"This was their finest hour"

The crumbling French resistance could not be maintained much longer. On 10 June, the government left Paris; on 16 June Marshal Petain formed a new government. The next day France sued for peace. As Churchill predicted in this House of Com­mons speech, the Battle of France was over and the battle of Britain had begun. Britain, he declared, was now resolved to fight on alone.

The defiant words were heard by millions, when the speech was broadcast and it is probably the best remembered Churchill speech of the war.

We do not yet know what will happen to France or whether the French resistance will be prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the war in accordance with their Treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many Frenchmen — and in our own hearts — we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this strug­gle. However matters may go in France or with the French Gov­ernment, or other French Governments, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do we recede. Czechs, Poles, Nor­wegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own. All these shall be restored.

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it de­pends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institu­tions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move for­ward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say. "This was their finest hour".

Here is another speech, delivered by the MP for Chesterfiela and former Cabinet minister Tony Benn.

MPs must guard against presidential power

I was elected 49 years ago this month and have fought 17, and won 16, contested elections, which the House of Commons library tells me is a record equalled only by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Churchill. The library also told me that 432,622 people had voted for me, and it is on their behalf that I want to speak. The debate is about the oldest issue of all — the relationship between the government and the governed.

I want to be clinical so as to avoid being controversial, but I think that, without any announcement of any change being made, this country is moving from a parliamentary to a presidential system. It appears to me that, increasingly, all effective power comes from No 10 Downing Street.

I understand that the current Prime Minister has twice as many advisers as his predecessor. That is not a new development — I had two advisers when I was Secretary of State for Industry and for Energy — but it is new in the sense that it is now be­coming apparent to many people that the real cabinet is now in No 10 Downing Street and that policy announcements made have been discussed within that cabinet. However, that cabinet has not been elected, nor have its members been through the rig­orous selection process applied to the civil service. It is far more like the American system. The Cabinet is no longer the centre of real decision making.

There are no effective checks and balances in our new pres­idential system comparable to those in the United States. As we know from recent history, an American president has to think about the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court, but the president of this country does not have to think about any of those things. Those are facts — although I hold strong views, I make no comment. Every prime minister can do what he likes, and the current one certainly does.

My concern is the quite different question of how the House of Commons should respond. I shall set out what I take to be obligations of members of the House of Commons. We have ob­ligations to our political parties. I am well aware that I would have' never become a member of Parliament or a minister had I not been a member of the Labour Party. I joined the Labour Party on my birthday in 1942 and I intend to die in it — but not quite yet. We are all committed to the manifesto that brought us here. It seems quite reasonable that, if the party promises some­thing, we, as individual members, have an obligation to support it. We are also committed to the electors who choose us. They employ us, they can dismiss us and we must speak for them. We are also responsible to our consciences and convictions, because the only image that matters is the image in the mirror when one shaves in the morning.

No other image matters; we have to live with ourselves.

However, we — I am speaking of whoever happens to be a Government backbencher — are not required to take orders from the Government when a policy has not been in the manifes­to, has not been put before us and has not been the subject of consultation. On welfare reform, I did not vote against the Gov­ernment; I voted for disabled people. I greatly resent the current personalization of media coverage — the references to the "awk­ward squad", "mavericks" and "rebels".

This place is elected to give a judgement on the measures or motions brought before it. Our duty is to speak and vote as we believe to be right. We must defend our Speaker from any attempt to remove her. We must control the select committees. I also believe that there should be more free votes. I believe that members of Parliament must reassert their role, and that the Gov­ernment must accept it.

I hope that this will not be the last speech I shall make in the House of Commons, but the House will understand that I should not be sorry if it was remembered. It has expressed my deep convictions and my determination that the new tendency towards centralization should not obliterate the very thing of which we boast most proudly.