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Conservative Party Conference Speech 1991
Earlier this week this Conference welcomed Mrs Thatcher. You gave her the most tumultuous reception. She deserved it. She led our country for over 11 years, our Party for over 15. We owe Margaret a great debt.
The Britain she left us is immeasurably stronger than the Britain she found. Above all, she helped others to believe in us and us to believe in ourselves. And on those foundations she laid three great Election victories.
It's good to applaud; it's grand to cheer. But the greatest tribute we can pay her is to do as she did. To win, and win, and win again. At this Conference - and what a successful Conference it's been - you have heard how the next Conservative Government will secure the best future for Britain.
We've heard some cracking speeches this week. From the right team. A young team - in fact the youngest Cabinet this century. A professional team.
Just think for a moment. When the going gets rough in international affairs, who would be the first person you would send for? Gerald Kaufman? No. He would be the second person. The first person would be anyone but Gerald Kaufman. But far and away the best person would be Douglas Hurd, one of the finest Foreign Secretaries this country has ever had.
Of course, Labour's Captain tries to talk up his team. "A winning team" he calls them. After three election defeats? Well, it goes to show that there must be more than one way to look at history. Take waterloo. You thought Wellington won Waterloo? No, Waterloo was a smash hit for Napoleon. But we can help Labour to win one thing - the record for the longest run of election defeats. Played four. Lost four. And a probable vacancy for team captain.
Last week at Brighton we had speech after speech about a fairy-tale future for the British people. In Labour's Never-Mind-the-Cost-Never-Never Land. Then there was singalongaleader. It was all good fun if you like that sort of thing.
But while this was happening out front, there was something thoroughly nasty seeping from under the platform. I refer, of course, to what Labour pretends to believe are the Government's plans for the National Health Service. There's only one way to deal with a lie: nail it to the wall of truth, as William Waldegrave so conclusively did yesterday. We have all been brought up with the Health Service. We use it. We cherish it. We are proud of it.
I know that for millions of people in this country the National Health Service means security. I understand that. Because I am - and always have been - one of those people. I know that even when you're fit and well, it brings peace of mind - just to know it's there. It is unthinkable that I, of all people, would try to take that security away. A genuine belief I can respect, even when I profoundly disagree with it. But deliberate lies - repeated, repeated and repeated - merely diminishes its authors.
The Health Service has been in existence for over 40 years. And who has been in Government for most of that period? We have. For 29 of those years it has been a Conservative Government. It has been under Conservative Governments that the National Health Service has been built up, enlarged and improved. And our reforms will carry that right through into the 1990s. So let me say now, once and for all, and without qualifications - under this Government the National Health Service will continue, to offer free hospital treatment to everyone.
And so that no-one can misunderstand the position - and I hope the whole country is listening - let me make it even clearer. There will be no charges for hospital treatment, no charges for visits to the doctor, no privatisation of health care, neither piecemeal, not in part, nor as a whole. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not after the next election. Not ever while I'm Prime Minister.
And if, after all I have said, there are still those who set out to frighten the vulnerable, the weak, and the old, with carefully calculated smears, then the public will know where to find them - in the gutters of public debate. Such people are not friends of the Health Service. They are the parasites that live on its back.
No Conservative need be defensive about the Health Service. On the contrary, every Conservative has the right to share my disgust at what is said. Go to your local hospital. What do you find? You'll find Conservatives. In the hospital shop. Serving with the League of Friends. Working on the wards. They are not just friends of the Health Service. They are part of the Health Service.
The National Health Service doesn't belong to the Labour Party. As its name makes clear, it belongs to the Nation. And - in both senses of the phrase - Labour isn't going to get away with it. The Health Service is not a political football to be kicked around in the hope that, somehow or other, it will reopen the door of Downing Street to a Labour Government. It won't. Neither by hook or by Cook.
This is the first Conference I have addressed as Leader of the Conservative Party. It is hard to explain how I feel about that. It is a long road from Coldharbour Lane to Downing Street. It is a tribute to the Conservative Party that that road can be travelled.
Perhaps at the back of this hall today there is another young man or woman who standards where I did 30 years ago. Who knows few people here. Who feels it is a long road to this platform, too.
