Syria
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
Clearly, we are doing a great deal, as I have set out, to address what the hon. Gentleman rightly describes as a growing humanitarian disaster. I have been careful not to rule out any option. He is putting forward a particular option, but I have to say that such an option would be practicable only with the full support of the United States of America. It is not something to advocate in the way that he did of, “Whatever President Obama thinks”; the air defences of Syria are an entirely different matter from those of Iraq 20 years ago. It is very important to bear that in mind when advocating that particular option.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The west’s track record on protecting minorities in interventions of this sort has not always been good. What work is being done to ensure that the minorities in Syria, including the Christians and the Alawites, will be afforded the same protection as they have received under Assad should he fall?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and this is a crucial part of our work with the opposition; it has certainly been a part of all the meetings I have had with different opposition groups from Syria. We stress, of course, that for their own success and support within Syria they need to represent the full range of not only political views, but ethnic origin and religious belief in Syria. It is very important that they do that. We are continuing to work with the opposition to help them present a united front and work together in a completely united way. The different opposition groups, including the Syrian National Council, have made many important and helpful statements about respect for all minorities in Syria, but we will not let up in reminding them that that requires practical action as well as strong statements.
Balance of Competences
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hague
It is no good for the Opposition, who never proposed and have never undertaken such a review, now to say that it must all be done in the next few weeks, particularly when they had 13 years in government during which they could have undertaken any such exercise. When this is completed, it will of course be available for political parties to draw on in the next general election campaign and develop in whatever direction—including for the Labour party, if it manages to decide by then what policy it is going to pursue. This will not prevent us in any way from doing the work that we are doing now to protect our national interest. As I mentioned earlier, the Government have already been able to extract the United Kingdom from liability for eurozone bail-outs. We are already working hard, in consultation with the devolved Administrations, on the common fisheries policy and in trying to ensure that the exercise of competence under that policy is used much more at the national or regional level, since the common fisheries policy has been one of the most catastrophic and disastrous of the common policies of the European Union. We are already doing that work in any case; this review comes on top of that work and does not in any way conflict with it.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I wish the Foreign Secretary well in trying to repatriate powers from the EU, but can he explain why he is so unwilling to commit to a referendum on our membership of the EU in the next Parliament, given that this would give us time to have an informed debate, allow the eurozone crisis to play out and fundamentally address the lack of public trust when people hear politicians making promises about matters European?
Mr Hague
Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for wishing me well on the exercise. This is not about a referendum; questions about a referendum are separate. I believe, however, that for any future public debates or a referendum of any kind about the European Union, this exercise will prove immensely useful—for the public, for Parliament and for all involved in the debate. As I say, my hon. Friend’s question is separate from what I have set out in the statement. My own view is that it is necessary to see how Europe develops, what happens during the eurozone crisis, what structure of Europe we are dealing with and what can be achieved to improve this country’s relationship with Europe before we decide on any such referendum.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
No; one of the things we saw from the incident on Sunday was the increasing ability of Afghan security forces to deal with a major incident on their own. It was the Afghan forces that killed or captured all the insurgents concerned. Of course, they need time for that capability to be built up further, and we are giving them that time by having our troops engaged in Afghanistan—including in combat—up to the end of 2014. If we did not do that, those forces would not be ready for the full task, and we would be letting down the people of Afghanistan and the people who have done so much work over the last decade.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I suggest that British Governments have long failed to understand that given the available resources, ISAF and Afghan forces will not defeat the Taliban. Is it therefore not now time to drop the unrealistic preconditions to talks with the Taliban and explore possible common ground—including differences between the Taliban and al-Qaeda—for our possible mutual benefit? We can be proud of our soldiers, but I suggest that it is now time for the politicians to step up to the plate.
Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Cash
I do indeed. A new rule is being imposed through the arrangements under this treaty which involves a kind of qualified majority voting for referendums whereby if member states do not have the requisite number of referendums in which they say that they do not want the treaty, they will simply be ignored. I hope that when it comes down to it and the Irish people have this explained to them, that will be a spur to their voting no, because people are being taken for a ride.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this emergency debate. Does he share my concern that with democracy having been suspended, in effect, in two countries, with a deepening democratic deficit across the eurozone as rules are bent, and with a eurozone fiscal compact that seems to undermine the EU institutions, we could fast be reaching a tipping point as regards the EU’s credibility and legitimacy?
Mr Cash
Absolutely. For those of us who have been critical of the European Union, but not of Europe, because we believe that we need stability and prosperity in Europe, my hon. Friend’s remarks are entirely justified. We are now facing the breaking of the rule of law through the imposition of European rules. It is an extraordinary paradox that the law should be used to break the principle of law itself.
Emma Reynolds
If only the position of the Liberal Democrats were clear on that matter—[Interruption.] I will come to that.
There was a guarantee from the top of the Government that EU institutions would not be used—I hesitate to describe it as a “cast-iron” guarantee, because it might upset some Conservative Members, but none the less, the position seemed to be clear. The evidence seemed compelling and the Government seemed to be clear what they were saying, but how quickly things unravelled—on the European Commission, on the use of the buildings and on the role of the European Court of Justice. One by one, the Government’s guarantees faded into yesterday’s headlines, and their empty rhetoric was painfully exposed.
Mr Baron
The shadow Minister will accept that the fiscal compact is designed to save the euro. Could we therefore have clarity on the official Opposition’s position on the euro? Given that all the economic evidence and the 85 currency devaluations since the second world war show that countries that have left a currency bloc benefit, and given that Greece desperately needs a devaluation, will she explain why she supports the cry to save the euro when that policy serves only to make the austerity packages worse?
Emma Reynolds
Unlike the hon. Gentleman, the Opposition believe that the stability and preservation of the eurozone is in our country’s interests. If those countries took on their former currencies, there could be a disastrous impact on our economy. I do not agree with him.
David Cameron walked out of the negotiation at the—
Emma Reynolds
Not for a minute.
Will the Minister therefore state clearly, and once and for all, whether the Government believe the legal status of the agreement, as set out in the terms of the fiscal compact, and specifically in the articles I have cited, is wrong? If it is wrong, what will the Government do to correct it? If they will do nothing to correct it, are we right to assume that that is their way of quietly admitting that they have been forced into a humiliating U-turn?
Emma Reynolds
I will not give way. I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman already.
At least the leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, Martin Callanan, has been clear. He said:
“There is no doubt that the government’s position has altered since the December summit, when they were insisting the institutions could not be used…I blame a combination of appeasing Nick Clegg, who is desperate to sign anything the EU puts in front of him, and the practical reality that this pact is actually quite hard to prevent.”
Does the Europe Minister therefore agree with the analysis of his party’s leader in the European Parliament?
Mr Lidington
I will not give way, but I take seriously the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) made about the Backbench Business Committee wanting to have predictable times at which it can schedule such debates. The Leader of the House was listening carefully when he made his remarks and, I am sure, will be attentive to that particular point. I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that a review of the procedures suggested by the Wright Committee is due in the near future.
I did not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone when he laid strictures on individual EU countries. Greece and Italy may do things differently from how politics is done here, but everything that has happened in those countries so far has been within the bounds of their constitutions. The legislation that the Governments of those countries take through has to be enacted by the democratically elected Parliaments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone was right to point to what I believe to be a genuine, underlying tension in European affairs at the moment between two important pressures. The first is the economic logic, which prescribes that if we had a single currency, interest rate and monetary policy, logically we would have to move towards greater fiscal integration. That, after all, is one reason why I and most members of my party opposed the United Kingdom entering the euro. We felt that that was the inherent logic of the project. Against that, there is the political challenge, which is whether, if there is to be greater fiscal integration among countries that share a single currency, there is a sufficient sense of common political identity, not just for the Governments of those countries, but for their voters, that they can accept major decisions in economic policy being taken at, and democratic accountability being transferred to, the European institutional level, rather than being based solely at national level.
