Patrick Wall - Views On Africa and Communism

Views On Africa and Communism

Patrick Wall chaired several party committees concerned with Africa. He defended the British colonial record and was convinced of the benefits of white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. In 1960, he claimed that the colonial problem arose not from differences in colour, but from differences in standards. "What we have to do is to work as hard as we can by raising the standards of the black Africans to ensure that we level up and do not take the easy way out by levelling down. Progress in Central Africa depends on the maintenance of standards and I believe we owe it, not only to our kith and kin, but to the vast mass of as yet uneducated black Africans for whom we are trustees, to see that the existing standards in Central Africa are not debased." (cf. Reeves, p. 116).

He was a friend of the Rhodesian Prime Minister, Ian Smith, and fully supported him. After Rhodesia's UDI in 1965, he joined forces with Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, to lead the Tory revolt against their party's support for the Labour administration's sanctions policy.

Wall believed that white rule in Southern Africa was the last bulwark against the spread of communism in the region, which he described as "this evil virus". He argued that this, in turn, would mean that the West would lose vital mineral supplies and that the oil route round the Cape would come under threat.

In 1974, Patrick Wall attacked the Labour government's pull-out from the Simonstown naval base in South Africa, and stated in the House of Commons that "they" (the government) "must be insane. This is the only link NATO has with the Cape. British interests in Africa as a strategic part of the world should be maintained." In 1975, writing in the journal To The Point, Patrick Wall said "the basic philosophy of the Communist powers is to detach Southern Africa from the Western World."

A committed supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he was leader of the British delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly from 1979 - 1987. Wall was especially suspicious of the Foreign Office, which he believed had contributed to Britain's decline. He would quote an African minister's remark: "We never trust you British because you never protect your own tribe."