The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 (115 page)

Sunday 5 August

Read the papers, and it was just like Suez, with the dire warnings of war, so I decided to send a message from Stansgate (where I had taken my little fax machine) to Neil Kinnock, asking him to consider the recall of Parliament. Certainly if British troops are to be deployed it should be done. I rang the
Guardian,
the Press Association and the
Independent
news desks about it.

Tuesday 7 August

I decided that I would formally request the recall of Parliament, so I typed a letter to the PM, with copies to the Speaker and Neil Kinnock, warning that we could be involved in decisions in which we had played no part. I also stated that a pre-emptive strike by the United States could have the opposite effect to that intended and destroy the unity that had been built up and which I welcomed in the resolution of the Security Council. I pointed out that in former years Parliament was recalled during the recess – in the case of the Suez crisis and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; MPs had the right to hear the Government’s views and ask questions and express their own opinions.

The hostility to Saddam Hussein is so great, as he is being built up as a new Hitler, that any cautious voice even calling for discussion is going to be disregarded and silenced.

Kinnock is on holiday in Italy. Kaufman appears on the television every now and again demanding more urgent action. Israel says that if Iraqi troops enter Jordan it will be an act of war, even though Jordan might agree to have them there. It could be catastrophic.

Wednesday 8 August

Today Bush did a broadcast with tremendous hyping up – American wives weeping as sailors left in aircraft carriers and all that. The British are sending forces to help King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, apparently because he requested them. In the end, it’s an Anglo-American force that is in the Gulf. Saddam Hussein soon afterwards announced that Kuwait was to be permanently annexed to Iraq.

In the afternoon I was quite desperate, and rang the BBC. I asked them, ‘Why won’t you broadcast the fact that a request has been made to recall Parliament?’ But they won’t do it.

Monday 13 August

The Prime Minister turned down my request for the recall of Parliament.

Wednesday 15 August

Began serious work on my Government of Britain Bill. It’s extremely difficult writing a completely new constitution from scratch on your own. On the other hand, having a blank piece of paper and knowing how power works and is abused is helpful as a starting point.

The problem will be devising a constitution for Scotland and Wales. I think I shall make provision for national parliaments for Scotland and Wales, and they must decide on their own constitutions. So I am left with the English Assembly and how it should work. There is a difficulty about proportional representation and a second chamber. I’ve been talking about this for two years, and now everyone else is moving on it, and I shall be left behind if I don’t make some progress soon.

Thursday 30 August

I rang Andreas Whittam Smith, Editor of the
Independent,
and said, ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea if your readers had a chance of hearing what the peace case is?’ He was terribly polite and asked me to write something, which I did immediately and faxed to him. They are going to print it tomorrow.

Later today I heard Parliament had been recalled for Thursday and Friday next week, and so there will be a Commons debate.

There is going to be a demonstration in Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square.

Thursday 6 September

To the Commons for what turned out to be a difficult meeting of the Campaign Group. I circulated a motion which had the broad agreement of the Stop the War campaign – that we condemn the aggression, support the sanctions, say there is a prospect of a peaceful settlement and then demand that the Government give an assurance that they won’t authorise offensive British military action without a special resolution by the UN. We should decline to support the Government in the absence of such a declaration.

Perhaps not to my surprise, there was a lot of argument about my resolution.

Dave Nellist said he didn’t believe in the UN at all. He insisted that there had to be an overthrow of the Iraqi regime from within – I don’t disagree with that.

Dennis Skinner said we should raise the question of the oil companies and their exploitation, otherwise it looked a bit academic.

Diane Abbott was doubtful about signing it, because she thought the UN could be the instrument of oppression of the Third World by the rich white countries.

Jeremy Corbyn was doubtful because of the UN, and thought we should say simply, ‘Get out of the Gulf.’ I should have cleared it with Jeremy first, because we are both officers of the Campaign Group.

To cut a long story short, most of them signed it, but Terry Fields and Dave Nellist wouldn’t.