Mr Baron
My right hon. Friend is well respected in his post. Can he highlight the concrete and substantive guarantees that will exist to prevent the two-tier Europe that is being created through the establishment of the fiscal compact from acting against the best interests of this country?
Mr Lidington
There are two parts to my answer. First, the action that the Prime Minister took in December ensured that what other countries chose freely to do, through sovereign decisions, will not be binding on the UK through European law. Secondly, as a number of my hon. Friends have said, the Government are determined to work actively with other members of the European Union in pursuit of common interests. Although this might not give the assurance that can be given by a rule book, the culture that I see at work in the European Union week by week is one in which countries come to the table with interests and views of their own. Countries do not act as a predictable bloc or cohesive caucus because they happen to belong to the euro. There are eurozone countries lined up with us to support budgetary discipline. Other eurozone countries—largely net recipients—want to see a greater EU budget. There are also euro-outs that are net recipients and that want to see a bigger European budget. The way in which countries line up on particular issues does not follow logically from where they stand in relation to the fiscal compact or from whether they are members of the eurozone.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We have contingency plans for many eventualities in the world, and I ensure that they are fully up to date. The right hon. Gentleman will understand why I do not go into more detail about those plans, because doing so can create a greater expectation that they are going to happen, but we are prepared for any eventuality.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
19. I suggest that EU politicians are failing to recognise that the eurozone is a dead man walking. Given the effective suspension of democracy in at least two countries and the deepening democratic deficit across the eurozone, as politicians break the rules in order to save the euro and their dream of political union, why is Britain supporting the anti-democratic zeal of those politicians as they make worse this self-made crisis?
Mr Hague
To put it in a slightly more balanced way, I have pointed out for many years that one of the disadvantages of the euro is the loss of national sovereign decision making to the countries concerned. However, there is one flaw in my hon. Friend’s argument, which is that it is very clear that not only the representatives but, at the moment, the people of Greece choose to try to stay in the euro. That is the democratic choice that they are making, and we should support them in it if that is their choice.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
On behalf of the United Kingdom Government, I have made representations on Silwan both to the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister and the Israeli ambassador. It remains a matter of concern for us, and we continue to press on these issues in the manner that the Foreign Secretary set out a moment ago.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
T4. Given that the eurozone is a slow-motion train crash, will the Government divert some of the extra billions of pounds they are, yet again, about to throw at the inflated EU budget into furthering trade relationships with the Commonwealth? A shared language, shared accounting and legal systems and growing markets suggest that that is a no-brainer.
Mr Hague
I think that my hon. Friend has had the euro as both a dead man walking and a train crash in the same Question Time, so his metaphors are becoming a little confused. However, we certainly are putting much-increased effort into our trade with emerging economies across the world, including many Commonwealth nations. My hon. Friend might like to know that the Commonwealth represents a steadily increasing proportion of the trade of the world. That underlines the importance of our renewed commitment to it under this Government.
Iran
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that the use of force against Iran would be wholly counterproductive and would serve only to encourage any development of nuclear weapons; and calls upon the Government to rule out the use of force against Iran and reduce tensions by redoubling diplomatic efforts.
May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for supporting my application to debate this subject today? Statements by the Government allow opportunities to ask a question, but rarely allow a thorough examination of the issue. I also thank those Members who supported me in calling for this debate. Many did not agree with the motion, but all felt that such a debate was long overdue, as is borne out by the number of people who have put in to speak this evening.
The debate is urgently required. With tough new sanctions in place and further ones threatened by Iran, with naval forces mustering in the Persian gulf and with state-sponsored terrorism ongoing inside and outside Iran, this might be the only opportunity for Back Benchers to discuss the topic before hostilities begin. Israel is contemplating an air strike, and we could be on the brink of a regional war. I called for today’s debate because I believe that we need a fresh approach. The sanctions and the sabre-rattling are yesterday’s failed policies, and the fact that we are once again on the brink of military conflict is testament to that failure. My motion calls on the Government—and, by implication, the west—to rule out the use of force in order to reduce tensions and bring us back from the brink of war and military conflict, and to redouble diplomatic efforts. That would give us time to reflect on some of the inconvenient truths that the west chooses to ignore, and on the need for a fresh approach.
I shall start by outlining some of the inconvenient truths. The catalyst for the latest round of condemnation was the report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency last November. The United States and the United Kingdom chose to see the report as evidence that Iran was building nuclear weapons, and further financial sanctions followed, which led directly to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran, inexcusable though that was. We should be careful about accepting such reports at face value, however. Close reading of the report reveals no smoking gun: there is no evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons, or of a decision to do so.
Mr Baron
I want to make some progress, then I will try to accommodate all colleagues who wish to intervene.
The fact that there is no evidence of attempts to produce nuclear weapons or of a decision to do so was confirmed by Peter Jenkins, the UK’s former permanent representative to the IAEA. Robert Kelley, a former director of the agency, highlighted the fact that the report contained only three items that referred to developments after 2004—the year in which the American intelligence services concluded that Iran had ceased its nuclear programme. Indeed, the agency spends 96% of a 14-page annexe reprising what was already known. I therefore ask the Foreign Secretary to highlight for the House today the paragraphs in the report that provide evidence of a nuclear weapons programme. He has referred to this matter many times, but I can see no such evidence in the report. Is he willing to highlight those paragraphs for the benefit of the House now? I am willing to take an intervention from him.
Robert Halfon
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Is he aware that paragraph 43 of the IAEA report states that Iran worked
“on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components”?
Mr Baron
I will take and answer one intervention at a time, if I may.
We need to be careful when considering the report. Much has been made of the circumstantial evidence and of western intelligence reports, but Iraq should have taught us to be careful about basing our foreign policy decisions on secret intelligence and circumstantial evidence. That is a lesson that we should have learned from Iraq.
Martin Horwood
Another section of the report talks about the
“acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network”.
It concludes that:
“While some of the activities identified in the Annex have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons.”
How else are we to interpret that?
Mr Baron
That does not answer the actual question. That is circumstantial evidence; it is not concrete evidence of a nuclear weapons programme. It is as straightforward as that. I challenge the hon. Gentleman who asked the question: if he could point to concrete evidence, it would be useful for the House.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend outline when in his view circumstantial evidence becomes actual evidence—is it when the bomb has dropped, for example?
Mr Baron
It is very straightforward. There has to be evidence of nuclear weapons. We were told, for example, that there was no shortage of circumstantial evidence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it turned out that there were no WMD there. That shows how careful we need to be and how clear we need to be about the difference between circumstantial evidence and concrete evidence.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any IAEA evidence on Israel’s nuclear weapons programme?
Mr Baron
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In certain quarters in the middle east, it is felt that double standards are being applied in that Israel has developed nuclear weapons and the west does not seem to worry about them. [Interruption.] My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) suggests that the evidence is circumstantial, and I am willing to grant him that point.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend name any experts in the field who would explain how enrichment to a 20% threshold, currently being undertaken by the Iranian regime, could plausibly be for civilian and not military use?
Mr Baron
My hon. Friend makes a fair point, which I will address later in my speech, but I say to him now that there is a world of difference between nuclear capability and actually having nuclear weapons. I am sure that the House would accept that difference.
A second inconvenient truth relates to the usual depiction of Iran as intransigent and for ever chauvinistic in her foreign policy. Western Governments, I suggest, too easily forget that Iran is not totally at fault here. There have been opportunities to better relations between Iran and the west, but the west has spurned those opportunities. We forget, for example, that following 9/11, Iran—unlike many in the middle east street—expressed solidarity with the US. We forget also that attempts were made to develop contacts during the early stages of the Afghan war. What was Iran’s reward? It was to be labelled or declared part of the “axis of evil” by President Bush, which led directly to the removal of the reformist and moderate President Khatami. Despite that, there were further attempts at co-operation in the run-up to the Iraq war, but those efforts were similarly rebuffed.
Again, I ask the Foreign Secretary whether he is prepared to deny that the west has made mistakes in its dealings with Iran and has missed opportunities to better relations. I would genuinely like to hear his views on that and would welcome an intervention.
