: the absence of war.

Moreover, it has done so by advancing fundamental values of freedom, tolerance and democracy across our European continent.

The prospect and reality of EU membership was an important element in the transition of Spain, Portugal and Greece from right-wing dictatorships 30 years ago to vibrant democracies.

And today, we are witnessing its most historic advance with the final end to the Cold War division of Europe and the welcoming of counties which for decades laboured under the tyranny of the Soviet bloc.

Eight of Europe’s new democracies are to join the EU next year, along with Cyprus and Malta. For countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, EU membership will a key part of their full emergence as strong, confident and prosperous nation states.

The expansion of the EU to Central and Eastern Europe will boost the influence and prestige of the Union. But it will result in a significant enhancement to Britain’s own economic and political interests too.

It is already changing the culture and dynamics of the EU to our advantage. After all, countries which have successfully thrown off the shackles of Soviet tyranny are not about to agree to subsume their national identities into any superstate of anti-European myth.

And so I believe that enlargement of the EU should be the cause for celebration across the political spectrum here in Britain.

Yet over recent months we have witnessed the bizarre spectacle of senior Conservatives travelling to countries of this new Europe urging people in national referendums to reject EU membership.

They include David Heathcoat-Amory, the man whom the Conservative Party chose to be one of the British Parliament’s two representatives on the Convention on the Future of Europe, and two Conservative MEPS, Daniel Hannan and Roger Helmer.

None of these can be dismissed as eccentrics on the fringe of the Tory Party. And while they have been spectacularly unsuccessful so far in winning over the people of Central and Eastern Europe the fact that they have received no censure from the Party leadership speaks volumes for how the Conservative Party’s centre of gravity has shifted rightwards under Iain Duncan Smith.

Today’s Tory party is a far cry from the one which took Britain into the EEC in 1973 and negotiated both the Single European Act in 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 – the two European treaties which saw the greatest pooling of sovereignty in the last 30 years.

The dogmatic hatred of the European Union within the Tory Party is both deep and visceral. Pro-Europeans like Chris Patten, Douglas Hurd and Kenneth Clarke are marginalised, even ridiculed, by a new majority which views hostility to the EU as an act of ideological faith.

The election of the Maastricht rebel Iain Duncan Smith as Conservative Party leader two years ago was the anti-Europeans’ greatest success – and he has not disappointed them.

Ten years ago, Iain Duncan Smith was part of a small but obsessive clique of right- wingers in the Conservative Party intent on wrecking the Maastricht Treaty and bringing down John Major’s government.

A Government whip described the group to a Tory backbencher of the time as “nutters” (Ian Taylor, Hansard, 21.5.03, col. 1073.

Now, alongside Iain Duncan Smith in the Shadow Cabinet, and now seemingly responsible for policy on the forthcoming EU constitutional treaty, is the hardest nut of all, Bill Cash.

This would be funny if it were not so serious. Serious because Britain’s main Opposition party is now run by people whose life’s work has been directed at undermining Britain’s place within the European Union.

Of course, in his bid for respectability, Mr Duncan Smith has been very careful. For 12 months, he barely uttered a word on Europe for fear of scaring the horses, and remarks made before his leadership election about renegotiation and withdrawal have not been repeated.

A stronger, more able leader might have used this opportunity to take on the destructive ideology of Tory anti-Europeanism as part of a strategy of returning the party to the mainstream of British politics. There was perhaps no one better placed to do it, just as Neil Kinnock was the only politician in 1983 able to begin the reform of the Labour Party.

But Iain Duncan Smith is no Neil Kinnock – and is as much a prisoner of the anti-Europeans as its spokesman.

The experience of one Tory Party pressure group committed to the prospect of UK withdrawal from the EU is telling. Conservatives Against a Federal Europe (Café) boasts Iain Duncan Smith as one of its Vice Presidents and, after years of acting as a thorn in the side of Central Office, decided to suspend active campaigning following his election as leader of the party.

Yet, for all this, Duncan Smith pleads that the Tory Party is not in favour of withdrawal. He accuses those of suggesting otherwise of “telling a lie” (Speech in Prague, 10.7.03). Indeed, in an attempt to convince people of his undying support for the European Union, he travelled to Prague last month to make that speech in which he described EU enlargement – the very same enlargement opposed by senior Tories in Estonia, Malta and elsewhere – as “historic” and the Union’s “greatest achievement”.

And in a phrase which would have made Bill Cash startle, he even commended the EU’s founders for their clarity of vision.

But Bill Cash and the others who share Duncan Smith’s history and instincts have no need to worry, for behind these warm words was an extraordinary speech which painted a picture of an EU of his dreams which, even if desirable, would never be attainable.

It inhabited a fantasy world of distorted logic and contrived demons to suggest that the EU had been hijacked by power-crazed and unelected bureaucrats determined to destroy the sovereignty of national parliaments and create a United States of Europe against the wishes of democratically-elected governments.