The debate in the House was opened by Thatcher. I put a question to her about the use of force. Kinnock made a more militant speech than Thatcher, and he called for the destruction of the Iraqi war machine, which is nothing whatever to do with Kuwait.

Ted Heath and Denis Healey spoke urging caution. The debate went back and forth, and I was called by the Speaker shortly after 5.40 and spoke for twenty-two minutes. The Chamber filled up with Members, because it was known by then that I was going to divide the House. Looking back on it, I wan’t terribly pleased with the speech – I don’t know why. I felt very flat afterwards. Sir John Stokes, who is a right-wing old Tory, said he thought I had been flippant. I don’t think I quite got it right, although the argument was correct.

Friday 7 September

Second day of the debate, opened by Tom King, and we had a speech from Martin O’Neill, our defence spokesman, which was very militant.

Then we had a series of speeches of which infinitely the most moving was from Eric Heffer, who is very thin and white. Everybody knows he is dying, and he spoke against war with great passion. David Winnick got up to interrupt him, but Eric said, ‘I am not giving way. This may be my last speech in the House.’ When he sat down he was exhausted, his head fell forward on to his hands and he crossed himself. It was deeply, deeply moving.

Douglas Hurd spoke last, and added something about the possibility of a post-Cold War ‘new world order’, which is what everybody has been talking about. ‘Opposition Members talk . . . in terms of great aspirations and the brotherhood of man. I see it in more traditional Tory terms as an increasingly effective concert of nations.’

This summed it up: a return to a pre-1914 situation in which the great powers – Washington, Moscow, and no doubt Tokyo and Berlin – will get together and run the world. With the disappearance of socialism from the international agenda, we are getting back to great-power politics, to nationalism, to racism, to imperialism, and to all sorts of other unattractive xenophobic characteristics.

The division was 437 to 35. But, taking the Labour backbenchers, 49 per cent voted for the Government, 25 per cent against and 26 per cent abstained. In others words, 51 per cent of Labour backbenchers didn’t vote with the Government.

Monday 17 September

To Friends’ Meeting House, Euston Road, for the Committee to Stop the War. The Left is marvellous! When I arrived I walked into a flaming row, because Mark Osborn of
Socialist Organiser
had issued a leaflet to which CND and the
Marxism Today
lot took exception. He asked on behalf of his committee to affiliate to Stop the War, but that was turned down, and he was requested to leave the meeting.

I said, ‘I don’t think we have any authority to do that. It’s Stalinist.’ So that upset the CND people.

The row went on and on, and Ann Pettifor said Mark Osborn should be told to leave. I nearly walked out myself!

Monday 24 September

I had asked to see Ted Heath, and at 5.45 I arrived at his house. I expected a police guard, but the door was open and his chauffeur was carrying in a box of apples, which he told me Mr Heath had picked from his garden in Salisbury. Out came a Spanish lady in her sixties, who said, ‘Mr Benn, what a pleasure to see you in the flesh. Do come in. Mr Heath will be here in a few minutes.’

She took me up to his sitting room on the first floor of quite a small house, beautifully furnished, with pictures of yachting scenes, and his piano, and two couches facing each other. As I walked up the stairs I could see him working in his office in his pullover.

He came in and shook hands, and I thanked him for sparing the time. He offered me a drink, and I said I was a teetotaller – which he didn’t know. I had a ginger ale.

I said I thought his broadcast a week before had been very wise and reflected a widely held opinion in Britain. I wondered whether he might consider joining with other senior political figures, many of whom, like himself, had been ‘through the chair’, to issue an appeal for peace along the lines of his broadcast. He sat there, impassive, looking at me.

His Private Secretary had told me that after his broadcast he had received eighty-five letters, most of them sympathetic.

I told him, ‘I have had over a thousand now, from all over the world, and only thirty-one of them were critical.’

We discussed the UN’s position, and I said, ‘People don’t want another Korean War.’

‘I agree with that.’

It wasn’t a cold meeting exactly, but it was formal, and I suppose he must be suspicious of me because I fought him very hard when he was Prime Minister, opposed him on the Common Market, and criticised him sharply on a number of occasions.

