Iraq Inquiry

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, it is humbling to take part in such a valuable and thoughtful debate with so many excellent contributions. I believe we owe a debt of gratitude to Sir John Chilcot. This report was never going to be easy or lacking in controversy. We might argue about the remit that he was given but not about the dedication that he has shown.

We are told that the Government of the day acted in good faith, but there were too many acts, there was far too much faith and I find it difficult to accept that there was much good in it. Was the war legal? Sir John was not allowed to say, but others will have a view. Was it effective? Well, the tyranny of one man has been replaced by a terror inflicted by many more across many borders. On the questions of cause and effect, I suppose history will decide. But above all, it is worth asking the simple things: was it just, proper and decent?

My first political memory dates back to 1956. As a young boy, I was captivated by a speech made to a huge crowd in Trafalgar Square by Aneurin Bevan. You can still watch it on YouTube. In his saggy suit and with his wonderful Welsh lyricism, Bevan addressed the Prime Minister of the day about another Middle East war in Suez. He said of the then Government:

“They have besmirched the name of Britain. They have made us ashamed of the things for which formerly we were proud. They have offended against decency”.

Pointing towards Anthony Eden, who was then in Downing Street, he said:

“If he is sincere in what he is saying—and he may be—then he is too stupid to be Prime Minister”,

words that echo even today. All of us, I suppose, bear some responsibility for the events in Iraq—the Labour Government bear responsibility, of course, but we in the Conservative Party did not do our proper job of analytical and responsible opposition. Yet above all it was the responsibility of one man, the then Prime Minister. Clausewitz once said that war is the continuation of policy by other means, but surely war must be a final option, a last resort, not merely a matter of prime ministerial preference. To coin his own phrase, it is right that Tony Blair should feel “the hand of history” on his shoulder.

Chilcot must not be the last word, debated then put away in some dusty drawer. Instead we should use it for a new beginning—but what sort of beginning? First, I have a few questions. Who is to take responsibility for what happened? Someone must, otherwise it might all happen again. We cannot have yet another example of the establishment being above the law and above any form of responsibility. We had enough of that with the bankers. Have we done enough yet to ensure that we do not repeat the errors? Somehow, our systems seemed to fail at every step—in the Cabinet, in the Civil Service, with our Law Officers, in the intelligence services, even in Parliament. How do we balance the right of a Prime Minister to lead and his duty to defend our interests—even to intervene—without once again falling victim to one man’s unwisdom?

Secondly, I can think of no better time than in the wake of Chilcot to undertake a comprehensive reappraisal of our foreign policy: its past effectiveness—particularly since the end of the Cold War—its strategy, its objectives, its implementation and the values that it reflects.

We are a decent and democratic people, so why are we having so much trouble showing it? We were once a beacon of hope in a dark world. Where have we gone wrong? Specifically in the Middle East, in the six decades since Suez, where are the successes to point to? One was the first Gulf War, certainly, which was co-operative and, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said, limited. But what about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the Arab spring? How good have we been at learning the lessons? Not good enough, I suggest.

Thirdly, I believe that, as an establishment, we owe an apology for our failures in Iraq: to the families of the 179 service men and women who died; to the thousands more who came back home dragging their wounded bodies and wounded minds behind them; to the perhaps 1 million ordinary citizens who marched through the streets without hindsight before the war started, yet who were ignored; and to many others who suffered, like Dr David Kelly. To all of them we should say that we could and should have done better.

Yet it would be a tragedy if we tried to load all the blame on to Mr Blair, finding whatever room there is left between his shoulder blades to stick in another knife, because if that is all we do we will have lost the huge opportunity that Chilcot offers us—to reflect; to analyse the uncomfortable truths, as the noble Earl described them earlier; to revitalise the grounding principles behind our foreign policy; and to ensure that such appalling errors never happen again.

Above all, Chilcot is about responsibility, which can all too easily slip into recrimination. That would be a mistake. Instead of recrimination, I hope that it will be used to meet the need for reconciliation and for renewal of our national purpose. Great countries sometimes make great mistakes. We must learn from them.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, what a beautiful farewell that was from my noble friend Lady Perry. It brought a tear to my eye, and of course we all wish her well. It is another treat to be the warm-up artist for the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell. I can only hope that this House will bring her, as it has so many of us, friendship and many years of enjoyment and fulfilment. It is a joy to be able to debate the humble Address in the year of Her Majesty’s 90th birthday. What a celebration. Sadly, there are some things that we cannot celebrate.

On both sides of this awful referendum campaign, the arguments so far have spanned the intellectual spectrum all the way from the absurd to the utterly irresponsible. Noble Lords may rest easy: this referendum is not a rerun of World War II, nor will it be the start of World War III. Yet something has gone terribly wrong. In the 25 years since the Berlin Wall came down, our world has turned sour. Europe has become weaker and more threatened. The bizarre outcome of this failure is that the two most effective voices in Europe today are those of President Putin and President Erdogan. Russia faces an appalling future economically and demographically, yet it runs rings around us. Do we really think that we will get the Crimea back, and what a diplomatic car crash we made, even yesterday, of our relations with Turkey, a loyal ally for so many decades?

Europe is not fit to be a single state and the people do not want it. Only the elites find it comfortable, which is why they are trotted out like the mad King Lear to threaten us with all sorts of terrors:

“What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be”.

I wonder how long it will be before that debilitating condition groupthink becomes a treatable condition under the National Health Service. Even the superstars of my own creative industries join in: “Our culture will crumble”. On a clear day, from the red carpet it is almost possible to see as far as the waiting limousine.

I had high hopes for a reformed European Union. I thought that the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech was simply wonderful. He said:

“The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy”.

They listened to him politely. Then they washed their hands.

We need to ask ourselves what will happen on 23 June if we vote to stay in. Will President Juncker say, “Brilliant. Glad you’re staying. We hear your message and we will be more tolerant and flexible now”, or those who regard ever-closer union as their religion decide that their hour has come. Why, even the British Prime Minister has said that there is no alternative, so full steam ahead. The delayed Budget will be published and it will have grown. The EU will continue to underperform economically. The refugee crisis will continue, as will the political ambitions of the European court. Mr Putin will continue to ignore us and Greece will continue to be devastated—and there will be another crisis, because we all know that the euro in its present form is incoherent and unsustainable. The status quo is not stability; it is nothing but poorly supervised decline.

What will happen if we leave? We are told that on day one there will be a great crash and that everything will fail, but even if on day one the speculators cause a wobble of uncertainty, let me tell you what will happen on day two, week two, month two and year two. The world will recover its senses and recognise that Britain is the world’s fifth largest economy with a wonderfully adaptable and flexible labour force, superb universities, financial skills and all the rest. Our voice will be listened to afresh. What we lose from leaving the EU we can recreate through co-operation. What we gain we will share. We will have control of our laws and our courts. We will have back control of our borders and we can spend our taxes as we decide. We will still be good neighbours, great partners and perhaps even better friends. Britain will not be at the back of the queue; we will be leading the charge.

Can we do all this? Of course we can. The Prime Minister himself said so at Bloomberg. What a wonderful speech that was. He said:

“Of course Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU, if we chose to do so”.

Those are stirring words and I believed them. It is a quotation ripped not out of context but perhaps out of the history books in an attempt to prevent anyone remembering it.

I offer one final quotation from George Bernard Shaw:

“'You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”.

I prefer the dreams of Shaw to the madness of Lear or Project Fear. That is why I will be supporting leave.