Quite apart from the fact that change within the EU can only take place with the agreement of member states, his answer to this demon appears to be to reject some of the fundamental aspects of the EU which Britain has long accepted and, instead, suggest the creation of some sort of European free-trade area where any one of 25 or more national parliaments could exercise a veto over any particular EU measure.

In doing so, Mr Duncan Smith appears far keener to re-fight the battle of 1993 – and even 1973 – than make constructive proposals for 2003 and beyond.

Little wonder then that Ken Clarke said that “Iain should not pretend this speech is not a call for withdrawal from the European Union in any recognisable form.” [Gallery News, 10 July 2003]

Mr Duncan Smith’s argument that the EU should not have “supremacy over our national laws” is extraordinary from someone who claims to be in favour of British membership of the European Union. From its outset with the Treaty of Rome, EU law has had primacy over national law in those areas where member states agree. The British Parliament accepted this in 1973.

How, for example, could the Single Market work if each member state decided to ignore agreed measures, and there was no supranational power to enforce it? That was, after all, why Margaret Thatcher agreed to give up the national veto on a wide range of issues in the 1986 Single European Act.

I know of no other EU country which has advocated such a proposal, and there was no effort made in this speech to suggest where Britain would receive support in the event that a Conservative government put it forward.

Even in the accession countries with which Duncan Smith crassly attempts to align himself there is no appetite for the changes he suggests.

Yet without support for such a wholesale renegotiation of existing treaties, this imaginary Conservative government would be faced either with capitulation or withdrawal. It is the choice which today’s Tory Party would prefer not to acknowledge publicly. But it is the only choice there is. And either course would do lasting damage to Britain at home and abroad.

That is the reason for various attempts from senior Conservatives such as David Heathcoat-Amory to contrive some mythical alternative of “associate membership”. Quite apart from the unfortunate position Britain would find itself – being subject to measures over which it had no say – such a prospect is the stuff of right-wing pamphlets and think-tanks and has no connection with today’s EU.

For all the faults of Labour’s 1983 manifesto, at least the commitment to withdraw from the EEC was honest and straightforward. It was based on the acceptance that one member state cannot dictate fundamental reform of what is now the EU without the agreement of our European partners. After all, collective organisations only work on the basis of consensus and accommodation.

The suggestion that a Conservative government led by Iain Duncan Smith will be able to subvert this logic in the future is at best hopelessly naïve, at worst profoundly dishonest.

Conclusion

The EU is not perfect. Far from it. That is why Britain has played a leading role within the Convention on the Future of Europe to propose ways of enhancing its accountability and effectiveness.

We have, for example, championed the case of giving for the first time national Parliaments a role in the decision-making structure of the EU. We have proposed giving greater strategic authority to the body which represents national governments, the European Council. And we are working closely with our friends across Europe to fashion a more stable, coherent structure for the EU which better delivers in those areas where it can make a positive difference to people’s lives.

The draft constitutional text from the Convention on the Future of Europe does not have everything we want, but it is a good starting point for discussion between member states, and we will be working hard in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to improve it. Yet our ability to lead change comes not from seeking isolation and marginalisation but by active engagement and support.

That is what has marked out our policy and with a dynamic, successful economy the envy of many and diplomatic authority across the world, we have been able to exert real influence within the European Union.

Yet far from seeking to promote ways of extending Britain’s power and prestige, today’s Tory Party, racked by ideological hostility to the EU, is committed to a course of diluting and diminishing that influence and authority.

At its heart, this flawed ideology represents a profound lack of confidence in Britain and what our country stands for. It is inward-looking and reactive and inhabits a time warp out of touch with the reality of Britons living, working and travelling in today’s Europe. Fundamentally, it represents a raw deal for Britain and would set this country on a profoundly damaging course which would be catastrophic for British jobs and British prestige.

Today, there are clear dividing lines between the two main political parties on the vital issues. On one hand, there is a party committed to excellent public services for all, and engaged within the EU and on the international stage to promote national interests and values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law. On the other is a party committed to cutting investment in health and education and prepared to lead Britain to international isolation and withdrawal.

This is a divide we shall be confident to take to the British people at the next election.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, in Jakarta on 9th January 2003. The speech was on the UK and the Muslim World.

Three months ago our countries were united in grief. The terrorist atrocity in Bali claimed the lives of innocents from many nations and faiths, including 26 Britons and an even greater number of Indonesians. As the terrorists no doubt intended, it tragically dealt a shattering blow to one of the most important sectors of your economy.

No political or religious cause can justify the terrorists’ actions. Their crimes have rightly been condemned by politicians and leaders of all faiths around the world. Al Qa’ida and its sympathisers claim to be waging a ‘just war’, in the name of Islam, against the western world. But the Bali atrocity simply confirmed what peace loving peoples of all faiths have long known. The divide in the modern world is not the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and the West. The divide is between order and chaos.

