Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The Prime Minister was questioned yesterday, and he answered the question yesterday. Today is today.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As we know, the Prime Minister often goes into meetings, has conversations and then has a lapse of memory. He had a lapse of memory after the meeting with Alexander Lebedev. Has he now recalled it and informed the Minister of the conversation in that meeting? It is not just a national security matter; Alexander Lebedev owns businesses in illegally occupied Crimea, which is Ukrainian, not Russian territory. It is a matter not just for us, but for the country of Ukraine.

[Vicky Ford]

We must remember that at the time, there had been a devastating attack against a civilian on UK soil, involving chemical weapons. That led to a massive effort by the Foreign Office to co-ordinate the expulsion of Russian diplomats from embassies all across the world. At this time, the UK is also working with our allies across the world to counter Russian disinformation and help to remind people across the world about Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine. In terms of the information that the hon. Gentleman requests, I do not have any further information at this time.

Sanctions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is absolutely correct. Every sovereign nation that believes in fair play and the rule of law around the world should be doing all it can to stop Putin being successful in Ukraine. That includes India, China and every other country around the world.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As somebody who had a grandparent born and raised in Ukraine, this war does come emotionally quite close to me, as it does to everybody of Ukrainian descent in this country. From the 1990s onwards, British-headquartered legal, finance, audit and risk companies have helped to create the kleptocracy that exists in Russia. Many of them still have huge offices in Moscow, such as KPMG, PwC and Linklaters, and Ernst and Young actually put Rosneft on the London stock exchange. What action is the Foreign Secretary taking to ensure British companies withdraw from Russia and withdraw their support from the kleptocracy that exists and is funding the war machine, and to delist some Russian companies on the stock exchange?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are running through a list, and we have already sanctioned over 120 businesses in Russia and oligarchs. We have prevented the Russian central bank from deploying its international reserves to counteract sanctions. We are freezing bank assets of vast parts of the Russian economy, and we will continue to do more to target individual companies with freezes and sanctions. As I have said, nothing is off the table, and we are working in train with our allies on all of this.

Sanctions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

Yes. I am going to make progress, because some of the points raised in interventions will be covered in my speech. I do recognise the huge level of interest in the House from right hon. and hon. Members, and this will address a number of points raised.

Fourthly, we will use Britain’s economic and financial might to hit Russia’s economy hard. The new sanctions regime that the statutory instrument brings into place is a vital part of that, but it is not limited to that. The legislation follows the made affirmative procedure as set out in section 55(3) of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. It amends the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and allows the Government to impose sanctions on a much broader range of individuals and businesses who are, or have been involved in

“obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia”,

which includes those

“carrying on business as a Government of Russia-affiliated entity…carrying on business of economic significance to the Government of Russia…carrying on business in a sector of strategic significance to the Government of Russia”

and those who own, control or act as a director, trustee or equivalent of any of those entities. That is a huge scope of individuals and entities.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last time I saw the Minister, he was about to enter the UN Security Council, and I thank him for how strongly he represented our country at that point.

Are the Government intending to release the Russia report on interference in UK democracy? Surely some of the names contained in it are exactly the people whom we should be sanctioning now. They previously interfered in our democracy and are clearly in hock to the Russian regime.

[James Cleverly]

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, we have brought forward measures that go further than the recommendations of that report. I will impose discipline on myself, even if the House is not going to impose discipline on itself, to stay focused on the statutory instrument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I begin by thanking the Government for the confidential briefings that they have provided to the Opposition on this very urgent and pressing situation.

We sit in this Chamber with dark clouds gathering over Europe. For eight years now, Vladimir Putin has illegally occupied Crimea and stoked conflict and division in Donbas. For two months, he has menaced Ukraine’s borders, mustering the largest build-up of military forces in Europe since the second world war. Last night, he recognised the independence of the breakaway entities that he has created in Ukraine in a flagrant violation of international law and yet another rejection of the diplomatic commitments that he has made.

All the while, Putin has spun lies and mistruths, denied reality and fabricated justifications for his actions. In a speech to the Russian people, he sought to deny the legitimacy and sovereignty of Ukraine and the identity of its people. He concocted grievances and manufactured threats to legitimise his aggression. He spouted myriad lies to the people of Russia, with whom we and our NATO allies want only friendship and peace. And now he has followed that with the explicit deployment of Russian military forces into the internationally recognised territory of Ukraine. The prospect of tanks rolling across the borders of European states recalls the darkest moments of our continent’s history. This is a crime against peace; it is an assault on international law. Let us be in no doubt: Putin bears responsibility. There can be no justification for his actions, no defence of his aggression. While the west has sought a way out of this crisis through firm and principled diplomacy, Putin has doubled down.

