Do you remember a year ago, David Miliband said, “The world is a very scary place.”
Well, it has become much scarier.
…A brutal insurgency is attacking Pakistan's new Government.
…Iran is still determined to get a nuclear weapon.
…Russia has just walked into little Georgia.
…And terrorism still poses a strategic threat.
Our insecurity is heightened by the current crisis of Western financial institutions.
As David Cameron has made clear, we will help the Government protect the national interest in crises. We are patriots.
But we want competence and effectiveness from government at all times.
Conference: do you think this is what the country is getting?
Isn't it time for a full-time Defence Secretary?
For a Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who has the maturity and wisdom that the present incumbent lacks?
For a style of government which puts emphasis on co-operation, not competition between Ministers.
…That’s why we will put in place a proper National Security Council.
Let me set out our approach to the threats we face
…from natural hazards,
…authoritarian states and insurgents abroad,
…and extremists here in the UK.
We must certainly reduce our vulnerability and make ourselves more resilient.
Here Labour have failed.
Take energy security.
Russia’s bullying is a warning. We need much greater security of supply than Labour have bothered to provide.
Take natural hazards.
The Pitt Review on last year’s floods is damning: Labour waits until natural disasters strike, it doesn’t protect ahead of time.
But security is not just about technical fixes.
The most penetrating challenge of terrorism and authoritarianism is to our values. The values of liberal parliamentary democracy – Britain's greatest gift to the world.
We must preserve them.
Labour don’t get this. They want to give more power to the state.
But the British tradition isn’t one that treats security as some extension of Health and Safety legislation.
It is proud of our free society.
So taking away fundamental rights and freedoms without demonstrated need is wrong.
That's why we oppose 42 days.
Conference, it is principle and demonstrated need that guide our approach.
What will we do?
First, border control. It shouldn’t have gaps.
So we will introduce a unified border police force.
Secondly, we must crack down on those who finance terrorism and radicalise individuals.
Did you know it is legal to recruit and raise funds here for that well-known terrorist organisation, Hizbullah?
We will end this; ostensible charities used as fronts for terrorism must be closed down.
We will ban Hizb-ut-Tahrir – which has just called for American soldiers in the Gulf to be killed.
The leadership of organisations like Tablighi Jamaat
…where the 7/7 bombers and liquid bomb plotters were radicalised…
must take responsibility for what happens under their roof. We will ensure they do.
But Conference, tackling organisations that lead people to violence
…and deporting threatening individuals...
is excessively difficult.
The way the European Convention on Human Rights is currently interpreted can create obstacles to deportation.
Our sister party in Germany, the CDU, shares this concern. David Cameron has raised it with Angela Merkel.
We will work together to find ways of reducing obstacles posed by current interpretations.
Third, we need the right anti-terrorist laws.
Labour have passed so many that prosecutors don't seem to know which ones to use.
And the laws are so loosely drafted they are abused.
…Have they been looking in your dustbins recently?
We will clean up anti-terrorist legislation so that its complexity doesn't let terrorists off
…and to stop it being misused against ordinary people. You and me.
Finally, we must get at the extremism underlying violence.
Extremists on left and right are a tiny minority. But the damage they do is out of all proportion to their numbers.
That’s why the Government is wrong to say that terrorism is not a strategic threat. That it is less threatening than a pandemic.
Nonsense. It aims to destroy our values.
We must not let it. We must build a strong society.
But under Labour this country has looked the other way. Extremism has grown as different groups have increasingly led separate lives.
Conference, multiculturalism is a blind alley. A Conservative Government will not allow our country to be weakened by pursuing it.
All of us must make the argument for our shared values.
For our single law that respects the equal rights of all citizens. There will be no separate sharia law here.
For tolerance.
A couple of days ago on the BBC Today programme, a man with links to the extremist organisation Al-Mujaharoun said that it was
‘clearly stipulated in Muslim law that any kind of attack on [the Prophet’s] honour carries the death penalty’.
Not true. Unacceptable.
We all – Muslims and non-Muslims – must actively face down extremists.
Because the security of our society rests ultimately on the hard-nosed defence of our values and a shared loyalty to them.
Under the next Conservative Government, led by David Cameron, that’s what we will be doing.