The first objective of any democratic government is to deliver an equilibrium of order and freedom for its citizens. Since the end of the Second World War, we have seen the establishment of a host of multilateral institutions to make these principles a unifying force in international affairs. In Europe, the EU and NATO have helped to make the past 50 years one of the most stable eras in the continent’s history. More recently in South East Asia, ASEAN has helped to establish a secure foundation for Indonesia’s relations with its neighbours.

There are two great modern threats to global security –international terrorism and unstable or rogue regimes seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Both threats profoundly disturb that equilibrium between order and freedom and introduce a potential new dimension of chaos to international affairs.

Indonesia and the United Kingdom should unite with the international community to confront these threats. Our immediate objective must be to bring the perpetrators of the Bali bombing to account. Thanks to the unflagging efforts of the Indonesian authorities I believe that we are closer to this goal.

But if we are to establish a fitting memorial to the victims of the Bali tragedy and strengthen global security, we will have to do more than simply mete out justice to the terrorists. We will have to tackle the mistrust and misapprehensions which bedevil relations between the west and the Islamic world and which in turn allow the terrorists to secure new recruits for their twisted cause. The promotion of peace and reconciliation between all faiths must therefore become an objective of politicians and religious leaders alike.

Last year, following the atrocity of 11 September the leaders of the three great monotheistic faiths, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, meeting in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, proclaimed that they shared values as much as they shared prophets. They declared that, ‘According to our faith traditions, killing innocents in the name of God is a desecration of his Holy Name, and defames religion in the world’.

These fine sentiments find an echo in this country’s national motto ‘unity in diversity’ (Bhinneka Tungal Ika) which I first learned when I attended an interfaith memorial for Bali at the Indonesian Embassy in London. This principle has guided Indonesia for almost 60 years. It should also lie at the heart of a new relationship between the west and the Muslim world.

But if this aspiration is to become a reality, Indonesia will have to play a leading role. We will achieve nothing without the engagement of the largest Muslim country in the world. Thanks not least to Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, extremism has remained largely on the fringes of Indonesian Islam. I pay tribute to the work of both organisations for the stand they have made against terrorism and for acting as a force for moderation and partnership with the west for almost a century. In a region long noted for its commitment to religious toleration, you have helped to build Indonesia’s reputation as one of the Islamic world’s most open and diverse countries. One American scholar, Robert Heffner, recently noted that, ‘Nowhere in the Muslim world have Muslim intellectuals engaged with the ideas of democracy, civil society, pluralism, and the rule of law with a vigour and confidence equal to that of Indonesian Muslims’. Long may that continue.

THE UK AND THE MUSLIM WORLD

Today I want to share with you my thoughts on how the United Kingdom can reciprocate your efforts, and help to build trust between the west and Muslim peoples across the world. I would not wish to overstate the extent of our influence. The UK alone will not determine the future course of this relationship. But I think our history and the extent to which Islam is now an everyday fact of life in the UK, gives us some unique insights and leaves us well placed to act as a force for progress.

My country has one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe. Around 2 million Muslims have helped to make the UK what I believe is one of the most ethnically diverse and tolerant countries in the world.

The vast majority of British Muslims have integrated themselves into our society, spreading prosperity to urban and rural communities across the country. And they are making a vital contribution to British democracy. Let me illustrate this point with a personal example.

As a Member of Parliament, I represent the interests of 100,000 constituents. In my constituency, Blackburn, there are no fewer than 23 mosques and more than 25,000 Muslims. I represent their interests as much as those of the other 75,000. I have a permanent reminder of the Muslim influence within my constituency. My house is opposite a Madrassah and I awake, at the back of the house, to hear the call to prayer.

We have Muslim Members of Parliament who have to attract the votes of British non-Muslims to win their seats. For example, it was a majority of non-Muslims in a district of the city of Birmingham who elected my colleague, Khalid Mahmood, as a Member of Parliament in 2001. Some of you may remember him when he and other British Parliamentarians visited Indonesia in July last year.

The size and importance of our Muslim communities is such that no British Government – present or future – can afford to turn a blind eye to their domestic or international concerns. Britain’s Muslims are preoccupied with the same domestic issues as all of our voters: decent schools, high standards in healthcare provision and a prosperous economy. But when it comes to international issues, they are particularly concerned about developments in the Middle East and North Africa, and South and South East Asia.

Almost all of the Muslims in my constituency come from South Asia, evenly split between Pakistan and India. As tensions between India and Pakistan last year threatened to spiral into a full-scale conflict, I was reminded on a daily basis of the close family ties binding communities in the United Kingdom to two of the countries in that region, and that for both communities, national loyalties – to Pakistan and India – were as important as religious ones.

THE MIDDLE EAST

Last year, as the India/Pakistan crisis abated, developments in the Middle East moved to the centre stage. Tragically, Israel and the Occupied Territories, which have seen so much grief over decades, have suffered appallingly in the last two and a half years. Over two and a half thousand Israelis and Palestinians have been killed. Many more have been injured. Life on both sides of the green line has been disrupted. We must not let it go on. And we have to work unremittingly for a better future for the region as a whole.