They should remember the last two leaders were a builder's son from Broadstairs and a grocer's daughter from Grantham. We don't need lectures in the Conservative Party about opportunity. We are the Party of opportunity.
This Party is open to all. And to all those who may be watching, wherever you come from, whatever your background, I say simply this, "Come and join us". There are no barriers in our Party, just as there will be no barriers in the Britain we are building together.
Some people ask whether we will have a different sort of Conservatism in future. Of course we will. We all bring our own beliefs, our own instincts, and our own experiences to politics. And I am no exception.
But the fundamental beliefs of the Conservative Party, those beliefs that brought me into this Party, are the beliefs that Chris Patten expressed so brilliantly on Tuesday. They remain as strong today as ever. Old though our Party is, the values behind it are older still. They are rooted in the instincts of every individual. And it is through our policies that we make them come alive.
What is it that we offer? A strong Britain, confident of its position; secure in its defences, firm in its respect for the law. A strong economy, free from the threat of inflation, in which taxes can fall, savings can grow, and independence is assured.
I want to give individuals greater control over their own lives.
- Every mother, every father, a say over their child's education.
- Every schoolchild, a choice of routes to the world of work.
- Every patient, the confidence that their doctors can secure the best treatment for them.
- Every business, every worker, freedom from the destructive dictatorship of union militants.
- Every family, the right to have and to hold their own private corner of life; their own home, their own savings, their own security for their future - and for their children's future.
Building the self-respect that comes from ownership. Showing the responsibility that follows from self-respect. That is our programme for the 90s. I will put it in a single phrase: the power to choose - and the right to own.
Do you know what Labour believes? That choice is something for them. They just can't accept that choice is something most of us can be trusted with. You might make mistakes, they say. What arrogance. As if the State have never made mistakes, in our name, with our money. Try telling that the tenants of the crumbling tower blocks that disfigures our cities.
And tell that to the citizens of Eastern Europe, who have risked their very lives for these freedoms, for the right to own, and for the power to choose. Ordinary values - for which ordinary people have, in our time, fought an extraordinary fight.
During the summer I did quite a bit of travelling - Headingley, Edgbaston, Trent Bridge, Lord's, the Oval. Also Moscow, Peking, Hong Kong and Kennebunkport. Wherever I went abroad, I found the same story. Britain is respected again. We don't always realise the admiration and affection for Britain abroad.
We've earned it, because when others have hesitated, we have always stood firm and given a lead. As we did again this year. In defence of freedom in Kuwait. We didn't want that war, its waste, its suffering, its grief. But to achieve greater security in the world, we had to reverse the annexation of Kuwait. And to keep that security we must destroy Iraq's nuclear weapons capacity. They are still trying to cling to it, still cheating, still lying.
They cannot be permitted to succeed. One way or another that nuclear capacity must go. I hope it will go peacefully. If not, it must go by force. But go it will. In January I flew by helicopter over our army in the Gulf. I can still see the scene below me. A great convoy of troops and heavy equipment moving forward across the sands. For mile after mile. You could only marvel at the organisation and planning involved.
But down on the ground, I had a different impression. Dug into position each unit seemed almost alone. Young men - mostly very young - thousands of miles from home in the wastes of the desert. Let me tell you what was in my mind when I met them. What would they think? Here was a new Prime Minister, unknown to them, untried, asking them to prepare for battle, perhaps not to return. How would they respond to that? And would they understand the reasons why they were there?
Whatever doubts I had soon disappeared. They knew why there were there. They knew the cause was right. And they knew that they could do the job. They asked only to be allowed to get on with it. And, when they did, my goodness, how they proved their point. They really were the best of British.
I learned something else from that extraordinary war and especially from that precision bombing that amazed the world. It's this. If our troops are to do the job we ask, it is absolutely vital that their equipment and their training are the best.
That is why in the last few weeks we have bought the new anti-submarine helicopter from Westland - the best. Why we are moving ahead with the new Challenger tank from Vickers - the best. And that's why we will keep our own independent nuclear deterrent, Trident. The best security for Britain.