The dream of Ukrainians—I felt this very definitely on my trip to Kyiv just four weeks ago—is to shape their own future, to decide their own destiny and to choose the sort of nation that they wish Ukraine to be. All states enjoy that fundamental right, which is why we must be very clear that a line must be drawn at this point. Putin’s assault on a sovereign United Nations member state should be condemned not just by the west, but by every single nation that has a stake in the universal principles at the heart of the post-1945 United Nations system, so Britain must build the widest possible international coalition to show Russia that the world will not tolerate this aggression.

The people of Ukraine have our complete and total solidarity. We admire their courage, we will champion their democratic rights and we will support their right to defend themselves and the democracy that they have built.

[Alex Sobel]

My right hon. Friend mentions the UN. At the UN last week, I met Lesia Vasylenko and Alona Shkrum, two Ukrainian MPs who impressed on me the importance of sanctions on Russian interests in the City of London. They will be disappointed today with the narrow scope of the regulations. I think that many Ukrainian MPs will want to see a far broader set of sanctions than those being proposed.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I have already seen Ukrainian MPs saying today that they are disappointed that our sanctions regime does not go further.

We have sought to send a unified message across this House and to provide constructive opposition in the national interest. It is in that spirit that we approach today’s announcement. As the Minister knows, while we welcome these measures, we believe that they are too limited and too partial—five banks and just three individuals. The Prime Minister recognised at the Dispatch Box today that this move is a further invasion of Ukraine. It is very hard to square the rhetoric with the reality of these measures.

Elections Bill

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The point is that I can raise questions here that warrant further investigation—questions about, for example, Lubov Chernukhin, the model of generosity who has given the Conservatives £2.1 million, £1.9 million of it after her husband Vladimir—the same Vladimir who was appointed by Mr Putin’s deputy chairman of Vnesheconombank—received money from Suleiman Kerimov. This was a man who was later sanctioned by the United States Treasury, and not only for being a Russian Government official: he was arrested in France for smuggling in hundreds of millions of euros in suitcases.

Then there is Mr Temerko, another honourable man, who has donated £1.2 million to the Conservative party. I am told that the Prime Minister’s whiff-whaff bats are on the wall of his reception room. The only slight issue is that Mr Temerko is the man who used to operate at the very top of the Russian arms industry, with connections high up in the Kremlin—but, of course, Mr Temerko is an honourable man. He works with another honourable man, Mr Fedotov, who is a key shareholder in Aquind Ltd, which, The Guardian reports, has donated £700,000 to the Conservative party, along with another firm. This is, unfortunately, the same Mr Fedotov who, according to the Pandora papers, has revealed that his fortune was made through an offshore financial structure in the mid-2000s, at about the time when it was alleged to have been siphoning funds from the Russian state pipeline company Transneft. But, of course, Mr Fedotov is an honourable man.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman has taken his two interventions, and his time is now up.

Islamophobia Awareness Month

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) for securing the debate. I thank all Members who contributed to the debate and the many others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), who could not make the debate but wanted to put on the record their commitment to tackling Islamophobia.

Islamophobia is a dark reality, with three Muslim grandfathers murdered here in the UK, while terrorist attacks in Christchurch, Quebec and multiple others around the world emphasise the serious nature of Islamophobia if left unchallenged. In the UK, Islamophobic hate crimes against Muslims and their places of worship have sadly become far too common. The latest data for 2020-21 show that 45% of all religious hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales were against Muslims, although a large number of cases are simply not reported to the police. Data from the crime survey of England and Wales suggests the actual number is approximately six times the number of recorded offences. According to the same data, Muslims were the most likely to be victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2017-18 and 2019-20.

That is not Muslims complaining about Islamophobia. That is the police collecting data on Muslims being attacked. One would think, when Muslims are the most likely to be the victims of religiously motivated hate crimes, that Islamophobia would be a top Government priority but, tragically, it is not. Islamophobia does not manifest itself only in hate crime. Islamophobia is not always a visible attack on mosques or Muslims. Someone does not have to vigorously hate another person to discriminate against them. Discrimination comes in many forms, including conscious and unconscious bias. Let me explain how.

When 15-year-old Azeem Rafiq is forced in a car to drink alcohol, that is of course a hate crime and an assault. Later, when he feels he has to drink alcohol to fit in, to be the best that he can be, to have an opportunity to progress, where is the hate crime then? He is in an environment in which he cannot be the best or achieve his dreams while adhering to the faith that he chooses to follow. Listening to his evidence at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, it was evident how much trauma he faced later on in life through being forced to be someone he was not just to fit in.