To achieve that we have three central objectives for the region:

– to secure a just and lasting peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians;

– to remove the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction both to his neighbours and to the wider world;

– and third, to work in partnership with the governments of the region to promote social and economic development and democracy.

Turning to the first of these objectives, almost all British citizens – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – share the hope that we can secure a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, underlined Britain’s support for this goal last year, and warned of the consequences of failure to deal with a problem which ‘hangs like a dark shadow over our world……providing the cover under which the fanatics build strength’.

These are dark times for advocates of a lasting peace. Last Sunday suicide bombers slaughtered 23 innocent civilians in Tel Aviv. There must seem no end to the cycle of violence.

But we must not allow the carnage to breed fatalism. Nor to have the agenda set by the terrorists. The emerging international consensus on the broad outlines of a final settlement does offer hope. Last year, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a Resolution supporting, for the first time, a two-state solution which guarantees an end to the Israeli occupation, a viable state for the Palestinians and security for Israel within its borders. We voted for this Resolution. It is our vision, and I look forward to pursuing it with both the new Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.

IRAQ

A peace settlement between Israel and Palestine would remove one of the great threats to global stability. But the Middle East and the wider world will never be secure as long as Saddam Hussein retains his weapons of mass destruction.

I know the prospect of international action to disarm the Iraqi regime by force concerns people in Britain and Indonesia alike. In recent months, we have worked tirelessly towards a peaceful outcome to this crisis, based on full Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions. The UN Security Council supports this goal, and in October voted unanimously in favour of UNSCR 1441. This resolution presents Iraq with a pathway to peace and disarmament via UN inspections rather than force.

However, the consequences of a failure of nerve to deal with the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are potentially devastating for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The world would then have emboldened a dictator who had previously shown no mercy in turning chemical weapons against the Iraqi people and the Iranian army. In the Iraqi town of Halabja fifteen years ago, 5,000 civilians were gassed to death as Saddam pursued a campaign of genocide against the Kurds.

On the other hand, full disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be a major boost to all of those who support an international community based on reciprocity and the rule of law. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Iraqi regime flouted its commitments under a range of international treaties and conventions to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Since 1991, Saddam Hussein has ignored repeated UN resolutions calling for Iraq’s disarmament. If he continues to get away with it, other would-be proliferators will take heart and the world will become a far more dangerous place.

Contrary to some perceptions, particularly in the Arab region, the international community’s quarrel is with Saddam Hussein, not the Iraqi people. They deserve much better. Iraq is a country with a talented population, a country that is potentially rich and successful. We want to welcome it back into the international fold. We want the people of Iraq – Kurdish, Sunni and Shia Muslim alike – to be free to live fulfilling lives.

Similar concerns lay behind the four major military campaigns Britain has fought during the last decade. On each occasion, in Kuwait in 1991, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2001 the effect has been to help Muslims suffering oppression. In each of these countries, as a result of military intervention led by the US and involving British and other troops, it is millions of Muslims who have been released from the threat of brutality and intolerance. These actions highlight the fact that, contrary to popular myth in some Muslim countries, neither the UK nor the US is bent on subjugating Islam. Its actions with the USA speak louder than words.

MYTHS ABOUT THE MUSLIM WORLD

I regret to say that similar, damaging myths about the Muslim world are prevalent in the west. One of the most pernicious is that Islam and democracy are mutually exclusive.

Indonesia has been making the transition to democracy for the past four years. Years of struggle against Suharto’s dictatorship deepened your commitment to democracy and peaceful reform. It was never going to be easy. The transition in the UK, from autocracy to democracy took centuries. Freedom of political expression has inevitably triggered demands for less central control and greater local autonomy. This is a particularly difficult balancing act in a country as ethnically diverse as Indonesia, where the challenge of administering a vast archipelago of over 17,000 islands would stretch the skills of the most proficient administrator.

I want to applaud the progress you have made so far. In just four years Indonesia has consigned dictatorship to the past. Meanwhile in Turkey – another of the world’s largest Muslim countries – we have just witnessed a peaceful change of government and the arrival in power of an Islamic party committed to respect for the role of Islam and to the values of liberal democracy – and the development of strong relations with the west. Taken together, these developments are proof – if it were needed – that Islam and democracy are compatible, and that societies founded on profound religious beliefs can also subscribe to the principle of freedom of political expression.

But democracy has frankly not made the same strides in the Arab world. The Arab Human Development Report, published by the UN last year, portrays a region that is lagging behind others in individual freedom, women’s empowerment and economic and social development. I do not claim that democracy offers a panacea for all of the region’s ills. But history shows that democracy is usually a pre-requisite for economic prosperity, tolerance and political progress.

