United States: Foreign Policy

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, at a time of momentous change on both sides of the Atlantic, the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, has done us all a great service by initiating this debate.

In 1946, Churchill coined the phrase, “special relationship”. In cautioning against anti-Americanism throughout the debate, we have rightly cited the Marshall aid programme and NATO. We could add to that the Truman doctrine and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which Eleanor Roosevelt played such a decisive role, all of which were indispensable in opposing totalitarianism, championing democracy and safeguarding peace and the rule of law. In sustaining these achievements and in our mutually advantageous relationship, we need far more wisdom and self-restraint, nowhere more so than in North Korea, where 3 million lives, including those of British and American servicemen, were lost in the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. I declare an interest as founder, 15 years ago, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, which I continue to co-chair.

With six nuclear tests last year alone, North Korea continues to act in defiance of Security Council resolutions. It is said to possess 5,000 tonnes of chemical and biological agents and 1,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul alone. We have seen what it can do with abductions and assassinations, let alone cyberattacks, the hacking of crypto-currencies and cyber robberies, which can directly impact the United Kingdom. Sanctions, implemented by China and to a lesser extent Russia, are having some welcome effect. Although the law of unintended consequences may yet lead to a catastrophic war, there has been some welcome movement in Pyongyang, from the Winter Olympics, and maybe a shared flag, to the reopening of eight formal lines of communication between north and south. However, as that regime strives to survive, Pyongyang will be duplicitous and try to drive wedges between the United States and its allies and encourage anti-American sentiment.

The north’s calibrated strategy will aim at securing relief from sanctions, but they are past masters of offering concessions that are never honoured. We should recall that, between 2005 and 2009, the US unfroze $25 million of a North Korean fund at Banco Delta Asia, which the regime then used as a slush fund. We must beware of being what Lenin called “useful idiots” in the hands of a well-practised and often cunning snake oil salesman.

We should stay close to the United States and work together, as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did so effectively during the Cold War and the Helsinki process. Along with sanctions and diplomacy and military deployment—including, last week, three stealth B-2 Spirit bombers to Guam and HMS “Sutherland” and HMS “Argyll” to the Asia Pacific—we must never lose sight of breaking North Korea’s information blockade and the championing of both people’s human rights.

Four years ago, a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that the,

“gravity, scale and nature”,

of the human rights violations in North Korea,

“reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world”.

Its chairman, Justice Michael Kirby, said:

“This Commission’s recommendations should not sit on the shelf … It is now your duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity”.


However, while the report’s recommendations gather dust, 200,000 people remain incarcerated in the regime’s gulags, where more than 300,000 people have been killed. The regime rapes, tortures, indoctrinates and lets millions of its people starve to death. Like Stalin, Kim Jong-un uses mock trials, purges and public executions.

Consider the plight of North Korean refugees. Just two months ago, 10 North Koreans, including women and a four year-old child, were repatriated to North Korea from China, despite South Korea’s willingness to give them refuge and citizenship. The father of one of the children, who had reached South Korea, issued an appeal broadcast by the BBC. He said that his wife and son would,

“either face execution or wither away in a political prison camp”,

if sent back to North Korea. He said that he was haunted by images of his young son in detention:

“I can almost hear my baby calling my name”.


I was genuinely shocked to receive a parliamentary reply about this case, in which the Government confirmed that they had not made representations to China on behalf of those fleeing refugees.

We should not remain silent about the nature of this regime—we should act whenever we can—nor should we impute in some foolish way a moral equivalence between North Korea and the United States of America. In the Cold War, once destruction was mutually assured and we realised that weapons used by either side would lead to obliteration, other weapons proved more effective; we should deploy them all. The Helsinki process opened eyes and minds to systematic injustices. As walls fell, this ushered in an era of extraordinary change. It remains the historic role of our two nations to challenge and help change even the most nightmarish and oppressive of regimes.