Many Muslims face similar barriers daily. A sizeable percentage of British Muslim women do not wear the headscarf, not because they do not want to but because they fear that, by wearing one, they may be attacked, or due to prejudice, will have lower chances of succeeding and reaching the top. They, too, feel that they have to fit in to avoid abuse, discrimination or their chances being limited. Their fear is not misplaced. A 2016 Women and Equalities Committee report found that Muslim women face a triple penalty. Some of the vilest vitriol I have received online is coupled with a picture of me wearing the headscarf while being at a place of worship.

As Muslim women, we often recall praise such as, “I am impressed to see how empowered you are as a Muslim woman”—as if being a Muslim was a barrier to empowerment and we even beat it through our archaic faith to become a symbol of success. Although this is often done unknowingly, it is done through people accepting a trope about Islam being a faith that is deeply misogynistic. Contrary to that trope, I want to put on record that as a Muslim woman, my empowerment as a women comes from my faith and the life and teachings of the Prophet of Islam, peace be upon him.

A report by the Centre for Media Monitoring that analysed media output over a three-month period in 2018, which comprised analysis of over 10,000 published articles and broadcast clips, found 59% of all articles associated Muslims with negative behaviour and over a third misrepresented or generalised about Muslims, with terrorism being the most common theme.

When such perpetuated tropes and false conspiracies about Muslims are allowed to develop, it enables an environment where people are otherised and demonised. Not everything I have mentioned is a hate crime, but it all can have an impact. Islamophobes and those who consciously or unconsciously discriminate against Muslims often use anything and everything that links to a person’s Muslimness as a factor for their negativity, be that religious practices, ways of dressing or customs, or even sometimes something that is not part of Islam, but is perceived as Muslim, such as a Sikh man wearing a turban. The reality is that Islamophobia is rampant across society, and purely basing Islamophobia on hate crimes like this Government wish to do deprives us of the ability to tackle the full extent of Islamophobia.

We have to tackle the environment in which Islamophobia is normalised. Today, a former England captain, Michael Vaughan, can ludicrously suggest a Muslim England Cricket player like Moeen Ali should go around in between test matches asking random Muslims if they are terrorists—as if he too was somehow liable—and still continue to be a mainstream pundit. The former editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, can openly brand Muslims as antisemites and say that it is a nice change from a Muslim making a bomb or trying to kill hospital visitors, and still get invited as a mainstream guest on media shows. In fact, people like Trevor Phillips can generalise an entire community by saying:

“Muslims are not like us”,

that they will never fit in and are

“becoming a nation within a nation”,

without an apology or remorse, and get a special programme in their name on Sky News.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On her point about institutionalised Islamophobia in certain parts of society—she mentioned cricket and the media—should we not be looking at the governing organisations, whether that is Ofcom in the media or the England and Wales Cricket Board, and seeing whether they are fit for purpose? I do not think they are in this regard.

[Naz Shah]

I absolutely agree and thank my hon. Friend, because that brings me nicely on to my next point. In 2011, the former chair of the Conservative party, Baroness Warsi, said that Islamophobia had “passed the dinner table test”. A decade later in 2021, Islamophobia has now passed the mainstream media test. It has become normalised. In fact, it has become fashionable to demonise Muslims and gain from the political capital of hate. That is why it is so important to adopt a definition of Islamophobia to enable us to at least understand and tackle Islamophobia in all its forms.

The Labour party was one of the first parties to accept the APPG definition of Islamophobia. Again, last week, the chair of the Labour party and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton wrote to the Government urging them to rethink and adopt the definition. I welcome the intervention by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on trying to do that in a collegiate way.

The Government’s record on a definition of Islamophobia is horrific. The Government refused the Muslim community a definition of Islamophobia, they then refused to accept a cross-party definition, and now two and a half years after promising a definition, they have failed to produce one. While the Minister may try to regurgitate the same old falsehoods about the APPG definition, I ask her one simple question. The APPG officers, before publishing the definition and in good faith, gave sight of it to Ministers. Since the definition has been published, can she tell me if the Government have ever reached out to the APPG to address any questions or concerns with the definition and in good faith try to come to a solution together on the matter? Have they even reached out, even once? The dangerous message that it sends to British Muslims is that this Government simply do not care.

When it came to the covid pandemic, this Government played with people’s lives; when it came to levelling up, they played with people’s future; and, again, on the issue of Islamophobia, they are playing with people’s lives. Minister, I urge this Government to show some leadership and good faith. This issue is far too serious to be ignored. As the theme for this year’s Islamophobia month suggests, it is time for change.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have received more than 100 emails from constituents on this matter, which shows that the case of Nazanin has touched the hearts of the nation. It is all too common for people to claim that the situation is Kafkaesque. To me, as an avid reader of Kafka, the similarity between current cases and that of Josef K in “The Trial” are all too apparent. Kafka himself described the seeming basis of the Iranian judicial system when he wrote in “The Trial” that

“it’s characteristic of this judicial system that a man is condemned not only when he’s innocent but also in ignorance.”