We can draw an interesting parallel with central and eastern Europe. Fourteen years ago this region’s prospects were grim. Four decades of communist rule had resulted in economic stagnation as well as creating a dangerous imbalance between order and freedom. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, political and economic reforms acted as a catalyst for a burst of wealth creation and, more importantly, freedom creation. This historic transition is almost complete. In 2004, eight countries from the former eastern bloc will join the EU and we will have witnessed the unification of Europe within a generation.

The experience of the Cold War tells us that countries plagued by a lack of economic opportunities and closed political systems simply fuel the alienation of their citizens. In central and eastern Europe this sense of alienation found expression in the tumultuous events of 1989. The UNDP report shows that a similar sense of alienation exists in parts of the Arab world. I believe that this has partly found expression in acts of terrorism against western interests, and a general mistrust of our motives.

CLOSING REMARKS 

By showing tolerance to other faiths and welcoming debate within Indonesian Islam, you have shown a path which I believe other Muslim countries should follow. That spirit of tolerance helped you recently reach a peace settlement in Aceh which I warmly welcome.

Indonesia is extraordinarily rich in its religious linguistic and ethnic diversity. Within that you are rightly proud of your majority Islamic faith and traditions. Traditions that have embraced a secular state and universal values. Together I believe we share a common purpose in building and promoting the path of reconciliation. Let us make this our shared task as we build a new relationship between the west and the Muslim world.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, on re-integrating Iraq into the international community. The speech was made at Chatham House on 21st February 2003.

On behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I would like to thank Professor Bulmer-Thomas and his team for their efforts over the past twelve months. It’s hard to overstate the importance of our partnership with Chatham House. As we enter an uncertain new era in international affairs, it’s all the more important that FCO staff are able to step back from the day to day vicissitudes of diplomacy and develop a strategic perspective on the environment in which they operate. Chatham House has performed this invaluable service for British diplomats for the past 80 years.

Earlier this month, FCO officials and academics met here to discuss one of the great challenges of our times, the growing phenomenon of state failure. In my remarks today I want to focus on a state which has utterly failed its citizens: Iraq.

However, Iraq differs from the classic failed state in one key respect. Unlike, say Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo where it is the collapse of the state which has led to such misery for their peoples, in Iraq it is an all too powerful state – an authoritarian regime – which has terrorised its population in order first to establish and then to maintain control.

The United Nations has been trying to remove a central pillar of Saddam’s apparatus of terror – his weapons of mass destruction – for the past 12 years. As this stand-off enters its final phase, my message today is that in securing Iraq’s disarmament we will remove the threat Saddam poses to his neighbours and the wider world; we will effect a decisive shift in the fortunes of the long suffering Iraqi people; and we will have reasserted the authority of the international rule of law.

Amidst talk of European splits and transatlantic rifts, it’s worth remembering that the objective of Iraqi disarmament unites the world. EU Heads of State confirmed this week that they would not tolerate Saddam’s defiance of UN demands indefinitely. SCR 1441, which was passed unanimously last November, told Saddam that he had a final opportunity to disarm voluntarily. If he did not, and if he failed to comply immediately with weapons inspectors and the other obligations on him, he would face ‘serious consequences.’ Diplomatic parlance is notoriously ambiguous, but in this case the terminology had only one meaning: disarmament by force.

INTERNATIONAL UNITY 

SCR 1441 hardly marked a sudden rush to war. Iraq was found guilty in 1991. Twelve years of defiance later, Saddam Hussein is not entitled to any presumption of innocence. It is for him to prove that he has, once and for all, given up what we know he has.

UN inspectors would not be in Iraq today without the threat of force. But inspectors cannot achieve containment without co-operation. If co-operation is denied, the UN Security Council has already warned that force must be used. Otherwise Iraq will again use these terrible weapons. This is a key part of the moral case – preventing Iraq launching more wars of aggression, and dealing definitively with a tyrant who flouts international non-proliferation norms.

In diplomacy, international unity on the ends – if not the means – is a rare and precious commodity. But in respect of Iraq there is agreement on the end. This reflects a common perception that Saddam’s appetite for WMD, when married to his willingness to use all possible means to repress his own people and intimidate his neighbours, makes him a unique threat to international peace and security.

But consensus on the objective is not simply based on the extent of the Iraqi threat. With each passing year of Iraqi defiance of international opinion, there has been growing awareness of the immense consequences of a failure to match our words with actions. In a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies last week, I set out the profoundly damaging implications for international efforts to halt the spread of the world’s most dangerous weapons. And I examined the great damage which inactivity and vacillation would inflict on the authority of the UN Security Council. The stakes could not be higher. If the UN proves unable to act on the spirit and the letter of mandatory Chapter VII resolutions when faced with the most egregious non-compliance it risks joining its predecessor, the League of Nations, as a footnote in history.

SADDAM’S WMD – A THREAT TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE 

We should not forget that the consequences of inaction would not just be disastrous for the international legal system. We would be delivering another blow to the long suffering Iraqi people.