Mike Gapes
I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman refers to lost opportunities. Does he agree that the Iranian regime was at fault in rejecting President Obama’s initiative when he first came to office? Is that not a sign that the regime in Tehran is afraid of international engagement and is pursuing this course relentlessly?
Mr Baron
I am the first to agree that Iran was completely wrong on President Obama’s offer. Let me make it clear that I am not an apologist for Iran. No one can agree with its human rights record, its sponsoring of state terrorism or the storming of our embassy—all are terribly wrong—but they are not arguments for military intervention; they do not justify war. Rather, I suggest that no one’s hands are clean in this region, including our own, particularly after the invasion of Iraq on what turned out to be a false premise. Opportunities have been missed on both sides. I would have thought there can be little doubt about that.
Let us get to the nub of the issue and think the unthinkable. Let us assume, despite the lack of substantive evidence, that Iran is moving towards the option of nuclear capability. Hon. Members will be fully aware that there is a world of difference between nuclear capability and possessing nuclear weapons. This is perhaps understandable. We in the west underestimate the extent to which status is important in that part of the world. The reason Saddam Hussein did not deny possessing weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that he did not have them, was that it was in his interest not to deny it. He had, after all, failed in his invasion of Iran. Iran’s insecurity is also understandable. Those who view the map from Tehran’s point of view will see that she is surrounded by nuclear powers: Russia, Pakistan, a United States naval presence, and Israel. All those powers contribute to Iran’s feeling of encirclement.
I am very conscious, as the House will be, of the argument that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, that will lead to a nuclear arms race in the region but without the safety mechanisms that existed during the cold war, which in itself could lead to a nuclear escalation. However, I do not accept that argument. There is no reason why the theory of nuclear deterrence to which the west adheres should not be equally valid in other parts and regions of the world. Paul Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the middle east between 2000 and 2005, recently wrote that there was
“nothing in the record of behavior by the Islamic Republic that suggests irrationality”.
That view was reinforced by Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, last year.
India and Pakistan have fought wars, yet both have shown nuclear restraint. As the House is well aware, only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in anger. Furthermore, the view that an Iranian nuclear capability would start a nuclear arms race in the region does not take into account the possibility that regional allies of the west will opt to shelter under a US nuclear umbrella. That happens in Japan and in South Korea.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I am afraid that this is sounding terribly like an appeasement argument. If the hon. Gentleman does not wish his position to be characterised as such, will he say something about what the western powers should do to support legitimate protest in Iran by the people who are pushing for regime change, whom we have supported in other countries and whom we should support in this instance?
Mr Baron
I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I promise to deal directly with that later in my speech.
At this point, many invoke President Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel to be wiped off the face of the map. Surely, they say, that is proof of irrationality; surely that is evidence that Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. However, a careful examination of the translation suggests that President Ahmadinejad was badly misquoted. Even The New York Times, one of the first outlets to misquote Ahmadinejad, now accepts that the word “map” was never used. A more accurate translation offers
“the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.
Given that Ahmadinejad compared his desired option—the elimination of “the regime occupying Jerusalem”—with the fall of the Shah’s regime in Iran, it is quite clear that he was talking about regime change and not about the destruction of Israel itself, just as he did not want the end of Iran in his comparison. The pedantry over the translation is important. Some Members may scoff, but this is a terribly important point. The immediate reaction to Ahmadinejad’s speech in 2005 was the then Israeli Prime Minister’s call for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations, and the US urging its allies to “get tougher” on Iran.
That mistranslation is used to this day, even by former Foreign Secretaries outside the House. I wonder why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not provided more clarity on the point. I hope that it is not to do with a hidden agenda. Perhaps it is to do with a shortage of properly qualified Farsi speakers, but we would appreciate clarity from the Foreign Secretary in due course. I ask him to tell us whether he denies at least the possibility that President Ahmadinejad was misquoted.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
If the hon. Gentleman is so dismissive of Iran’s statement that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, can he explain why, in February 2011, Ayatollah Khamenei repeated the statement that Israel was a “cancerous tumour” that must be removed?
Mr Baron
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I must say that we need to examine these statements very carefully, because that translation too is open to dispute. It is all very well coming to the House with these translations, but Farsi is a complex language, as she will know, and we have to make sure that we get them right. Many scholars outside this place verify that President Ahmadinejad’s original statement was misquoted—theses have been written about it—which is why I ask the Foreign Secretary to clarify the situation. We need to get this quote clarified.
There can be little doubt that the west’s policy of sabre-rattling and sanctions has failed; the Iranians are not going to back down on their nuclear programme. Mr Mousavi, the unofficial leader of the green movement and one of the great hopes of the west, said during the 2009 presidential campaign that any backtracking on the nuclear issue would be tantamount to surrender. Iran’s statement that it is introducing an oil embargo for certain countries shows that it is impervious to sabre-rattling, yet we in the west still pursue that policy when confronting Iran. Indeed it is considered “naive”—I have heard that word used a lot—to rule out the use of force. We are told that all options must be left on the table. Some people go further: there seems to be a hairshirt auction among Republican candidates for the presidential nomination in America as to who can be toughest on Iran, with Mitt Romney openly advocating war over the nuclear issue. I would counter that by saying that what is naive is pursuing a policy that has clearly failed. Sanctions and sabre-rattling are yesterday’s policies and they have brought us to the brink of a military conflict, which is hardly the sign of success.
What compounds the error of that approach is that most agree that a military strike would be counter-productive to the point of being calamitous. It would reinforce the position of the hard-liners at the expense of the pragmatists within Iran, just as the Iran-Iraq war boosted patriotic support for the regime and helped to cement the revolution. Military intervention would not work; the US Defence Secretary judges that it would delay the Iranians for only a year at most. Knowledge cannot be eradicated by military intervention, and such intervention will only delay the inevitable. If Iran is set on acquiring nuclear weapons, she will not be scared away; and if she is not, a military strike would encourage her to do so. We even hear voices from within Israel against a strike. Meir Dagan, the hard-line former chief of Mossad—nobody could accuse him of being a pussycat—has referred to an attack on Iran as “a stupid idea.”
I ask hon. Members to reflect on a wider historical point. It is perhaps relevant to reflect more generally that military action often has an embedding effect: it reinforces the position of the existing regime. For example, communism has lasted longest in those countries where the west intervened militarily—North Korea, China, Cuba and Vietnam.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend talks about the verdict of history. Is the verdict of history not also that when dealing with tyrannies it is unwise to rule out force in defence, and that sometimes it is wise to keep tyrannies guessing as to one’s intentions?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. May I remind Mr Baron that he has already taken 20 minutes? This is an over-subscribed debate, and we will impose an eight-minute limit on speeches after the Front-Bench contributions. He would be generous to his colleagues if he began to draw his remarks to close.
Mr Baron
I very much take that on board, Mr Deputy Speaker. If hon. Members will forgive me, I will not accept any more interventions.
A strike by Israel or the west would unite Iran in fury and perhaps trigger a regional war, and it would certainly encourage the hard-liners to push for a bomb. Despite that, the present policy is to refuse to rule out the use of force. Such a policy is not only naive, but illogical: we are keeping an option that we all know would be a disaster, against a country that chooses to ignore it, yet that option heightens tensions and makes a peaceful outcome less likely. That is nonsense.
A fresh approach is required. Israel will not attack Iran if Washington objects. Now is the time for the US to make it clear to Israel that force should not be used. Ruling out the use of force would have the immediate effect of reducing tensions and making conflict less likely. That would lessen the chance of another accident like the shooting down of Iran Air 655, which could spark conflict. Such a policy in the longer term would give diplomacy a greater chance of success. Iran will not be persuaded to give up her pursuit of nuclear technology. We need to understand and engage better with Iran, and offer the prospect of implicit recognition of Iran’s status as a major power in the region—a status we created ourselves through our misguided invasion of Iraq, which fundamentally altered the balance of power in the region.