Nazanin was charged and convicted without adequate representation or due process—indeed, condemned in ignorance. Like other hon. Members—particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq)—I call on the Foreign Secretary, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Minister to press the Iranian Government on a number of issues that my constituents, Amnesty International and I have raised. They should press them to allow Nazanin any specialist medical care she may require; apply without discrimination article 58 of the Islamic penal code, which allows for someone to be conditionally released after serving a third of their prison sentence and would ensure the immediate release of Nazanin; ensure that Nazanin has regular access to a lawyer of her choice; allow Nazanin to be in contact with her family, including relatives abroad; and allow her to communicate with British consular officials—although that seems to be a contentious issue. I ask the Minister to respond to those points.

The United Kingdom has a well-deserved international reputation for its justice system. I hope that the Government will press for the most basic justice in Iran for our citizens, whether they are British citizens or dual citizens, and particularly for Nazanin. It is clear from the contributions to this debate that that is completely and utterly lacking.

Sir Charles, that was the speech I made in this place on 18 July 2017—word for word. In fact, it was my first speech in this place. I ask the Minister: what has changed? The answer is very little. What has the FCDO managed to do in the last four and a half years? It has failed to secure Nazanin’s release. Four and a half years of failure—a litany of failure at the Department’s door. I call on the Minister to answer the points raised in this debate and ensure that our debt to the Iranian Government is repaid—a debt that was incurred not by the last Government or the Government before them, but by the Government who were in power when I was in nursery school. It is all the more important that we ensure that the UK honours its international obligations. We have failed to do so, and Nazanin is paying the price.

Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. NATO and the Council of Europe, both of which we and Turkey are members of, need to be holding Turkey to greater account. I also totally agree with my right hon. Friend that we should have no truck with terrorism. But an expansive approach including anyone who just shares the ideals of self-determination is not helpful in the fight against terrorism, because it makes a mockery of the whole system. I will come on to that in the final part of my speech.

In December 2020, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the immediate release of the chairs and other Members of Parliament and a suspension of their trials, saying that they was politically motivated. That ruling is now wilfully ignored by Turkey. In addition, the European Parliament passed, by 590 votes to 16, a motion saying that they should be released.

The testimony is supported by the “World Report 2020”, published by Human Rights Watch, which states:

“Cases against HDP politicians provide the starkest evidence that authorities bring criminal prosecution and use detention in bad faith and for political purposes.”

The 2020 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolution dealt with the political crackdown on political opposition, highlighting how immunity for politicians had been stripped away from 2016 onwards.

We have debated this issue previously in this place, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) for securing a previous debate about political representation in Turkey and the fate of some of the HDP politicians. It is clear that this is an organised targeting of opposition MPs just for calling for autonomy or self-determination for majority Kurdish areas. Previously it had been an attack on HDP MPs, but recently and worryingly it has been extended to CHP Members of Parliament. The CHP is no Kurdish-flag-waving party. Many Kurds will say that the CHP is part of a state that helped to lay some of the foundations of difficulties. But many CHP members now choose to speak out on the moral and correct thing, which is the ability of people to partake in democratic life. And the idea of supporting Kurdish autonomy and self-determination seems to be all that is now required to trigger an accusation of terrorism or subversion. That is a dangerous precedent.

We not only heard from MPs in Turkey; we also took evidence from municipal leaders, one of whom was elected a mayor but is now in exile in Greece. The APPG heard that since the last local elections in 2019, 59 of the 65 elected municipal leaders have been replaced by Government-appointed trustees. A human rights report quoted in our report says:

“Regardless of which party or candidate they voted for, the will of…more than 4 million…voters living within the boundaries of 48 municipalities”

has been

“seized through the appointment of trustees.”

Our inquiry also took evidence on the closure of the Democratic Society Congress—the DTK—an organisation bringing together politicians and civil society that advocates not separation but confederalisation in Turkey, and that is its crime. Actions taken have included the arrest of its leaders, as well as the targeting of the Kurdish political youth organisations. One refugee is in my constituency because of the persecution he faced.

On Kurdish political representation, the APPG made nine findings. I will not read them all out, but I will mention a few. We found that trials have been increasingly conducted in closed central courts in Ankara and not the open divisional courts in the home provinces, making a defence harder for a Member of Parliament. The APPG also found that there have been routine cases against 154 MPs—154 MPs have received indictments; this is not just a few people who have done objectionable things —and that the legal proceedings are being used to tackle political disagreements, which in turn disproportionately affects Members of Parliament from Kurdish backgrounds. We also found that the human rights of municipal leaders are violated routinely by detaining them pending trial or sentencing them to prison on trumped-up charges.

