Margaret Thatcher's policies on South Africa are facing potentially their greatest-ever challenge – and it is led by a rightwing Conservative Party MP. Ivor Stanbrook, MP for Orpington and chairman of the newly-formed British-Southern Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group, believes the British primeminister's stance on South Africa is so out of step with British public opinion that a majority of Conservative MPs could soon force her to toughen up on Pretoria.
Stanbrook describes himself as being on the "rightwing" of the Conservative Party. Thatcher's "conciliatory" attitude towards the SouthAfrican government has long come under fire from opposition parliamentarians, and even from some so-called Tory "wets". But the revolt within the ranks of "her own" is a striking new development. The new group was formed partly in response to Thatcher's virulent attack on the African National Congress at the recent Commonwealth summit in Vancouvera (she dismissed it as a "terrorist organisation"), and because of her hostility to sanctions as a means of ending apartheid.
Stanbrook told the Weekly Mail the new group, which was launched last month and includes MPs from all parties, favoursa "much firmer policy towards South African". He said the already-existing British-South Africa. Group, led by John Carlisle, was firmly in the hands of the "extreme right" of the Conservative Party, did not represent parliamentary opinion, and had no growth potential. Between 50 and 60 MPs – a sizeable proportion of them Conservatives – attended the inaugural meeting of the new group and "many, many more" had indicated they would join, said Stanbrook in a telephone interview from the House of Commons in London yesterday.
"There is such a sizeable body of opinion in the Conservative Partydesiring firmer policies toward South Africa that it could soon be a majority," he said. "It is safe to say that most members of this group would not be well dis- posed toward the South African government," he added. "My view is that we should accelerate peaceful change so as to produce a properly democratic regime in South Africa as soon as possible. There are immense difficulties, but I don't think we should sit back, as some of my friends want to, and allow the detestable regime that now runs the government in South Africa to get away with it. He said he had tabled a motion in parliament criticising Thatcher "for "misdescribing the ANC".
Asked about his attitude to sanctions, he said: "We already have many sanctions in force. So to say we arc pro-sanctions is stating the obvious …but what we want to do is to step up the sorts of sanctions which would induce the South African government to give way on the issue of democracy. "Exactly how far we go on some forms of economic sanctions is a matter for judgement – we don't want to cause the South African economy to break down. That would affect everybody and be counterproductive."
The terms of reference of the British-Southern African Group are "to promote friendly relations and mutual understanding between Britain and all the countries of Southern Africa." Stanbrook's vice-chairmen are Conservative MP Peter Temple-Morris (who is also vice-chairman of the influential Conservative Foreign Affairs Committee), and Labour representative Robert Hughes. The treasurer is Simon Hughes of the Liberal Party. Stanbrook is not new to African polities, having served 10 years in the British Colonial Service in Nigeria, and travelled in Southern Africa.
* Meanwhile, the South African issue has been put on the House of Commons agenda for another reason: 19 women MPs have written to Thatcher asking her to "take steps" to secure the release before Christmas of children held in South African prisons. – Shaun Johnson
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
