Friday, 5th December 2008

There is a never-ending stream of political dignitaries who come to visit and address the European Parliament. Most really are not worth the bother, but the Dalai Lama was an exception to that. His charisma and charm are immense.

The opportunity arose to meet him and ask him questions at the Conference of Presidents meeting. I went along to represent the IND/DEM Group and was greatly impressed. He described how the hardliners in the People’s Republic of China are trying to crush the spirit of the Tibetan people.

He is a man of great determination and dignity. His philosophy is that totalitarianism leads to corruption and that there are not the checks and balances in the Chinese system. Democracy within China would, he said, "be the medicine for 100 problems."

At one point he asked, "Is there much corruption in the European Union?" Rest assured, my answer was clearly heard.

As is the usual approach, each group leader made their comments in turn. Each one of them said how much they admired him, the usual crawling stuff. At my turn, I said how disappointing it was to see the British government had changed its 94-year-old policy towards Tibet just six weeks ago. Before we did not recognise Chinese sovereignty over Tibet but now, Mr. Milliband says, "We regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China."

I asked if his holiness shared my distaste for this new position. In addition I warned him to be careful about kind words he was receiving from group leaders. These were the same people who were trying to deny democracy and national autonomy in Europe by ignoring the referendum votes. This was met with jeers, loudest of which was from Danny Cohn-Bendit.

The official response I received was that British foreign policy was a matter for us, which I thought was very diplomatic. However, after the meeting we shook hands and he gave me a broad smile and he said: "It is important that there are critical voices in Britain."

His Prime Minister said to me that he just could not understand why the UK had changed. The answer is, sadly, all too predictable. Our policy is now the same as the official EU line.

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