There is a precedent for recognising that new status. In the 1960s, when the US presence in Asia was waning and China was beginning to flex her muscles, Nixon did not respond by denying the reality of Chinese power. His visit to China in 1972 took everyone by surprise, but it was the right decision—it was a defining moment. I suggest that the US needs to realise that this is one of those defining moments, which needs to be seized.
Israel and Iran are two proud nations but they are perhaps uncertain about the best course of action. The US needs to put behind it the underlying antagonism towards Iran that defines this crisis. That will not be easy, but speaking as an ally of the US, I suggest that too often in the past the US approach has been to overwhelm an issue rather than to solve it. This is not one of those occasions.
In conclusion, the US needs to adopt a wider perspective: it needs to make it clear that an Israeli attack would be unacceptable, and then to engage better with Iran. That would be in Israel’s long-term interests. No one is suggesting it is an easy option, particularly given the presidential elections in both countries, but without it discussions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and a host of other issues will remain needlessly difficult. The west underestimates the opportunity to influence Iran. She is a state in transition, with multiple centres of authority and constant power struggles. The challenge for the west is to influence those internal debates and struggles. Crude threats of military intervention and sanctions, along with talk of regime change, only reinforce the hard-liners’ position.
We need a better understanding of what makes Iran tick. We need to better understand the culture, the people, the history, the religion—the British Museum’s current Hajj exhibition is a well worth a visit. We need to renounce the option of a military strike and go the extra mile for peace. War should always, I remind the House, be the measure of last resort, to be used when all other avenues have been exhausted. We have not reached that point with Iran. As such, it is my intention to test the will of Parliament by dividing the House on the motion tonight.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
I welcome the procurement of the debate by the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), but I fear that many of the Members who contribute to it will not support the position that he outlined. I will support the amendment.
I should start by declaring that my sister is married to an Iranian and that I have strong links with the Iranian community in the west of Scotland. I have taken the community’s temperature on this issue.
We know that every Government face challenges, foreign and domestic, during their period in office. The longer the Government are in power, the more likely that challenges will come along and that their frequency will increase. The foreign challenges that we face focus public attention, at times, on making decisions or considering military options that will put our people in harm’s way. Sadly, over the past decade or so, we have seen many challenges in foreign lands—Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, the coalition Government deployed UK forces in Libya.
On each occasion each Member of the House has had to come to a view on where they stand on the issues. Some will always adopt a pacifist approach. Others will weigh up other factors. The pacifists among us will always have respect and legitimacy for the principled position that they hold, but they must also recognise that their position lacks remedies in the harsh territory—
Mr McCann
I shall make progress. The hon. Gentleman has just had the opportunity to move the motion. He should not try to come in again so swiftly.
The pacifists among us do not always recognise that their position lacks remedies in the harsh territory of international conflict and that at times it can be seen as a white flag in the face of tyranny. What is more difficult to absorb are those non-pacifists who disagree with a particular decision and then seek to stand astride the moral high ground after the event and lecture us about how they did not support the action in the first place.
Iraq is the most obvious recent controversy. I have often mused about what would have happened in March 2003 had the French and Russians put their vested interests aside and supported a united final UN resolution. Would Saddam have capitulated? We will never know. I have no issue with those who seek to post-rationalise events, but I do have an issue with those who seek to do so in a manner which neglects to mention that they did not have a feasible proposition to resolve the original problem—in the Iraq context, Saddam’s refusal to abide by the will of the international community. Now we look to Iran.
I do not support the motion; I support the amendment. In reaching that decision I have examined the actions of the Iranians thus far, and in particular the prospects for a negotiated settlement of the issues. What actions have the Iranians taken thus far? The International Atomic Energy Agency stated on 8 November 2011 that Iran had sought to design a nuclear warhead, that Iran was continuing its atomic weapons programme research, that it could have a nuclear bomb in months and that preparations to install a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile were taking place.
To this I add the Iranians’ rhetoric that the holocaust did not take place and President Ahmadinejad’s declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map; I refer to the comments of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay. If that declaration was somehow misinterpreted, were the Iranians also misinterpreted when they said that the holocaust did not take place? We must also question the Iranians’ close relationship with Syria.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
I do not want to accept too many interventions, for the reasons you have mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Thirdly, the use of force will never be a desirable response, but it might be the least bad one if all else fails. In considering that, let me put to the House what I think is a very important point. Many commentators have drawn attention to all the downsides of a military response. They suggest that an attack by the United States—let us concentrate on the United States at the moment—would lead to a hike in the oil price, which is correct. They suggest that it might lead to increased terrorist support by Iran for Hezbollah or Hamas and to attempts to block the strait of Hormuz and all that that would entail, and they are right. There are various other downsides, too. But, when we think about it, we find that almost all the examples—the correct examples that have been given—of the adverse consequences of a military strike by the United States are relatively temporary. They are short to medium-term: they might last a few days, weeks or possibly even months, but they would gradually cease to have any impact.
The alternative, however, of an Iran with nuclear weapons capability is not temporary; it is permanent. Therefore, we have to come to—we cannot avoid coming to—a judgment. If diplomacy fails, if negotiations go nowhere and if sanctions do not deliver, we will at some stage still have to come to an honest judgment: whether the downside, which I do not deny exists, nevertheless has to be borne if the long-term objective is either to destroy or seriously to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability.
That brings us to a crucial question: would such action in fact do so? Do the Americans have the capability? That is ultimately a military question, and we are not privy to the military advice that the President may be receiving. If the advice is, “No, it wouldn’t,” it is not worth considering the option, but, if the advice is that we could either destroy or seriously degrade Iranian nuclear capability so that it is pushed back five or 10 years, that is a different argument.
Mr Baron
I am listening very carefully to my right hon. and learned Friend, but does he not accept that even the US Defence Secretary admits that a successful military strike would only delay the programme for about a year—those are his words, not mine—and that what my right hon. and learned Friend ignores is the possibility that a strike could actually do much worse and inflame a regional war?
Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Panetta was probably referring to the consequences of an Israeli attempt to damage Iranian nuclear capability which, because the Israelis do not have cruise missiles or bunker-busting bombs, would clearly have a much more limiting effect, even if it had some limited success.
In the interests of time, I shall share my final point with the House. Sometimes the inference of those who argue against even the option of a military response is that the world would be a much more peaceful, happy and gentle place if only we renounced the use of force, even as an option, in resolving this dispute. I say to my hon. Friend, however, that we have to contemplate— for a very brief moment, Mr Deputy Speaker—the consequences of Iran becoming a nuclear weapon state. There is not just the one response, to which my hon. Friend referred—whereby the Saudis themselves, pretty certainly, feel obliged to become a nuclear weapon state, Egypt and Turkey perhaps follow them and, therefore, the middle east, which is already the most dangerous part of the world, becomes incredibly volatile for all the perfectly obvious reasons that I do not have to go into. The only alternative, which my hon. Friend touched on, is that in order to discourage any Saudi, Egyptian or Turkish response of going nuclear the United States would have to give a nuclear umbrella guarantee to the Arab and Gulf states of the region, just as it has to NATO members, to Japan and to South Korea. In each case, when the United States gives such a guarantee, however, the guarantee is not credible unless the United States has bases in the area, as it has had in western Europe and has in the far east.
My hon. Friend’s view leads to the point that, if Iran became a nuclear weapon state, to have any prospect of discouraging the Saudis and others from becoming nuclear powers themselves, we would have to envisage not just for a few weeks, a few months or the odd year or so, but for the indefinite future, the middle east as a region where the United States, far from disengaging, became more committed and involved than it ever has—committed by guarantee not just to go to war, but if necessary to use its nuclear weapons in the defence of what would then be its allies, in the sense that NATO is an alliance, alongside the need for bases in the region, with all the inflammatory consequences of American troops in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf on a permanent basis.
