It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). I loved his idea that diplomats should get out and walk across the dusty plains of Anatolia. Perhaps one of them might write a book about such an excursion or go off and become a political commissioner, giving out political instruction and wisdom to others. I concur with his lament about foreign languages. It is terribly heartening to hear a Conservative Member say that a language other than English is spoken in the world. He spoke about the notion that promotion in the Foreign Office should depend on linguistic ability. Heaven forfend that that should be applied to Ministers. He was right to be lyrical.
I dispute the hon. Gentleman’s view that nothing had happened in Turkey until the Foreign Affairs Committee, of which he is a distinguished member, made its visit. I recall a most distinguished diplomat, Sir Peter Westmacott, who is now our representative in the United States, spending a great deal of time acting, with great linguistic ability, as the most effective bridge between any European state or any NATO member state and the Turks during his time in office there. I recall him working with Mr Erdogan and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had invested an enormous amount of time cajoling, persuading, bullying, nudging—all the things that he was rather good at—his fellow European leaders to accept the opening of full negotiations with Turkey. That was touch and go. When I was Europe Minister, I remember being there right through to 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning as Mr Blair, Mr Erdogan and Sir Peter formed a troika that got Turkey to the start of discussions with the European Union.
I differ somewhat from the view expressed by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), a distinguished Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who seemed to finger France as the main problem. It was General de Gaulle who, in 1963, insisted that the European Economic Community should open a relationship with Turkey. He thought that the Europe that he dreamed of—the “Europe des patries”, as he called it—would have to be as large as possible and that to exclude a great, important and historic state such as Turkey simply did not make sense. On the whole, French political leaders have been quite good friends of Turkey from that moment on. President Chirac certainly supported Turkish admission, and the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard wrote an excellent book two or three years ago—in French, and sadly it is not available in English, although perhaps it is in Turkish—on the need for Turkey to join the EU and why France should support that.
President Sarkozy pandered to the part of the electorate that exists in all our countries that sees anything foreign as a bad thing. He pandered to the idea that any immigrants coming to France were a bad thing and that, as long as the gates of a nation are shut to
incomers, that country will somehow be strong again. I am glad that in the presidential election President Hollande rejected such hostility to immigration and the idea that there is a need to place a cap on the number of immigrants coming into France. As we know, President Sarkozy’s reactionary anti-immigrant language was defeated.
I have been going to Turkey for nearly 30 years, first to small left-wing trade union meetings in the 1970s and then to the trial of Orhan Pamuk in 2005, when I was pushed to the ground and kicked by a few nasty right wingers. I keep going there as often as I can, and after each trip I come back more impressed but more perplexed. I am more impressed by the vitality and excitement—it really is one of the most exciting countries in the world to visit—but more perplexed by my failure to work out how the Rubik’s cube of Turkey is put together. I do not speak Turkish, and I do not think I am going to learn that language.
On one level Turkey is all the things that hon. Members have said it is. It is dynamic and growth-focused, and it has brought an enormous number of people into middle-class prosperity. Istanbul has some of the youngest and most exuberant art in the world. The last time I was there, I had dinner with Orhan Pamuk, who had won the Nobel prize and was threatened with death by Turkish nationalists and imprisonment by Turkish judges. We went to a restaurant on the Bosphorus and he was accompanied by a bodyguard. He was stopped by somebody and had a little chat. I asked, “Who was that?” He said, “Oh, that was the state attorney-general, who a couple of years ago was trying to put me in prison permanently. He said to me, ‘Orhan, you’re down to one bodyguard, are you? You see, we are making progress.’” I think that is true.
The Foreign Affairs Committee’s report is absolutely first-rate, and I commend its detail and thoroughness and the work of the Committee’s Chairman and members. I have some brief points to make about it. We need to reconsider our visa regime. The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border talked about people learning Turkish and Turks getting to know Britain. It is a travesty that it was easier to visit the Soviet Union in the old days than it is for many Turks to get a visa to come to the United Kingdom. We have to grow up—we cannot say that we are open for business and be closed to foreigners. I am sorry if that language does not sit well, but it is the truth.
On page Ev 80 of the evidence published in the Committee’s report, Migration Watch UK states:
“The Poles are Catholics of European heritage…the bulk of Turkish immigrants in this country, and elsewhere in Europe, are poorer, less educated Muslims of Middle Eastern heritage who form the majority of Turkey’s population.”
That is the evidence presented by this wretched organisation, Migration Watch UK, to the Committee. One hundred years ago, we passed the Status of Aliens Act 1914, using exactly the same argument about Jews coming from the poorer parts of eastern Europe. Until we grow up and stop the Islamophobic dislike of people from outside Britain coming here, we will not have the influence we need.