POLITICAL COMMENTARY

A question of loyalty

AUBERON WAUGH

Something rather horrible happened in the House of Commons last week. The House was debating Biafra again and, as might be expected, the benches were more or less deserted. After the main speeches, there were seldom more than four people sitting on the Conservative back benches, three of whom were usually our old friends Messrs.

Cordle, Tilney and Nigel 'Kill-Me-Quick' Fisher, the left-wing Conservative MP for Surbiton. As the front bench spokesmen wound up, others who had taken part in the debate, or evinced some concern about events in Nigeria, drifted in. It was a quiet, domestic occasion, with all the familiar arguments being rolled out: the undesirab- ility of contributing to the murder of a million and a half friendly civilians on the one hand; the necessity of respecting the sovereignty of an independent state on the other, the sad fact of a blockade strategy on the one hand; the magnanimity of pro- fessing readiness to breach it on the other.

Everything—or nearly everything—was being given a thoroughly good airing. It was the sort of scene to make one proud of living in a democracy. The sixty-odd MPS who had an interest in preserving Nigeria or a concern about the means necessary to this end seemed tolerably well informed, and the standard of debate was certainly higher than on previous occasions. There were no exhibitionist outbursts from people like Woodrow Wyatt, anxious to support anything which looked vaguely rightwing, bloody or ignoble. On the balance, those who deplored the Government's policy seemed to outnumber those who supported it by about two to one, although this ratio was not reflected in the speeches if one counts official Tory spokesmen as being, broadly speaking, in favour of the Govern- ment's policy. Oddly enough, it also seemed to me, for the first time, that the critics of government policy were getting the better of the argument, and if there had been any- body with an open mind who had been prepared to sit through the debate (there was nobody in that category) he might have been persuaded to vote against the Govern- ment on the adjournment motion.

This need not be completely surprising of course. Since the House last debated Biafra, the Nigerian Commander-in-Chief had declared that starvation was justified, so had the Nigerian Vice-President. The Nigerians had shot down a Red Cross plane in broad daylight, had succeeded at long last in stopping all relief into Biafra, and had announced that they were taking over res- ponsibility for the control of relief. In addition to this, the International Red Cross had produced its estimate of one and a half million dead through starvation since the war began, and its new president had criticised those who supplied arms in the most forthright terms. The Federal govern- ment had still not voluntarily allowed so much as a grain of salt into unoccupied Biafra to relieve the starvation there, and on the face of it one would have thought that it would require a powerful effort of the will to believe that the Federal govern- ment was in fact prepared to do so in any circumstances other than those of a Biafran surrender.

It was all very gentlemanly and pleasant. Nobody was trying to suggest that Mr Stewart was deliberately misleading the House when he quoted General Ojukwu as saying that the food shortage was over its hump before the present crisis began; or when he mistakenly gave the impression that agreement had been reached between the relief agencies and the Federal govern- ment, subject to a few trifling details. Nor did anyone question him when he re- affirmed in the most categorical terms that no military aeroplanes or personnel had been supplied to the Federal government al- though most members present knew that this was not the case: that a Provost mili- tary trainer of the Nigerian Air Force, with an English pilot, had had the misfor- tune to be forced down in Dahomey, where all the world saw it.

The plain truth is that mrs generally are prepared to swallow anything the Foreign Secretary cares to tell them, accepting it as a parliamentary convention, and also some- thing which I do not dispute for a moment, namely, that he is extremely sincere. He was sincere when he said that there had been undoubted cases of murder and arson in Anguilla, and that people had seen the burnt-out shells of houses, although it hap- pened to be completely untrue. We were all sincere in that cosy old Chamber of the House on Thursday evening—those who wanted to stop our complicity in the massacre, like the eminently good Philip Noel-Baker, those who wanted to prevent the whole of Africa breaking up into thous- ands of uneconomic units with no trading future, like Mr John Tilney, those who merely wanted to praise the Foreign Secre- tary, like Mr Eldon Griffiths. Making allow- ances for everything—it was a pity that Mr McNair-Wilson needed to be quite so positive in his belief that the war had been going on for three years, or that Mr John 'Sheets' Cordle always forgets to declare an interest—making allowances, as I have said, for natural hyperbole on both sides, it had been a good debate inside the family. Then the horrible thing had to happen. Mr Allaun moved the question; the division bell sounded, and in he ran, the great, long- legged Voting Man.

As I have said, there are about fifteen people on the Labour side who really do believe that the Nigerians have got a case: that the Biafrans should surrender, and that if they don't, they must be prepared to face the consequences of mass starvation, and also the proper condemnation of all right- minded people for refusing to surrender in the first place. There are at least three Tories who feel the same way: Sheets, John Tilney and Kill-Me-Quick. These three even

demonstrated their commitment to the extent of voting with the Labour govern. ment against the firm instructions of Sir Alec Douglas-Home and the Tory leader. ship. I hope their constituency associations take note: Bournemouth East, Liverpool Wavertree and (so help me) Surbiton. 1 would not for a moment like to suggest that they, or Labour supporters of Nigeria, like James Johnson, Michael Foot and Frank Judd, have no right to vote as they please. Nor, I hope, would they wish to prevent my recording the opinion that they are moral imbeciles.

But what are any of us to make of the others of the 164 who recorded their belief in the justice of the Nigerian cause, in the truth of the Nigerian protestations about relief, in the efficacy of our arms supply to promote justice and moderation and keep the Russians out? What of the grisly alpha- betic line of tramping feet from Anderson, Donald to three Williamses and Wilson who solemnly made their decision on a matter affecting the death, by one of the most horrible means of execution known to man, of some million children? They had not attended the debate, or shown the tiniest interest in the subject under discussion. And yet they voted.

No doubt it all boils down to a question of loyalty. Few possess Kill-Me-Quick's hard logic, or even the honesty to say, as he said, when interrupted by David Winnick: 'I believe that there cannot be a negotiated peace in the immediate future, the only solution is a Federal military victory. I be- lieve that our policies are based, and should be based, on that assumption'.

Mr Winnick: 'Obviously the hon Gentle- man thinks that the most humane way of waging the war is for the Federal Nigerian forces to wage it without restraint and to deprive the Ibos of food, because plainly be believes that that will end the war more quickly'.

Kill Me-Quick: j'It will save a great deal of life if the war ends quickly, and that is the basis of my argument'.

No, the answer is much more simple. The vast majority of those bloodstained 164 voters had no interest in the matter under discussion, but they walked through the lobbies as a matter of habit, like Dr Manette mending shoes in A Tale of Two Cities. They were not prepared even to consider that Mr Stewart's sincerity might have led him to be guilty of the crime of which he stands indicted on the lips of the President of the International Red Cross. As little Willie Hamilton said in the debate: 'I would not belong to the Labour party if I believed that there was a single member of the Labour government who had connived in any way in this tragedy'; and earlier . . . `when I hear these charges from hon mem- bers on this side against my right hon friends in the Government who have worked night and day to try and get a peaceful settlement in Nigeria, it sticks in my gullet'.

Well, there may be worse things than that to stick in his gullet before he is through. In the meantime, let him reflect on Mr Stewart's statement of British policy, made on 24 March of this year, and on countless occasions before and since: 'We must understand that a solution to this prob- lem must rest on the position of one Nigeria, not two Nigerias'. Whatever the cost.