Ancram attacks Blair and Straw
Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram has launched a stinging attack on Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing him of not having a plan for post-war Iraq and misleading the public over the reasons for going to war.
He also had strong words for Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, calling his lack of action on Zimbabwe a “spineless betrayal”, and for outgoing European Commission President Romano Prodi, whom he told to “get lost”.
Speaking to the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth, Mr Ancram called Mr Blair “untruthful, untrustworthy and unrepentant”, a “master of make-believe” who had promised there was a plan for reconstructing Iraq when no such plan existed.
He then accused Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of a ‘shameful abandonment’ of Zimbabwe.
“While Mugabe continues to torture, to murder and to demolish democracy and the rule of law, Straw’s response is that the suffering Zimbabwean people must find their own salvation. What a spineless betrayal,” he said.
Mr Straw had also betrayed Britain over Gibraltar, he said, by negotiating to share sovereignty with Spain. He said a Conservative government would, within one week of the election, formally repudiate that agreement.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary vowed to confront a “changed, unsettled, more dangerous world” with a foreign policy that was “as strong as it is compassionate: strong in the face of threats, compassionate in the face of hunger and disease”.
He pledged his support for many of Britain’s existing relationships, calling for a strengthened agreement with the United States in which both parties could “speak frankly to each other as friends and work together as partners”.
NATO should be at the heart of Britain’s security, and the Commonwealth had a greater role to play, he added.
Turning to Europe, Mr Ancram promised that if the Conservatives won the General Election next year, it would hold a referendum on the European Constitution before October – and would campaign aggressively for a ‘No’ vote.
Britain had, for thirty years or more, been “swept along in the wake of an inexorable drift towards a politically united Europe”. However, the Constitution had changed that because it promised “a country called Europe” – and people did not want that.
He vowed to take back powers from Brussels, including control of fisheries, a greater part of international aid, and the opt-out from the Social Chapter. He said the Conservatives would make it clear they would never give away ‘essential British rights of self-determination’ on tax, welfare system, immigration and asylum, and defence and foreign policy – all of which he said were at risk.
And, responding to reports that Mr Prodi suggested that in future British Olympic medallists should celebrate under the European flag, he said: “Get lost, Mr. Prodi, get lost.”