The stakes are very high, and my hon. Friend cannot just sleep quietly, saying, “I don’t think we should have the military option, and everything would be peaceful if only people accepted the judgment that I have come to.” It has to be an option. We must hope that it never comes to that, but it cannot be ruled out at this stage. It is no one’s interests that it should, and therefore I commend the amendment to the House.
Mr Hague
I had better continue, because the embassy is a bit of a side point.
Our quarrel emphatically is not with the Iranian people: we want them to enjoy the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as we do and to live dignified lives in a prosperous society. Today, they labour under a repressive political system that attempts to stifle all opposition and has incarcerated more journalists and bloggers than any other country in the world, on top of its appalling wider record on human rights. Let there be no doubt that the Iranian Government’s current policies endanger the interests of the Iranian people themselves, as well as undermining global security.
Mr Baron
One does not condone the human rights record of Iran; there are many regimes around the world that have abysmal human rights. May I bring my right hon. Friend back to the report? Does he agree that there is a world of difference between moving to the option of capability and what we have sometimes heard about evidence suggesting a nuclear weapons programme or a decision to develop one? He has still failed to present the House with proof that nuclear weapons are being developed or that a decision has been made to do so.
Mr Hague
I read out some quite interesting paragraphs from the IAEA report. My hon. Friend should also consider the evidence that is now coming out of Iran saying that it will use its expanding stockpile of near-20% enriched uranium to make fuel for the Tehran research reactor. That reactor is designed to produce medical isotopes, but its capacity is being expanded to produce near-20% enriched uranium to levels far beyond what would be required for that purpose. On that basis, one would have to be extraordinarily trusting and innocent in world affairs to believe that this programme had entirely peaceful purposes and that no possible provision was being made for the development of nuclear weapons. My hon. Friend must remember, too, that the regime deliberately concealed—we do not know for how long, because western nations revealed it—the construction of the secret underground facilities at Qom. It has a strong track record of deliberately concealing aspects of the nuclear programme, and that might lead him to be just a little bit suspicious about its purposes.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I commend the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing this debate and welcome the timely opportunity for the House to debate the subject of Iran. Like the Foreign Secretary, I will urge hon. Members to support the amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind).
I shall start with the broader regional context of the issues before the House this evening. Iran stands more isolated today than it has for many years. As several hon. Members have suggested, in recent years Iran has sought to build its influence across the middle east, supporting groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and backing repressive regimes that could help to enhance Iran’s network of influence in the region, most notably that of Assad in Syria. Today, however, the regional balance of power has shifted away from Tehran. Recent events in Syria leave Iran further isolated, and in time Iran will lose this vital state ally in the Arab world and its main proxy for the arming of Hezbollah. Iran’s hold on the region is slipping, and even previously reluctant players, such as the Saudis, have now publicly condemned Iran and given their support to the EU oil boycott by promising to fill the gap in Europe’s energy demands. Sanctions today, unlike those in the past, are showing signs of having an impact and the Iranian regime seems to be struggling to contain their effect.
The Iranian regime’s response to declining domestic legitimacy and increasing international isolation has been to channel discontent towards external enemies beyond its own borders. The regime continues to support terrorist groups across the region, and by its sponsorship of terrorism threatens the lives of British service personnel today in Afghanistan. In particular, members of the regime have directed their hatred towards Israel, from their denial of the holocaust to the continued threats to the people and state of Israel, and for those statements and threats they deserve our clear and unequivocal condemnation. Israel should know that the international community is united in condemnation of this violent and abhorrent rhetoric and the world view that it reveals—there can be no excuse and no defence for such outrageous and inflammatory language about any member of the international community, and it should be condemned without qualification—but Israel should also understand that its friends in the international community see Iran acquiring nuclear weapons as affecting not only Israel’s security alone, but the security of the broader region and indeed the world.
The non-proliferation treaty is clear: Iran can have civilian nuclear power, but it must not have nuclear weapons. If Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, its capacity to destabilise the middle east would be enhanced. It is disconcerting to be at odds with a distinguished former Foreign Secretary on my own Benches, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), but I believe that the potential response from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others would put at risk the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In so unstable a region, the chance of a nuclear weapon being used again would significantly increase.
Several Members have mentioned the IAEA’s latest report, issued last November, which sent the clearest warning yet that Iran had carried out tests
“relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device”.
As this debate takes place, IAEA representatives are in Iran having talks aimed at clarifying the possible military aspects of its nuclear programme. Everyone in the House is aware of the decades of failed negotiations, despite the best efforts of some Members present today, and the numerous Iranian breaches of the terms of the NPT. Iran is a signatory of the treaty and so is under obligations to comply with its terms, but despite that, Iran hid an enrichment programme for nearly 18 years. As a result, the Security Council has rightly decreed that until Iran’s peaceful intentions can be established it should stop all enrichment, and has imposed seven rounds of UN sanctions in the face of continued Iranian defiance.
The IAEA report sets out clearly that Iran is not complying with its international obligations and therefore the intentions behind its nuclear activities cannot be accounted for. Alongside the deception, secrecy and concealment that have characterised Iran’s relationship with the IAEA, the report for the first time highlights evidence to suggest that Iran is undertaking activities that could indicate a military dimension to its nuclear programme. To quote directly from the report:
“The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”
Following the publication of that most recent report, the IAEA board of governors passed a resolution expressing “deep and increasing concern” over the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme and said it was “essential” that Iran provide additional information and access to the IAEA. We are right to heed the IAEA’s warnings.
Mr Baron
Can the right hon. Gentleman provide any evidence that the theory of nuclear deterrence would not be effective in this region, as it has been in others? India and Pakistan have fought wars and shown nuclear restraint. The evidence suggests that Iran is no more irrational than any other country. Can he provide the evidence to counter that assertion?
Mr Alexander
The environment in the middle east—the sectarian divides, the history of tension and its multifaceted nature—surpasses even that of India and Pakistan in its potential threat not just to regional security but to global security. It would be a very brave or very naive individual who, in the absence of the sorts of communication that were the foundation of our capacity to maintain peace over the 50 years of the cold war, presumed that we could feel confident that, whether intentionally or inadvertently, there would not be a heightened risk of nuclear conflict in the region. That is why it is right that the House try today to speak with one voice in urging on the Iranians a different course from the one implicit in the scenario that the hon. Gentleman depicted, which is the development of nuclear weapons.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). I agree with a great deal of what he said. I am pleased to support the amendment that stands in his name and in the names of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and many others.
I also agree with quite a lot of what the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said in his opening remarks. It is rather a shame that in the wording of the motion and in some of his emphasis on the nature of the evidence that we have, he has almost extracted disagreement from potential agreement. In particular, he gave the unfortunate impression at times that he was searching for excuses for the Iranian regime, when none should be given. He concentrated a great deal on the difference between circumstantial and actual evidence, when the difference is between evidence for the existence of nuclear weapons, which I do not think anybody is asserting, and the clear evidence, which I think is in the IAEA report, of intent to develop nuclear weapons. The IAEA is pretty clear about that and produces convincing evidence for that.
Mr Baron
May I correct the hon. Gentleman, for the record? He is wrong to suggest and almost alone in believing that I was trying to make excuses for the Iranian regime. I was making the point that mistakes have been made by both sides and opportunities have been missed by both sides, as has been acknowledged by speakers on both sides. As for his point about the report, there is a world of difference between nuclear capability and developing nuclear weapons and a decision to do so—something that is not recognised enough by the hon. Gentleman.
Martin Horwood
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that important point, to which I shall return. He is right to emphasise the importance of evidence and that the international community on this occasion acts in response to and with proper observation of the evidence, by contrast with what has happened on other occasions. However, if we are going to trust the evidence of the IAEA, two things follow. First, we must believe the IAEA when it says that there are elements of the nuclear programme in Iran that can only be contributing towards the development of a nuclear weapons programme. If we are trusting the IAEA to produce the evidence, we must believe it when it says that. Secondly, there is the contrast with the situation before the war in Iraq, when we did not spend long enough listening to the evidence from the weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and his colleagues. In effect, military action pre-empted the end of the weapons inspection process. With hindsight, we know that there were no weapons of mass destruction present at that time, and we went to war, in my view, on a false prospectus. That is an important contrast to make.