One of the myths about Saddam’s regime, which I heard repeated only this morning, is that the full brutality of his regime has been effectively constrained since the end of the Gulf War. The UN and various NGOs have amassed a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the most shocking example was Saddam’s policy of ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, when he drained the marsh areas of southern Iraq, forcing the population to relocate to urban areas where it could be controlled by the regime’s security forces. In the words of the UN Environment Programme, ‘around 40,000 of the estimated half-million Marsh Arabs are now living in refugee camps in Iran,’ and ‘a 5000 year old culture ..is in serious jeopardy of coming to an abrupt end.’

Neither should we forget that, amongst the welter of horrifying statistics about Saddam’s human rights abuses, it is the Iraqi people themselves who have been and remain the most likely victims of his WMD.

One of the problems is that the statistics sound abstract. To counter this, I met 10 Iraqi exiles this morning. They reeled off a list impossible to invent of relatives who had disappeared or who had been tortured. One told me how a cousin – a woman doctor – had been killed in front of her family. Some of them would not be photographed, in case they were identified by the regime. If you wondered why Iraqi scientists are afraid to be interviewed by the inspectors, it is for the same reason. They fear for their lives.

Saddam believes his poisons and gases are a key element in his military arsenal, not a weapon of last resort. The Iraqi regime used nerve agents to gas 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in the village of Halabja in 1988. Memories of this incident in the west may have been dulled by the passage of time. But the Iraqi Kurds will forever bear the scars. Only this morning, I heard Baram Salhi, a leading political figure in northern Iraq, urging those who counsel indefinite containment of Saddam to reconsider.

I ask you to imagine the lasting psychological impact on the British public of a chemical weapons attack – carried out by the Armed Forces – against one of our minority ethnic groups. Fourteen years afterwards, would anyone suggest that such an attack would not leave the public in constant fear of a repeat?

Recent intelligence shows that Saddam’s military plans envisage using chemical and biological weapons against a range of targets, including his own Shia population. Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them. During the Cold War, people in Britain had to become inured to the everyday possibility of annihilation. Imagine the effect on the public psyche if this threat came not from an external adversary, but from one’s own government.

As the UN considers the case for enforcement of its resolutions, the fate of the Iraqi people must loom large in our calculations. If it comes to military conflict, there will be victims. War is terrible. But there are circumstances in which the consequences of not going to war are more terrible still. There will be victims too if our weakness emboldens a regime which has killed hundreds of thousands. Conversely, by disarming Iraq we will either fundamentally change the character of the regime or, if military intervention proves necessary, then change the regime itself. Either way, the enforcement of UN resolutions will mean that Iraq is free from the fetters of UN sanctions, and finally able to take the first steps on the path to a prosperous future.

I think I understand the anxieties of those who joined last weekend’s marches. Just as those in power have a duty to answer the questions posed by those on Saturday’s march. I think it fair for me to ask one in return. Please consider the consequences of lifting the military pressure we are applying to the Iraqi regime. The answer I offer is: if we take the military pressure away, there would be no co-operation, no inspections. The tyranny of the Iraqi people would go on. The intimidation of his neighbours would go on. And dictators everywhere would see that defiance pays.

Dealing with a dictator who cares nothing for human life creates a fearful dilemma for those who have the courage to confront him. We are approaching a time when a hard choice has to be made. None of us has a monopoly on conscience, or on hatred of war, or on being in the right. As a nation, we should conduct a conversation with one another in a spirit of mutual respect for the other side of the argument. I believe that is now happening. Next week on Monday I will be attending an EU Foreign Ministers Meeting to discuss Iraq and other issues; on Tuesday the Prime Minister will make a statement to the House of Commons to report this week’s EU Heads of Government Meeting; and on Wednesday we have arranged a debate in the House of Commons on a substantive motion, with a parallel debate in the House of Lords. Of course, no such national debate would be possible in Iraq. Saddam has no marchers to persuade of his murderous policies.

While we debate the choice ahead of us, millions of Iraqis endure the horrors of Saddam’s rule. There are many deeply disturbing aspects of life in Iraq today. Arbitrary execution, racial persecution and other forms of state sanctioned violence have been an everyday fact of life under Saddam for the past 24 years. The nature of the regime has perhaps best been described by the former Dutch Foreign Minister, Max van der Stoel, who visited Iraq on behalf of the UN in 1992. He concluded that the brutality of the Iraqi regime was ‘of an exceptionally grave character – so grave that it has few parallels in the years that have passed since the Second World War.’

THE HISTORICAL LEGACY 

Since Saddam’s assumption of power in 1979 his regime – even by the dreadful standards of the twentieth century – has become a byword for barbarity. His impact on his country has been all the more depressing when one considers the direction Iraq might have taken in the 1970s. At that time, there was every prospect that Iraq might build on its rich cultural legacy and wealth of natural resources to become one of the leading countries in the Muslim world.