Our report was 56 pages in total, with 32 recommendations for the UK Government. We received comments based on the first-hand experience of MPs, mayors, civil society and women’s organisations, and I sent the report to the Minister in July. I received a one-and-a-quarter-page reply, the substantive part of which said:

“We were concerned by recent reports of increased violence in the region and the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa tweeted on 1 September calling for de-escalation.”

Is a tweet really the maximum amount of our diplomatic effort? It would be nice to know more about what the Government have been doing. Over hundreds of hours, we collected work on the report and made concrete recommendations. I would like the Government to give some concrete responses.

Will the Minister and the Government demand the release of the HDP co-leaders, in accordance with the decision by the European Court of Human Rights in December 2020? Will she condemn the closure of the DTK and remind the Turkish Government of their previous commitment to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict? Will the Government push the Turkish Government to accept the revised European charter on the participation of young people in local and regional life, which is a Council of Europe charter for young people, so that it applies to young people in Turkey? Finally, what will the Government do to press the Turkish Government to uphold the rule of law and democratic principles in Turkey?

I now turn to the issue of discrimination through language and culture. Having gone through the first section of my speech, I will now try to rattle through the other sections. The inquiry received evidence from the Education and Science Workers’ Union in Turkey, which had conducted its own report. It stated that 200,000 children in Diyarbakır alone and 6 million children in south-east Turkey were being denied an education entirely or being forced to learn exclusively in Turkish and not their mother language. This is, of course, a denial of human rights, and it also makes it impossible for children to be helped in their studies by their parents or caregivers, which puts them at an immediate disadvantage as they grow up.

The inquiry also received a report from the Kurdish Language and Culture Network, which suggests that there had been enforced and targeted discrimination against the Kurdish community, particularly where they had expressed their culture in language and other traditional practices. We found that in the last five years 57 Kurdish cultural institutions and organisations had been closed down, including theatres, just for staging plays in the Kurdish language.

Will the Government condemn the Turkish Government’s decision to close multiple institutions that uphold Kurdish cultural life? Furthermore, what steps will the Minister take to raise this issue with her Turkish counterparts? Will she discuss the support that the British Council could offer in Kurdish-English work and co-operation?

I turn now to gender-based oppression in Turkey. Historically, Turkey has retained a low representation of women in its Parliament. In 2020 the World Bank calculated that 17% of seats were held by women, which is below the global average of 25%. The HDP operates a co-chair system, whereby a man and a woman co-chair the party and many municipalities. The HDP maintains a quota of 50% female candidates and, I think almost uniquely for any political party in the world, 10% of Members must come from the LGBT+ community. That means that repression of Kurdish and Kurdish-supporting MPs has ended up disproportionately affecting women and LGBT+ people, because they are disproportionately represented—not disproportionately according to the population, but in the Turkish Parliament.

The practice of having co-chairs has even been cited by the Turkish Government as evidence of links to the PKK, which was the first to use the co-chair system. That is further evidence that the expansive practice of just sharing any similar idea or practice with the PKK will mean that an organisation is branded as terrorists. It is clearly ridiculous.

It is not just the HDP that has been targeted in a gendered way. The Free Women’s Congress and 49 other women’s organisations were closed down in the state of emergency that was declared in 2016. As a result of that declaration, the bank accounts of many of these women’s organisations were closed, making it impossible for them to continue to operate.

In the evidence submitted by the TJA—the Free Women’s Movement—the Kurdish women’s organisation, it stated that in 2020, 2,520 women reported to non-governmental organisations cases of physical and gendered violence, 775 women applied for shelter, and 113 women reported cases of sexual assault. In the 18 years that the AKP has been in power, femicide in Turkey overall has increased by 1,400%. That is a shocking amount.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and making an excellent speech. The issues he is raising are really important, and are ones that the Prime Minister has spoken about in a UK context. However, there is no evidence that the Prime Minister, when he met the President of Turkey at the NATO summit or, more recently, the G20—I do not know whether he had a bilateral at this weekend’s G20—discussed any of these issues. The main issues on the agenda seemed to be tourism and vaccines, but nothing about Kurdish rights or the rights of women in Turkey.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

It is very worrying. During our report, the Turkish Government withdrew from the Istanbul convention—it is slightly ironically named now—which is about the prevention and combating of violence against women and domestic violence. The convention had only come into force in Turkey in 2014, and we are yet to see any strong diplomatic effort from the British Government to really condemn that.