There are other contrasts with what happened in Iraq and the more recent military action on Libya. The Foreign Secretary said there were three important characteristics to the military action that the international community took in respect of Libya: first, it had a clear legal and humanitarian justification; secondly, there was clear regional support; and thirdly, there was explicit UN sanction. All those features were present in the intervention in Libya; none of them was present in the intervention and the invasion of Iraq, which is why I am still proud that Liberal Democrats opposed that at the time; and those conditions are not present now in the case of Iran, either. That is why we should be clear that we should not be talking about an attack on Iran.
There is a further parallel with Iraq which is extremely important: that is, just how unpredictable military action can be. We all remember George Bush on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf rather prematurely celebrating victory in the war in Iraq, whereas as we know, it turned into an incredibly complex, costly and painful conflagration and insurgency, where allied troops ended up embroiled in an almost interminable series of interlocking and violent episodes. We must hesitate before we get embroiled in anything similar in the case of Iran.
The Foreign Secretary’s remarks over the weekend, which were clearly intended to discourage others from getting involved in such a potential conflagration, were well made. His clear messages to our friends and allies in the United States and in the region were similarly well made. It might well be that a military attack to get rid of a potential nuclear programme is impossible in practice. It might require a sustained campaign of bombing over a number of sites across the entire country. We know that the nuclear programme has been dispersed in Iran, so it would be a very dangerous undertaking in any case.
The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay was right: we should go the extra mile for peace. I want to make it clear that the Liberal Democrats believe that a preventive attack on Iran would probably be illegal and quite possibly unsuccessful, and it could destabilise the entire region and lead to the ignition of a war over which we would then have no control. As the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) said, it might well boost the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and even al-Qaeda in the region and could undermine the fledgling democracies of the Arab spring and any potential for an equivalent Persian spring in Iran.
Martin Horwood
I wondered whether that would come up. That is the phraseology in the hon. Gentleman’s motion today, but it is not the phraseology that we used. We talked about opposing military action against Iran. That was written before—[Interruption.] No, it is not weasel words. It is about moving with events. It was written before the attack on the British embassy and before Iran, in effect, threatened the use of military force to close the straits of Hormuz. It would have been better to say clearly that we opposed preventive military action against Iran. That is why I do not support the motion, which rules out the use of force, apparently in any circumstances. We have minesweepers in the Gulf: if those came under attack, would we really rule out the use of force?
Mr Dodds
We have learned in recent years that each country is different and has different circumstances. Some of us might like to go back in time and take different approaches. We have seen different approaches to intervention in Libya and Syria, for instance. We are dealing with Iran, and I believe that there is an opportunity to do something to prevent Iran getting hold of nuclear weapons, but I believe that Iran, given its dire and direct threats against the state of Israel and its particular threat to the people of the entire world, poses a unique threat. We should be conscious of that and we must be prepared, if necessary, to do something about it.
I commend the bravery and courage of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay in proposing the motion, but I am afraid that its terms remind me of the motion that was once proposed in the Oxford Union—that this House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country. The word “appeasement” has been used. I think that the motion, if passed, would smack of appeasement. It is vital that we send out a strong message.
Mr Baron
I am giving the right hon. Gentleman an extra minute to wind up his speech, so I hope that he will smile upon me accordingly. The word “appeasement” has been used several times. A number of us in this House are former soldiers and have medals to prove that we are not appeasers. There is no doubt about that. We believe in the case for a just war. I have seen comrades killed by the enemy. The right hon. Gentleman must surely accept that the policy of sanctions and sabre-rattling that has characterised the west’s approach has failed. Iran will not step down, so is this not the right time for a fresh approach that recognises her regional status?
Mr Dodds
I am glad that I was able to give way to the hon. Gentleman just before the time limit. It remains to be seen whether the policy of sanctions and negotiations has failed, because we are in the middle of that process. I have the utmost respect for him and others who have served in Her Majesty’s forces and I fully respect his personal position, but that in no way detracts from the ability of others to describe the policy they enunciate in the terms we have used. The significance of the famous debate in the Oxford Union was the message it sent out to those in Nazi Germany who were following the policy. If the motion is carried tonight, this House will be sending a strong signal to the Iranian regime to carry on and aim for nuclear weapons, because we will do nothing about it. We need to send out a clear message that is the reverse of that, which is that we will not stand for that kind of approach.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
As my hon. Friend, who is often spot on, will know, Iraq is virtually a proxy state of Iran. That is a hugely important step for the world, because both countries combined have 19% of the world’s proven oil reserves, so instability in the region will lead to a real problem. That compares with a figure of about 7% in Kuwait and about 2% in the United Arab Emirates. To put it into context, the figure for the proven oil reserve in the hands of Iran and Iraq is very significant indeed.
The Iranian regime not only promotes instability and terror in its own country—the example was given of five executions only last night—but is one of the greatest exporters of terror around the world. I have always been a supporter of Israel, but I would shudder to live in Israel today, with Hezbollah from the Syrian state and Hamas from the Palestinian state. The Israelis are in a very difficult position. If war were to break out in Iran, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex that the proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, would become even more active than they are at present.
I agreed with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary when he said at the weekend that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons could trigger an arms race in the middle east. One or two Members have disputed that, but we should look at history and the example of Pakistan and India. The moment one got nuclear capability, the other had to have it. If Iran acquires a nuclear capability, Saudi Arabia will probably do so, the Syrian regime, if it survives, will certainly want to, and perhaps other states in the middle east will, too.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I knew somebody was going to make that point to me, so I anticipated it. Of course Israel has a nuclear capability, although it has never acknowledged it, but the difference between Israel and Iran is that Israel is a stable democracy and Iran is an unpredictable country—under its current regime. That is not to say that under a future regime it will not change, but under its current regime I should not predict the circumstances in which it might or might not use such nuclear capability.
The whole essence of the cold war—Russia, America, Britain, France—was that none of us dared use nuclear weapons even if we had the inclination, which I am sure we never did, because we knew the destruction that they would cause, having seen it in Japan during the second world war. It is a huge thing to press the nuclear button, so, despite my hon. Friend disagreeing with me, I think that we have to be very careful about reaching such a situation with Iran.
The other point that I wish to make, in the rapidly shrinking time that I have this evening, is that I wholly support the efforts of my right hon. Friends in the coalition to bring about a diplomatic solution. That solution has to be backed up with sanctions, and I wholly believe that we must have the military option available to us when we go into the diplomatic negotiating chamber. I profoundly disagree with my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, because if we rule out that option before we have even completed diplomatic negotiations we will be in a considerably weaker position.
Of those three legs to the stool, we need to concentrate on sanctions, and the greatest role that the British Foreign Office—our Government, our Ministers—can play is to get some of our allies on side: to get Russia, China, Turkey and India all on side to make those sanctions effective. If the reports in the newspapers today are to be believed, and Turkey, China and India are participating in barter deals to get around our banking sanctions, that very considerably weakens them. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench take that point well and truly on board.
This country has always been very good at soft power. Our diplomatic service has always been the best and our British Council has always been the best, but in this situation one of the greatest contributions we can make to resolving the problem without the necessity of going to war—I cannot stress enough that I do not advocate war, which is the last thing we want to see—is, as the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) said, to look very carefully at the BBC World Service. The BBC’s Farsi service can contribute a huge amount to the situation, and we should go the extra mile to ensure that it is not jammed, that we do not cut the service and that we broadcast the optimum number of hours on shortwave, over the internet and on television, for those middle class people in—
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I was with the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) for much of his speech until he reached the very end. The same is true of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I confess that I began the day rather sympathetic to his motion, largely because the preferred profession for many people in my constituency, as has been shown in many opinion polls—and this is true across many former mining constituencies—is the armed forces. I do not want to send more British armed forces—young people from the Rhondda—to go to fight in a war a long way from home that may have no discernible goal, and may have a very uncertain future. However, I did not find his argument persuasive. In fact, I found it the opposite of persuasive. I found it deeply unpersuasive and I will not be able to support him tonight.
