I welcome the opportunity afforded to me to make clear that opposition to this Pact is not confined to the insignificant minority represented by the Communist Party. We understand the support of hon. Members opposite for this Pact because it indeed represents the fulfilment of the aims of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). But there is on these Government benches a body of opinion which, while strongly upholding the Government in its democratic Socialist aims, nevertheless regards this Pact as being incompatible with the fulfilment of those aims. [An HON. MEMBER: "Speak for yourself."] I am speaking for myself in this matter, and I can say that there are other hon. Members who share my view. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many".]

We have asked for a Debate on this question while the Foreign Secretary is here. Some of us hold the view that this Pact represents a fundamental change in policy, not only a departure from the pre-war policy of the Labour Party, but from the policy on which we were elected in 1945, from the policy of the United Nations Charter—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—even from the policy which the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary themselves enunciated of an independent third group of nations which was not tied to either of the two super-world-Powers. This Pact is, in essence, a return to the type of military alliance which we had before 1914, and can only divide the world into two hostile blocks and make a contribution not to peace but to war.

This is not the occasion to argue these matters. All I ask the Foreign Secretary now is that if, through no fault of our own, we have to challenge this policy while he is abroad, I trust that he will not thereafter accuse us of stabbing him in the back.