The evidence that the APPG took shows that the situation is becoming dire for women, so may I ask the Minister what support the Government will give to international organisations aiding women in vulnerable situations in Turkey? What steps is she taking to ensure that the UK Government aid is directed to women-led organisations in Turkey, and that that aid reaches majority Kurdish areas? Will her Government call in the strongest terms for Turkey to rejoin the Istanbul convention and fully implement it?

Turning to freedom of the press, the APPG heard from a journalists association, and those who gave evidence said that it becomes harder to work every day with the intimidation that they face. In October 2020, five journalists were arrested for publishing a news article about two tortured civilians from the city of Van. They were flown in a helicopter and then thrown out—one of them to their death, the other very seriously injured. The governor of Van said that the people who threw them out were acting for the PKK. That is disputed, but either way, the reporting of the action should not see a journalist arrested. Some of these journalists have now been released, but still have international travel bans imposed against them, and others remain in jail awaiting trial.

There are attacks not just on individual journalists, but on publications and radio stations in Turkey. The APPG received evidence that “following the state of emergency” 62 newspapers, 24 radio stations, 19 magazines and 29 publishing houses had been shut down. In total, 177 media organisations were shut down, and 2,500 journalists were repressed, restricted or out of a job.

According to Amnesty International, one third of all the world’s jailed journalists are imprisoned in Turkey. That is a disgraceful statistic, so may I ask the Minister: will the Government condemn the measures to restrict freedom of speech implemented in Turkey and remind the Turkish Government that criticism of the Government —criticism of any Government—is a fundamental aspect of the public’s right to participation? What will the Government give to support journalists so that they are able to uphold their freedom of speech?

Finally, I will turn to the PKK, but before I do, please may I ask this? I know that in much of the correspondence Ministers are focused on the PKK element, but the other elements are really important for me and I really want a strong focus on them. That was one of the reasons why I was initially nervous about raising the PKK issue at all. I thought that maybe we should just ignore it. The problem is that, as we heard evidence, it became clearer and clearer that we cannot delink these issues, because of the Turkish Government’s expansive view of what supporting the PKK is. As I have mentioned, journalists, politicians and other civil society actors are routinely accused of terrorism if they support the wider beliefs of the PKK.

Without getting into a debate on the nature of terrorism, it is clear that terrorism that has the aim of national sovereignty is a slightly different beast from terrorism that aims to impose fundamentalist ideology on a reluctant people, but the age-old debate about whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter has been debated over decades in this place. However, there is a set of international definitions of what it means to be a terrorist and the legal consequences of acting in a terrorist manner. Those that do so should be prosecuted and proscribed, but the UK Government already make a distinction for Turkey. They recognise that the YPJ and YPG—the Kurdish units in the Syrian defence forces—are not terrorists but are anti-terrorist in their nature. Although the Government call on them to distance themselves from the PKK, they recognise that, in reality, many of their views, and some of their activities and training, are shared. That has been recognised in the British courts, and the Government have rightly diverged from the Turkish Government, who still regard the YPG and YPJ as terrorist organisations. The Turkish Government are so obsessed with the YPG and YPJ but they have supported jihadis who are often proscribed in the UK.

I have mentioned the Turkish Government’s expansive definition of terrorism: anyone who supports Kurdish political leaders or even just gender equality. It becomes an extremely slippery slope. Therefore, will the Minister make it clear that supporting Kurdish aspirations for some form of autonomy, supporting Kurdish political leaders, or even supporting those who have renounced violence and who call for dialogue should never be a reason for someone to be fearful of an accusation of terrorism? I do not ask the Minister that for an academic purpose; I do it because recent cases in Belgium, and potential cases in other European countries, show that the Turkish Government are increasingly and proactively trying to persuade their so-called NATO allies to prosecute those who support the Kurds. That is producing a chilling effect in Kurdish communities in this country and around Europe. Any listing must be based on evidence of indiscriminate violence, a determination to undermine and destroy democracy, and an intolerance of other people’s views.

The second line of defence in the Belgian court case, where the Supreme Court failed to convict the defendants for running a Kurdish newspaper and radio station, was that they were simply not terrorist acts, and that the listing of the PKK was based on information that had been discredited. I have a list here but will not go through it, because I know my time should have been up already. Here is the list of the pieces of evidence that were given to the European Union in the listing of the PKK. One can go through each one of them and show that they are not acts of the PKK. A number of them have been acts of the Turkish police force or Turkish army, and Turkish courts have prosecuted Turkish authorities for such acts, but they are still listed as PKK acts, even though Turkey and its courts recognise that they are not. There needs to be a review of this situation, as the Turkish courts have shown.