And we will take with just a little pinch of salt the conversion of those who campaigned for CND for the past thirty years - and then suddenly let their principles ....what was the word? ... lapse? What principles? First, peace at any price. Then power at any price. I know what this country will say to that. Never at any price. For a man who with no fixed view on the defence of Britain, there can be no fixed abode in Downing Street.
As we saw again in the aftermath of war, a confident Britain is a force for good in a troubled world. If we had not created those safe havens in Iraq, hundreds and thousands of Kurdish people would have died last winter in bitter, freezing mountains. We spoke out strongly for human rights in Peking and spoke out first against the return of tyranny in Moscow.
Alone among all the nations of the world we stand at the hub of three great interlocking alliances. Of NATO, which is and must remain the core of our defence. Of the European Community. And of the Commonwealth, which meets in conference next week. There we must persuade 50 nations, some - frankly - with a chequered political history, to a formal commitment to democracy and human rights.
And in the 1990s I hope to see one former member of the Commonwealth once more take its rightful place. We have always fought for an end to apartheid. But we have worked just as consistently for the long-term goal of a fully free and prosperous South Africa. I believe that both goals are now in sight. And when they are reached I want to see South Africa back where she belongs - as a fully-fledged member of our Commonwealth of nations.
A great debate is now underway in Europe. One in which the Conservative Party can speak with authority. Harold Macmillan first sought to take Britain into the Community, Ted Heath finally led us there, and Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act - with its vision of ever closer union between states. Closer union between states. Not a federal merger of states. That is still our policy.
I believe strongly in partnership in Europe. Britain, as a great European power, has gained from our membership of the Community. That is the verdict of those people in our country who live by business, banking and trade, the very people on whom our prosperity and jobs depend. But it must be the right Europe. Let me set out for you the objectives that I have in mind, the principles that I will fight for, and the propositions I will resist.
First we want a Community that will in time embrace the new democracies of the East. We have the chance to heal the scar that divided and disfigured Europe for two generations. The nations of Eastern Europe - Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States - need to know now that when their economies are ready for the Community, the Community will be ready for them.
Second, I want a genuine single market, open for business right across the Community. It must have common rules. And these rules must be obeyed. When we sign up to something, we put words into actions. Some of our partners, I fear, are keener on making new rules than on keeping them. We need a system that can deal effectively with those who call themselves good Europeans, but who hijack lorries or hold up free trade.
We are now negotiating new Treaties on political and economic union. I am always ready to listen to new ideas. But they must be workable ideas. Ideas that make sense for Europe, and for Britain. There are vital issues at stake. They involve hard judgments of where our true interests lie. The idea of a single European currency is one with enormous ramifications, both practical and political. At best it is an uncertain prospect. And treaty must provide for a separate decision to be taken - not now - but at a future date by the British Government and the British Parliament. It's our decision. A single currency cannot be imposed upon us. And I would not accept, on behalf of Britain, any treaty which sought to impose a single currency - at however distant a date.
We already work closely with our European partners in financial affairs. So, too, in foreign policy and defence. When national interest and Community interest coincide, then common action is only common sense. But in no circumstances - not now, not at Maastricht - will a Conservative Government give up the right, our national right, to take the crucial decisions about our security, our foreign policy and our defence.
We are working to reach an agreement at Maastricht in December. But I cannot guarantee that our negotiations will succeed. For it is no easy task to get 12 nations to agree. And for my part, I shall put the interests of our country before any agreement. Not any agreement before the interests of our country.
I hope we can reach agreement. If we do, I will submit that agreement to parliament. For it is here in Britain that the crucial decisions must be taken. Not in the European Parliament. Not in the Council of Ministers. Not in the Commission - certainly not in the Commission. It will be for Parliament to decide on behalf of the people of Britain who elected it.
So far I have spoken of alliances. Of how much we can achieve if we work with other nations. But when it comes to the search for new markets, even our closest allies remain our competitors. I have never accepted the craven argument that Britain can't compete with Germany or Japan. And I have contempt for the defeatists who run down our country and write of its future.
Those who said we couldn't compete in Europe when we led Britain into the Exchange-Rate Mechanism.
Those who said that we would have to push up interest rates. And that our inflation was bound to stay far higher than the rest of the Continent.
All that was just a year ago this week. And look what has really happened since.
We have cut interests rates - eight times.