This is not about whether we like or dislike the Iranian regime. I do not think there can be anybody in the House who likes the Iranian regime, perhaps because of its phenomenal and extraordinary use of the death penalty. It owned up to 252 cases last year but the figure is far more likely to be 600, which puts Iran second only to China, which is a much larger country. There are currently 143 people under the age of 18 on death row in Iran. It is a security state, in the way that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, described the term in the late 1930s. It has laws against harming national security, against disturbing public order and also against insulting public officials. The regime uses them whenever it wants to repress dissent.
I found the hon. Gentleman’s argument about Israel to be naive. I would rarely use that term in the House, but a pedantic argument about the semantics of what Ahmadinejad said or did not say is neither here nor there. The truth is that there is a powerful body of opinion within the leadership in the Iranian regime which is wholly inimical to the success of the Israeli state. Whatever criticism I may have of Israel and its failure to adhere to United Nations resolutions and the rest, I believe that Israelis have the right to self-determination and to believe that they can live in their country in security.
Mr Baron
The hon. Gentleman should be a little careful with his words. I did not argue for one moment that there are not those within Iran—many within Iran—who loathe the state of Israel. There are many Arabs and Jews within the state of Israel who disagree with their own Government on many issues, but that cannot justify military intervention. He needs to be careful when he talks about naiveté. I would suggest to him that it is naive to pursue failed policies.
Mr Baron
I think it can safely be said that I have been in a very small minority in today’s debate, but I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for participating in it. The extent of the interest shown, particularly with a one-line Whip, has proved that it has been worthwhile, and there have been many interesting contributions. I remain of the view, though, that Government and Opposition Members have failed to address various points and have missed opportunities to better relations between Iran and the west.
The current policy of sanctions and sabre-rattling has failed. Iran will not be deterred, and yet the policy has brought us to the brink of military conflict. As most people accept, a military strike by Israel would be a disaster. It would unite Iran in fury behind the hard-liners in the country, it would not work because it would merely delay matters for perhaps a year at most, and it could lead to a regional war. Those who think otherwise are very wrong. Yet the Government and the Opposition keep the option of force on the table despite the fact that it would be disastrous, despite the fact that Iran ignores it, and despite the fact that it increases tensions and makes a peaceful outcome less likely. My contention is that by ruling it out we would reduce the tensions, bring ourselves back from the brink of military conflict, and give diplomacy a greater chance.
There has been no answer to my suggestion that the time has come for a fresh approach that recognises the status of Iran as a regional superpower. We need better to understand and engage with Iran. The precedent for this new relationship is Nixon’s rapprochement with the Chinese during the 1960s and 1970s; after all, China and the west had been at war in Korea just a decade before. The US needs to make it very clear to Israel that military action will not be acceptable. I saw no appetite for that in the House today, and I believe that we are missing a defining moment.
I hope that most of us, if not all, can accept that war should be the measure of last resort to be used only when all other avenues have been exhausted. My belief, by contrast with many of those who have spoken, is that we have not yet reached that point. I shall therefore oppose the amendment to my motion.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Syria
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We are still making an assessment of that. Clearly, it was only on Saturday that the resolution was vetoed in the Security Council. A General Assembly resolution does not have the same weight as a Security Council resolution, but it can illustrate the strength of numbers behind a particular proposition, so we are discussing that now—whether it is a feasible way forward—with the Arab League and with our other partners on the Security Council. I therefore cannot give the hon. Gentleman a timeline yet, but it is a possibility.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
We all wish the Foreign Secretary well in his endeavours, but may I press him by suggesting that the regrettable decision to veto was at least in part caused by Russia and China believing that western powers had exceeded their mandate under UN resolution 1973, when pursuing regime change in Libya, as they made clear at the time?
Mr Hague
This is not an excuse for Russia and China, and as I pointed out earlier other nations that were very critical of our actions in Libya voted for the resolution, appreciating that it was put forward on behalf of the Arab League, and that it put forward an entirely different proposition from how we proceeded in Libya, because the situation is entirely different. This should not be advanced as an excuse for what is in my view an indefensible veto.
EU Sanctions (Iran)
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Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Given that Iran is a state in transition, with multiple centres of authority, I suggest to the Foreign Secretary that the west’s policy of sabre rattling and sanctions has not only been unsuccessful, but serves to reinforce the hardliners in the country at the expense of ordinary Iranians. Has the time not come for a fundamental reappraisal of our relationship with Iran, similar to what President Nixon did with China when he recognised that country’s new status in the 1960s?
Mr Hague
If there were a reasonable hope of any such policy succeeding, of course there would be a case for it. In the Foreign Office, I regularly review our overall policy and the alternatives to it. However, at every stage, I and my colleagues on the National Security Council reached the view that this is the right policy—as have the Governments, as my hon. Friend can gather from what I am saying, of the entire western world. We have come to that conclusion because Iran has resisted or rebuffed efforts to create a better relationship. We offered substantive and serious help with the development of civil nuclear power in Iran, provided there was no nuclear weapons programme. I often point out that one of my predecessors, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), made heroic efforts to improve relations with Iran on several visits there, and attempted the rapprochement for which my hon. Friend calls. None of that has worked, despite the best efforts of all involved. The policy choices are whether to do what I have set out to increase the peaceful pressure on Iran, to leave a situation in which military conflict is more likely, or to do nothing. The latter two options are not very attractive.
European Union
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Dodds
The hon. Lady is right to point to some of the vindictive language that is coming out of Europe. Indeed, President Sarkozy was talking today about consequences for the United Kingdom because of the actions that we have taken. We have to recognise that there are dangers—I think the Prime Minister talked about “risks”—in the intergovernmental approach, and I will deal shortly with what that might mean. It is one reason why we cannot let matters sit where they are. We are in an unsatisfactory position, and we need to decide how we will deal with the situation.
In France, the Opposition Socialist contender in the presidential election, François Hollande, has made it clear that if he were elected, he would seek to renegotiate any agreement that was reached, because he opposes the loss of French budgetary sovereignty. The concerns felt in the House are not some isolated, strange, esoteric or unusual position, but are shared across large parts of Europe by many parties, many of which would not be described as naturally Eurosceptic, right wing or anything of the sort. Members would do well to bear that in mind when they talk about the Government being in thrall to a small minority of MPs and others. They should recognise the reality. The idea that there is a united Europe of 26 against the UK is not correct.
Of course, many countries have to put the new euro-plus arrangements to parliamentary approval, at least, if not to a referendum. We will see what happens when they actually consider the implications of having their national budgets supervised by the European Commission, and the fact that strict rules will be imposed on their national Governments’ ability to borrow, with all the implications for sovereignty that that entails.
For all the adverse reaction from some on the Opposition and Liberal Democrat Benches yesterday, the fact is that the Prime Minister’s stance has the overwhelming backing of the people of the United Kingdom.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman’s points are absolutely right. May I suggest to him that many Conservative Members believe that the veto should be the start of a process to reset our relationship with the EU, based on free trade, growth and prosperity? We want to move away from political union and dead-weight regulation. That is not some utopian dream—such a relationship already exists. I ask him to reflect on the fact that countries such as Switzerland already enjoy such a relationship with Europe, so there is no reason why we should not.
Mr Dodds
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I will come shortly to how we should rebalance our relationship with Europe. He is right to point to the type of relationship that we should have—one based on free trade and co-operation with our European friends and neighbours, but on a sovereign nation to sovereign nation basis.