More interestingly, the Belgian court case and the APPG heard from the lead defence lawyer. The court upheld their defence on the first point: that the PKK are a national movement of self-determination in a legal civil war. The treaties on definitions of terrorism that Belgium has signed up to are the same treaties as Britain has signed up to. All bar one explicitly say that if civil war actors are covered by the laws of war, they cannot be regarded as terrorists, and the one that does not mention that is just silent about all definitions. That is of course quite right; it is to stop anyone just labelling their opponents as terrorists when there is a legitimate internal conflict taking place. Under the Geneva and Hague conventions, the laws of war outline the requirements to be classed as an actor. One of the things is a command structure, and another might be an identifiable uniform. Suffice it to say that the Belgian Supreme Court found on all counts that the PKK fulfilled those requirements. Therefore, it could not be classed as a terrorist organisation. In finding that the PKK was involved in a belligerent and internal conflict, the court struck down the terrorist listing.

The same process also happened in the European Court of Justice, where a Europe-wide listing was struck down, and the justices found that the PKK had not met the European or international listing definitions. Although we are not a member of the European Union, the laws of war that interpret treaties are now directly part of our domestic laws and we are signatories to the international treaties that they interpret.

A quirk of terrorism law is that organisations are proscribed at the European and international level annually, so although they have been struck down from previous listings they are currently listed, and the courts are now going through a process of striking down their current listings, adding them again after the case, but of course no new evidence has been provided as to why they should be re-listed. That makes a mockery of the proscribing process, with people being arrested and prosecuted for being part of a proscribed organisation, only to find midway through their trial that the organisation is no longer proscribed.

The British Government need to re-look at the case for the proscription of the PKK and take into account the latest evidence from the Turkish courts and the terrorist acts that were not committed by the PKK but by others. The Belgian and European courts have said that they should be classed as internal belligerents, not terrorists.

A strong fight against terrorism can be achieved only if the listings that the Government maintain are accurate and not liable to change. Will the Minister commit to conduct an immediate review with her Home Office counterparts and report back to this House? To those who say that designating the PKK as a belligerent might give credence to those that target civilians, I say that the crime of targeting civilians in war under the Geneva and Hague conventions is a more serious crime with a higher prosecutable level in international courts and a higher punishment than the crime of terrorism, so de-listing and classing them as belligerents provides less incentive for civilian attacks.

If we are to seek peace in Turkey, we must see how organisations can go from being classed as terrorist to seeking political solutions through political aims. The UK’s role in Colombia, although not perfect, and incomplete, shows how the FARC could be brought into a mainstream political discussion. If we look at our history in Northern Ireland and the African National Congress in South Africa, each is different and unique, but each had a process that has ended politically and not violently, and that is what we all want to see in Turkey.

Finally, what serious discussions have the Government had with Turkey about restarting the peace negotiations? What practical support have the Government given for domestic and international channels for the discussions? What role do the Government see in third pillar negotiations between civil society actors, trade unions and women’s organisations to ensure a peaceful settlement of the conflict? Although the death toll might not be large, the APPG found that political representation was high and increasing. It found that the basic principles of democratic freedom were being undermined, and terrorism laws were being misused to shut democratic spaces rather than keep them open. The APPG and I are sure that Members here today would like to work co-operatively with the Government. I hope that we might be able to get fuller responses to the APPG in time.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Since 14 August, I have looked with dismay and apprehension at the collapse of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban, and I am worried sick about the fate of so many people there.

Let us remember that, on 8 July, President Biden said that

“the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

At the time, this Government did not seem to disagree with that analysis. It did not have to be like this if the UK and US Governments had considered worst-case rather than best-case scenarios. Our Government are in part responsible for the speed of the collapse of the Afghan Government. There is now a duty on our Government and the international community to offer support to the people of Afghanistan—those who have arrived here, those in third countries and those still trapped in Afghanistan who want to leave.

There will be time in this Chamber to further analyse the more than 40 years of strategic and tactical failures that led to this position, including the 2001 invasion. I opposed the 2001 offensive. Although the horrific destruction of the World Trade Centre was a gross act of terrorism, I did not feel that the war met the Aquinian principles of casus belli; we needed to use security and intelligence rather than a ground war to tackle al-Qaeda. But that was 20 years ago, and it must not hold up the efforts now for the Afghan people. We need to prioritise a human security approach. All NATO countries, including the UK, have a responsibility towards Afghan citizens.

I want to concentrate on two issues: the duty of care we have to Afghans who have arrived in the UK, and support for those still trying to reach us. Like everyone else’s, my office has been inundated by constituents concerned for the lives and wellbeing of their relatives trying to reach the UK. Around 250 are still trapped in Afghanistan. My office has lodged email after email with the Government and received just five auto-responses—that is it. Our most urgent cases were sent to the Secretary of State for Defence after he advised us to do so on a briefing call, but I have had no response of any kind to those emails.