Although the state of Iraq has existed only since 1920, the area now incorporated within its borders has been the home of several of mankind’s earliest civilisations. Two of the greatest advances in humankind’s evolution have originated on Iraqi soil. The first was the practice of agriculture. In the foothills of what is now northern Iraq, agriculture and the domestication of animals were practised over 6000 years ago.

The second was the development of urban life in the city state organisations of Sumeria. By the fourth millennium BC, a complex of 13 city states stretched from Baghdad to the Gulf.

The Sumerians created the first accurate calendars based on the 12 month lunar year and the cycle of 60 minutes and 12 hours that we still use to tell the time.

THE SITUATION SINCE 1979 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was every reason to expect that the territory which eventually became Iraq in 1920 would have a prosperous future. When Saddam Hussein assumed power, Iraq had a burgeoning salaried middle class and enjoyed a rising standard of living. Iraq’s GDP per capita income in 1979 bore comparison with that of Malaysia and Portugal. At the start of the Iran-Iraq war it was more prosperous than most of the Arab world. As oil prices rose in 1980, its GDP per head reached $3000 and its foreign reserves close to $40 billion. With a decade of peace and merely tolerable economic management, Iraq would have widened the prosperity gap over its neighbours.

The appalling impact of Saddam’s mismanagement is not well enough known. People understand that he is evil, but not that he has presided over an economic catastrophe, brought about by incompetence and indifference in equal measure. It is no accident. It is a product of enormous spending on his weapons of terror, and of his utter disregard for the fate of Iraq’s people. As people come to learn more about the nature of the regime, I am convinced they increasingly see why it must be disarmed of its terrible weaponry, even if – as a last resort – that means military action. And the more people understand the regime, the less inclined they will be to give it the benefit of the doubt, as it claims laughably to have no WMD, and manoeuvres cynically to deceive the UN with minor concessions.

Saddam has engineered one of the swiftest transitions from potential prosperity to third world basket case in history. Misguided economic policies played their part. But the real culprits were Saddam’s regional ambitions, his drive to expand his armed forces, and the wars of aggression he waged against Iran and then Kuwait.

These wars resulted in over one million Muslim casualties. Yet they hardly sated Saddam’s appetite for slaughter. In 1988 he prosecuted a genocidal campaign in northern Iraq which was responsible for the deaths or disappearance of up to 100,000 Muslim Kurds.

Given the regime’s obsession with secrecy and its isolation from the outside world, we may never know the full extent of Saddam Hussein’s oppression of the Iraqi people. But the testimony of defectors and accounts from the UN Special Rapporteur provide a damning indictment of a regime that respects no moral boundaries.

The international community has been casting around for a response to Saddam’s repression for the past ten years. It is clear that a solution does not lie in the international human rights machinery established in the aftermath of the Holocaust and reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Whilst this machinery may have helped to improve human rights situations in certain countries from South Africa under apartheid to Suharto’s Indonesia, it has utterly failed the people of Iraq.

The search for solutions led us in the first instance to impose military measures. In enforcing the southern and northern No Fly Zones, British and American aircraft have, at least for the time being, deterred Saddam from carrying out a repeat of the Halabja atrocity.

In northern Iraq, where UN sanctions also apply but Saddam’s writ runs out, the people are better off than they ever were under his control. School enrolments are rising, not falling as in Baghdad controlled Iraq. Health indicators are improving. Infant mortality rates are now lower than before sanctions were imposed. Under the Oil for Food programme, $18 million has been spent on renovating 41 hospitals in northern Iraq. Freed from the tyranny of Saddam’s rule, the Iraqi Kurds have shown what might be possible across the country as a whole if Saddam wasn’t there. A democracy has begun to emerge, underpinned by the principles of free speech and right of association.

But in central Iraq there is only so much the outside world can do while Saddam remains in charge. A telling example is his decade-long abuse of the oil for food system. Saddam has regularly halted his oil exports to make a political point, starving the humanitarian programme of revenue for essential supplies, blackmailing the world through his people’s suffering. In recent years billions of dollars has lain unspent in the UN Oil for Food Account. Oil revenues that should have been spent on essential medicines, foodstuffs, hospitals and schools have languished in a UN account in New York. Up to $2.3 billion worth of goods already approved by the UN remain undelivered because Iraq has not processed the contracts. Saddam has attempted to perpetuate the myth that the UN – rather than his utter disregard for human life – is responsible for the dire humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people.

At the same time, Saddam has circumvented UN sanctions both by smuggling oil and manipulating the Oil for Food Programme. The illegal revenues he has generated, worth up to $3 billion to the regime, have underpinned a covert network to procure materiel for WMD, and have helped to bolster his apparatus of internal repression.

The tragedy for the Iraqi people is that Security Council resolutions have always held out the prospect of a swift end to sanctions in return for Iraqi disarmament. In rejecting this path, Saddam has ensured that the UN policy of containment has effectively imprisoned the Iraqi people under his exceptionally brutal dictatorship. Millions of Iraqis have been condemned to a life of fear and penury.

