My interview in @TelegraphNews today as Leader of the House http://t.co/tAx5AHf2Er
— William Hague (@WilliamJHague) September 28, 2014
7:05AM BST 28 Sep 2014
Inside William Hague’s ornate Commons office, deep in the heart of the Palace of Westminster, one image stands out among the political portraits, oil paintings and bronze and marble busts.
It is a snatched photograph of a beaming David Cameron, in his shirtsleeves, with his arms tightly gripped around the necks of Mr Hague, on one side, and George Osborne, on the other. All three men are bursting with excitement, fresh from their victory on the May night in 2010 when they finally got the Conservatives into power.
As this image makes clear, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are more than just good colleagues to Mr Hague. “They also happen to be – and this is why serving in this government has been such a pleasure in many ways – my two closest friends in the senior levels of politics,” he says.
But the Prime Minister’s bear-like grip on his most trusted ally is now loosening. To the delight of Mr Hague’s wife, Ffion, the 53-year-old has stepped aside after four years traversing the globe as foreign secretary, and will stand down as an MP at next year’s election, after 26 years in Parliament.
It was a decision he discussed at length – and in great secrecy – with both Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, a year before the move was announced in July’s reshuffle.
But despite no longer being foreign secretary, Mr Hague remains “First Secretary of State”, while Mr Cameron describes him as his “deputy in all but name”. He continues to sit on the National Security Council, where he receives regular intelligence briefings.
Above all, the Prime Minister values Mr Hague’s experience, which spans three decades at Westminster, including as a Cabinet minister in Sir John Major’s government and as party leader between 1997 and 2001.
In his new role as Leader of the House of Commons, Mr Hague has spent the past week arranging for the recall of Parliament to debate British air strikes in Iraq.
In an extensive interview with The Sunday Telegraph, he sets out starkly the logic behind ordering British forces into action against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). He warns of a long struggle – which could even, one day, require the deployment of British ground troops.
Mr Hague urges fellow Tories to reject the UK Independence Party and to “work very hard” to defeat “the least electable” Labour opposition he has ever seen, as he prepares his final speech to the party conference in Birmingham this week.
Looking to a future outside Westminster, he describes how the unstinting support of his wife has kept him sane, and reveals that the couple are eager to be free from the shackles of political life.
AIR STRIKES
It is the prospect of Britain returning to military action in Iraq that looms largest in Mr Hague’s mind as we meet in his office, a few feet from the Commons chamber that he first entered as a 27-year-old in 1989.
“None of us relish military action,” Mr Hague says, “but we are convinced across politics that sadly it is necessary.
“This is the gravest threat since this Government came into power and since I have been on the National Security Council. And it is growing,” he warns.
“The consequences of inaction would be the further mushrooming, the possibly rapid growth of one or more extremely dangerous organisations, which are committing appalling atrocities and human rights abuses against the people in the Middle Eastern region, and destabilising states in the region, but which also intend to pose a direct threat to us here in the UK.
“It would come to hit us very quickly. Indeed there have already been plots.
“We have to face up to it, we have to confront it and when other nations are taking part in that we have to play our part.”
BOOTS ON THE GROUND
The motion that MPs voted for on Friday explicitly rules out deploying combat soldiers, limiting the action to air strikes against targets in Iraq.
Can he really be so sure that British troops will not end up fighting the jihadists in the desert?
“I don’t suppose it’s possible to exclude anything,” he says. “We can’t, we don’t know what situations will arise in the future, so one can’t exclude anything in the future.”
But he argues that it is far better to seek to ensure that the ground combat troops are provided by the Iraqi army, the Kurdish forces and, in Syria, moderate opposition.
“Clearly we are looking to work with other countries such as the Iraqis and the Kurds, rather than to send in ground combat troops ourselves.”
Some MPs – mostly on the Conservative benches – are concerned that the government is not planning strikes against Isil in Syria.
Mr Hague declines to say whether Ed Miliband’s hesitancy prevented the government from seeking authorisation from MPs for a broader campaign.
But the wording of the Commons motion authorising air strikes was drawn up in close consultation with Labour, he says. “Questions about Syria are for another day.”
A DANGEROUS WORLD
Mr Hague’s assessment of global security, after four years at the Foreign Office, is bleak.
“The world is becoming less stable and more dangerous, for all sorts of reasons, and it is particularly evident in the Middle East.”
What does he make of disclosures, reported in The Sunday Telegraph, that Gulf states such as Qatar have been allowing funding to be passed to violent Islamists, while ostensibly signing up to the Western-led coalition against Isil?
“We are very clear in all our contacts with all Gulf states and Arab nations that none of us should be giving support to groups that either are – or metamorphose into – terrorist groups that threaten countries in the Middle East or in the West.
“Any deliberate or accidental financing of groups that can turn into terrorist groups must be avoided.”
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SIGNING OFF
However passionately he feels about the party’s election battle, Mr Hague knows that this time his future will not depend on the result.
As he prepares his final speech to the Conservative Party conference, he reflects that nobody has spoken more times at the annual gathering. He made his debut as a 16‑year-old, an appearance immortalised in famous footage of him on stage with long blond hair and a broad grin.
In the 37 intervening years, the hair has departed, but the smile remains. Will his last speech be an emotional moment? “I hardly ever get carried away with the emotion of the occasion, as a good Yorkshireman,” he jokes. “But it will be an important moment for me.”
Is he sorry to have left the Foreign Office, with its seemingly endless opportunities for travel and excitement? “No. It was my decision,” he says. “You don’t get a lot of sleep as foreign secretary.
“It is a job in the modern world that you can’t really do for more than four or five years, because it does involve ceaseless travel, working seven days a week, usually around the clock. There are no holidays, really, even on Christmas Day.”
His legacy at the Foreign Office, he hopes, will include restoring the department to its proper place as “a great institution again.”
Mr Hague is especially proud of his alliance with the film star Angelina Jolie, with whom he intends to continue working after he leaves Parliament in order to end the use of mass rape as a “weapon of war”.
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Read the rest at the telegraph