Those cases include those of two Afghan MPs who are the brothers of a constituent, and people who worked for NGOs. We received one response in August stating that a British national stranded in Afghanistan would be contacted by the FCDO. He was not. One constituent, who is a British national, is in a hotel in London. He has serious mental health issues and no support. His wife is in Afghanistan, and he is desperate to go and get her via any route. I am concerned that he may vanish at any moment and try to go and get her. He has had no official advice or support.

With regard to Afghans who have arrived in the UK, I will keep my remarks to hotels, particularly those used for dispersal. Last week, I was put in touch with two Afghan MPs who were dispersed to a hotel in Yorkshire. I was informed of their presence there by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, with which the MPs had been in contact. I have been liaising with them and their family ever since, and what they have told me has been shocking. They were brought to the hotel by the Home Office, which did not tell the relevant local authorities. Basic necessities, such as nappies and sanitary towels, were not provided until we organised delivery, alongside the local authority. They still have not been assessed or registered for their health needs, and there are significant health needs at that hotel. Many have no access to finance, as the Taliban have cut off access to their bank accounts and the Home Office has not yet provided payment cards. They have no idea when they will be housed adequately, or where.

I was told the traumatic story of that family. They had been stopped at a roadblock by the Taliban, who took control of their car and drove them to the middle of nowhere, where they thought their lives would end. They only escaped as the Taliban drove away in their cars and they fled. They then had to wait for two days in a storm drain outside the airport in horrendous conditions, surrounded by human excrement and rotting detritus. They may be safe here, but I cannot in good conscience say that the Government have looked after them. That is why we need to hear their voices in an inquiry.

British Council

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Yes, I agree. I would argue that the integrated review was published at the start of the year and that work was ongoing, but the decision on the Department for International Development was taken before that review was published. That, alongside the cuts to the British Council, demonstrates that the Government are not aligned with the view of global Britain seen by my hon Friend, myself and others.

A series of loans has also been agreed, but on commercial terms, requiring the British Council to submit business plans to be agreed by the FCDO. Ordinarily, as we know, the British Council is incredibly economically successful, but the reality is that the loans have been needed to fill a hole made by the pandemic. Business operations are not currently normal. None the less, business plans were submitted and in effect the loans became contingent on cost-saving measures that needed to be put in place. What do cost savings and less income mean? That does not promise a strong British Council presence in 100 countries. It is not a bolstering of our soft power presence. It means cuts to services and staffing—I met some staff online earlier this week—and cuts to Britain’s presence around the world.

Already we have seen office closures, with more to follow in coming years. Closures span the world from Belgium to the United States and from Australia to South Sudan. They include all the Five Eyes countries. In other countries, cuts mean there will be no staff, with operations happening remotely.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this crucial debate. I chair the all-party parliamentary groups on Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro. All those countries face British Council closures. The programmes that they run are vital to those countries. The Prime Minister of Montenegro came here in July and met me in Parliament. We talked about the importance of the British Council in development work in Montenegro and about the bilateral exchange. Without that, and with the office moving to Belgrade, development and our work in vital Balkan countries that are in that phase of development will be severely impacted on. Britain will lose out in our relationship with them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that Labour promised it would hit 0.7% in 1974. That was the year in which I was born. Labour has never once hit 0.7%. It only twice hit 0.5%, so we will take no lectures from the Labour party when we are the third biggest G7 donor when it comes to aid.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

When he plans to make a decision on whether the UK will support the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Whether his Department's guidance advising against trade with illegal settlements in the West Bank extends to public bodies.

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)]

The UK Government share the objectives of increasing understanding and dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. UK officials remain in close contact with the US Government regarding the international fund. The US is at the early stages in its planning and, once more information is available, we will consider options for collaboration.

The UK’s overseas business risk guidance is intended to provide guidance for UK businesses to identify and mitigate security and political risks when trading overseas. The guidance is not aimed at public bodies or Her Majesty’s Government. The UK’s position on settlements is clear, and we have articulated it regularly. We regard them as illegal under international law, and they are therefore a risk to the economic and financial activities in settlements. We do not encourage or offer support for such activity.

[Alex Sobel]

The UK consulate in Jerusalem has given vocal support to oppose the illegal evictions in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. What practical action can the UK Government take to ensure that those evictions end? They run contrary to the intentions of the international fund for peace and, as the Minister has just stated, we are opposed to illegal occupations.

[James Cleverly]

The UK enjoys a close and important relationship with Israel, and because we have that close relationship, we are able directly to bring up sensitive issues. I and my ministerial colleagues have brought up with the Israeli Government our opposition to those demolitions.