The impact has been staggering. Almost four million Iraqis – a sixth of the population – have left the country, bringing their skills and talents to many countries, including the UK.

For those who cannot escape, the suffering has been truly unimaginable. About 60% of the population are completely dependent on the central government for food rations. About 50% of the Iraqi workforce are unemployed. UNICEF estimates that close to a quarter of Iraqi children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition. Against this backdrop, it beggars belief that the Iraqi regime has proposed spending $20 million from the Oil for Food Programme to build an ‘Olympic Sports City’. When I heard this I didn’t believe. I checked it. The source is UN Office for Iraq Programme Distribution Plan, Para. 222.

Given the understandable fear of expressing any criticism in public, it’s difficult to assess the impact Saddam’s policies have had on the attitudes of the Iraqi people. But one thing is clear: Saddam’s popularity is a myth. Clandestine polling by the regime in recent months – picked up by our intelligence services – reveals that a majority of Iraqis support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. A survey of Iraqi public opinion carried out by the International Crisis Group – a respected Brussels based NGO – has shown that a majority accepted that political change was both desirable and inevitable. This survey revealed a profound weariness with Saddam’s rule, and a prevailing belief that the country has essentially been at war for the past two decades.

The ICG survey confirms that, like people in any other part of the world, the Iraqi public has a natural desire to choose their own destiny and Government, and to pursue a prosperous life within a safe environment for friends and family. The UK wants to help Iraq to achieve this. If we are obliged to take military action, our objective will be to secure Iraq’s disarmament. But our next priority will be to help the Iraqi people to recover.

After the damage inflicted by Saddam, I am under no illusions about the scale of the reconstruction task. Democracy will not take root overnight in a country which has a long history of tribal, ethnic and religious division and mistrust.

OIL WEALTH SHOULD BENEFIT THE IRAQI PEOPLE 

But the Iraqi people can take heart from nature’s rich endowment. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. This can provide a vital source of national revenue as the country begins the long haul towards recovery. Of all the criticisms of our motives in pursuing Iraqi disarmament, the myth that we are actually motivated by a desire to secure Iraq’s oil supplies is perhaps the most pervasive. Our cause is about weapons not oil, fear not greed.

The threat of military action is, and always has been, about pressuring Saddam Hussein to comply with SCR 1441. If this was about ensuring greater oil supplies, it would be infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam under which he would continue to develop his weapons in return for giving us access to his oil reserves.

Iraq is a major oil producer. We all depend on regularity of supplies, not least from the Middle East. But the simple answer to those who say this is about our greed for Iraqi oil is this: unlike Saddam, we would ensure that Iraq’s oil wealth was used to the benefit of the Iraqi people. That is a promise, and not just from Britain. Colin Powell has made the same commitment on behalf of the US. I hope this oil pledge kills the myth once and for all. But I recognise that for the professional conspiracy theorists, no answer is good enough.

If a coalition of forces has to enter Iraq in the coming months to remove the threat posed by Saddam’s weapons, we will move swiftly to secure Iraq’s oil fields. We will ensure that the revenue generated from this resource will be used in accordance with international law and to the benefit of the people of Iraq. Oil is Iraq’s legacy. It is a resource which the Iraqi people can use to build a better future, to buy clean water, to build schools and hospitals, not to enrich a murderous elite or to help the regime amass an arsenal of the world’s most deadly weapons.

Our future vision for Iraq is of a stable, united and law abiding state, within its present borders, co-operating with the UN, no longer posing a threat to its neighbours or to international security, abiding by its international obligations and providing effective representational government for its people. We want the Iraqi people to live in a better Iraq – the prosperous country it was until Saddam imprisoned and plundered it.

CONCLUSION 

Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the more extraordinary criticisms of the government’s policy towards Iraq is that our approach smacks of hypocrisy. I have never fully grasped the logic of the argument, but it runs something like this. Given the military and diplomatic support from a host of western governments – including the UK – for Saddam during the 1980s, how can we now claim to occupy the moral high ground in criticising his human rights abuses and possession of WMD?

It is undoubtedly true that policy towards Iraq in the 1980s from many countries in the west did not factor in Saddam’s real horror. But to suggest today that to atone for the errors of the past we should repeat them, and that we cannot act to address the horrors of the present defies rational analysis.

This flawed argument is a counsel of inaction, at best an exercise in hand washing. In the weeks preceding the military interventions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, some argued then that force could not possibly be justified. We acted, liberating millions of Muslims from fear and oppression. Enforcement of Saddam’s obligations to disarm of his WMD may not have quite the same immediate impact on the long-suffering people of Iraq. But it will mark the first, decisive step towards Iraq’s reintegration into the international community of nations. This cause is not only just in the narrow terms of international law, but it has a compelling moral force which is too great to ignore.