Just before I left, I said, ‘My wife sends her kind regards. We have never forgotten the time we came to dinner at Number 10 when you were Prime
Minister and you were dining a West African president, I forget who it was. After the dinner we had some lovely music played by African musicians, sitting on the floor and playing their instruments.’ All of a sudden he was transformed. His body began shaking with the old Ted Heath laugh, and he said, ‘We always had music at Number 10 dinners.’

I got up and left. It was a memorable little event. Perhaps he will do something about it, but, if he doesn’t, there you are.

Sunday 30 September – Labour Party Conference, Blackpool

Two well-dressed men came up to me at the Conference and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, we are from the police. We have to advise you that somebody with a northern accent rang the
Daily Mirror
this morning saying that a contract had been put out to kill you and Ken Livingstone. Do you know where Mr Livingstone is?’

I said, ‘I’ll see him later, and I’ll tell him. Thanks.’

I daresay we are back in the old routine of death threats, with the Gulf crisis.

The layout of the Conference is fantastic – lots of photographs and the slogan ‘Looking to the Future’. The rostrum is quite separate from the platform, and everybody had been pushed up on to the second row, except for ‘leading figures’. It is now all stage-managed for the telly. It is symbolic of the separation between the leadership and the membership.

Monday 1 October

I was disappointed that the Conference rejected by 3 million-odd to 2,788,000 a motion to phase out nuclear power over fifteen years.

Looking at the platform in the afternoon, I though that all these impressive Front Bench people – Tony Blair, Michael Meacher, Jack Straw, Frank Dobson, John Cunningham – made a much better team man for man, or woman for woman, than the Tories. I think people have had enough of the Thatcher philosophy, and they want a change.

Wednesday 3 October

Up at 6.45, and I practised and timed my speech on the emergency resolution on the Gulf, on which I intended to speak from the floor.

Ken Cameron moved the emergency resolution very well, seconded by somebody from Bolsover who sounded just like Dennis Skinner and was brilliantly funny. Then Denis Healey spoke, and John Edmonds made an outrageous speech in which he asked about the commanders of British troops in Saudi Arabia, ‘Are they not to be allowed to make a pre-emptive strike?’

I got up after every speech, expecting to be called, and finally Jo Richardson, the Chair, said, ‘That’s where we must leave it. The Conference Arrangements Committee have allowed us five speeches from
the floor.’ So people on the floor shouted, ‘Call Tony Benn!’ Jo said, ‘I’ve called two MPs, and nobody has a special right to speak.’

I didn’t complain, but, as a result of all the fuss being made about my being excluded, the media gathered round, and in fact I did masses of interviews on what I would have said anyway. I was very sharp at Edmonds: ‘For a general secretary sitting in his comfortable armchair to call for a pre-emptive strike against Baghdad when he is not going to be killed himself is disgraceful.’

Sunday 21 October

Ted Heath saw Saddam Hussein today and is hoping to come out with some of the British hostages. Bit by bit, one could see the whole of the Gulf War enterprise grinding to a halt, with the American President in deep trouble domestically over his budget.

Thursday 1 November

A bombshell today: Geoffrey Howe, the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House, has resigned from the Government – the last surviving member of the original 1979 Cabinet. He is a very nice man; I like him personally.

Willy Brandt is going to Baghdad. I feel a certain pride in this because Ralph Miliband had suggested I approach Ted Heath, and then I suggested to Heath that Willy Brandt might be brought in. It may have come from that. Brandt is going to Baghdad with the goodwill of the UN Secretary-General, although Douglas Hurd has complained to the German Government about it.

Howe’s resignation has put the Tories into a panic, and there may be a leadership election; if Heseltine became Leader, there’s not much difference between him and Kinnock, except that he has had a lot more experience.

Tuesday 6 November

The Iraqi Embassy rang, saying the Ambassador would like to see me. I wasn’t prepared to go to the Embassy, so they said the Ambassador would come to my home at 1.30.1 informed the Foreign Office, so that it was all above board.