There are those who tell us that the Prime Minister has gone against the whole thrust and approach of UK foreign policy for the past 40 to 50 years. I have no doubt that there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the bowels of the Foreign Office and elsewhere among the professional mandarins who have seen the EU as almost a sacred cause, to be advanced whatever the wishes of the British people or the views of the temporary occupants—as they would see it—of political office. For the mandarins, the people and those who occupy political office are to be managed and dealt with—although I am sure that that does not apply to the occupants of office in this Government.
European Council
John Baron Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
First, may I apologise for arriving slightly late for the introductory speech? I congratulate the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) on initiating a very important debate at this historic moment. It is important that Government Members and, indeed, the people of this country know that some of us on the left take a strongly critical view of the European Union and what it is doing at the moment, both in democratic terms and on economic grounds. I will not speak for long because many others want to contribute.
As powers have been transferred to the European Union, we have had a consistent erosion of democracy. Within the European Union itself, real power is not with the European Parliament, although it can make a lot of noise; real power is with the Commission. The Commission is a completely undemocratic body run in a secretive way by the Eurocrats who want to govern our lives bureaucratically, rather than democratically. We have already seen the beginnings of bureaucratic government in Greece and, indeed, in Italy. At some point, the people of those countries will react against that, particularly when they have increasing austerity and unemployment rammed down their throats.
I am concerned about how the economy is being run at the moment. The view is expressed in the media and by our politicians and some of our leaders that somehow dismantling the euro would be a total disaster and that we must do everything that we can to save it. That is not true. Some people who occasionally write in our journals say that dismantling the euro would not be that damaging. In fact, we need a controlled deconstruction of the euro for those countries that clearly cannot sustain their membership because their real exchange rate is way out of line with that of Germany and others. We must create a situation whereby those countries can recreate their own currencies, find an appropriate parity and start to reflate their economies behind those currency barriers.
I think that everyone now accepts that Greece will leave the euro at some point, and when that happens, it will re-establish the drachma. Greece will devalue substantially—30% or 50%—and all of a sudden, it will become the cheapest place in Europe to have a holiday. Everyone will go to Greece for their holidays and the Greek economy will recover, as it will do in so many other ways. Greece will not be able to buy as many BMWs and Mercedes from Germany, but it will start to regenerate its internal economy and its people will start to live a decent life again. Other countries that are much bigger than Greece are in a similar position, and so others will need to follow.
I do not agree with the idea that such an approach would be disastrous for us all. If those countries can get out of the euro, re-establish and start reflating their economies, their economies will start to grow. If we insist on their staying in the euro and having increasing austerity, that will mean more unemployment and a fall in demand, and the whole economy of the European Union will start to go into a deep black hole.
I have said this many times: the idea that being critical of the European Union or wanting to re-establish a national currency is being anti-European is nonsense. I see myself as a passionate European. I am European by history and by virtue of where I live. I love everything about Europe. I love the music, the culture, the languages and the people. I also stand shoulder to shoulder with working-class people in Europe. As a socialist, people would expect me to do that. Working-class people will not benefit from the continuation of this stupid system of a single currency. They will benefit only when their countries can re-establish some independence and start to reflate their economies.
Many millions of working people in those countries feel that their leaders have left them behind. Indeed, during the past two weeks, I spent several days in Copenhagen last week and two days in Brussels this week. I have heard people bemoaning the fact that they are drifting away from their politicians and that there is a gulf between the political class and the people. If people in many of those countries were asked what they want, they would probably say that their views are similar to ours.
The Eurobarometer shows that there is increasing Euroscepticism across the European Union. We are run by a bureaucratic elite who want unity at all costs on their terms and who are leaving behind their own people. We must avoid that. At least we have a more serious Eurosceptic voice in Britain from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber and, indeed, among our electorate. I hope very much that our leaders will recognise that and start to suggest that we should have separate currencies and go back to a world where we perhaps even have pegged currencies at appropriate parities. Each country should be able to manage its own affairs with its own interest rates, its own fiscal policy and its own parity with other currencies. That is the world that worked in the post-war period, and it has been destroyed by those who want to create a country called Europe—or part of Europe, at least.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
To reinforce that point, the hon. Gentleman may want to reflect on the fact that, since 1945, there have been around 80 situations in which countries have left currency unions. In the vast majority of cases, those countries benefited from that devaluation. It is an economic fact that devaluation allows greater competitiveness, and the austerity packages in Italy and Greece would therefore not need to be so severe.
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, he is absolutely right, and the Soviet Union is the best example. Many currencies were created after the break-up of the Soviet Union. When Slovakia broke away from the Czech Republic, it created a currency and that was not a problem. I am sure that both economies—certainly Slovakia’s—benefited from that.
From time to time, we have had to adjust the parity of our currency in relation to other currencies. That has been necessary and beneficial. The Bretton Woods settlement made provision for that in 1944; in fact, Bretton Woods wanted to go further. Keynes and others suggest that some countries ought to be required to revalue if they have a very large trade surplus, as indeed one major country in Europe has with the rest of Europe at the moment. Such countries ought to be required to get some balance within the international economy.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Turner, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) on orchestrating this debate. I will make my comments relatively short, because I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak. Having said that, I believe that the EU summit is a defining moment, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a better relationship with the EU. I sincerely hope that the Prime Minister seizes that opportunity and seizes the moment.
[Mrs Anne Main in the Chair]
It is my belief that we need a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with the EU, based on free trade, competitiveness and growth, and not political union and deadweight regulation. That is a relationship that other countries enjoy. One is not speaking of utopia or a textbook theory. Other countries enjoy such a relationship. For example, Switzerland has meaningfully good relations with the EU and trades with it freely, but it is not weighed down by political regulation and moves to ever closer political union. Such a relation reflects the fact that in 1973, and then in 1975, the British people voted for a free trade area and not political union. It reflects the fact that people generally are fed up with mindless interference from the EU. It reflects the fact that businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, are fed up with regulation, some 90% of which comes from Brussels.
Such a relationship would reflect the fact that taxpayers are fed up with the increased cost of the EU. If one takes into account the diminishing rebates, the budget will come to around £40 billion over the next seven years. That would pay for a 6p cut in small business corporation tax in each of the seven years. My goodness, would that not be the spur for growth that we all want and are wishing for? I also believe that such a relationship would reflect the fact that this Conservative party—my Conservative party—is fed up with promises to rein in the EU, when very little has happened over the almost 40 years that we have been a member.
I am slightly more sceptical than most that we can work the repatriation of powers. There has been a lot of talk about that, but our history in repatriating powers has not been good. Let us take the working time directive as an example. We all remember the great hullabaloo about the importance of extracting the opt-out from that directive. It will be no surprise to hon. Members here that that directive was reintroduced through the back door. What are we doing now, before the summit? Once again, we are talking about repatriating powers such as the working time directive. If my memory serves me correctly, that power was supposed to be repatriated some time ago.
Mr Jenkin
The problem is that the word “repatriation” is open to confusion. The basic principle of the EU legal system is that powers cannot be repatriated. There is a judicial doctrine—the doctrine of the occupied field—and once member states have delegated a power to the European Union, it cannot be recovered. There is no mechanism for doing that, which is why we need a fundamental change in our relationship with the European Union to address the fundamental problem. The problem is the treaties.
Mr Baron
As I said at the start, I do not buy the repatriation of powers. I want a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with the EU based on free trade, competition and growth. Such a renegotiation would recognise the fact that we want good relations with our EU neighbours, and we want good trade relations in particular, but we recognise that we need to engage better with the faster-growing economies throughout the world. In many regions of the world—those of the BRIC economies—growth rates are so much faster. This is not a little Englander approach; it is a globalist approach that recognises that we need to engage better with those faster-growing areas.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I am hugely enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech; he is making some excellent points. Does he agree that in 1980 the EU’s share of world trade was some 30%, but by 2020 it is likely to have fallen to 15%? In other words, it will have halved over a period of 40 years, yet we find ourselves increasingly brought together with part of the world that will grow more slowly than the BRIC economies.
Mr Baron
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There is much talk of Germany winning market share, but one forgets that Germany has benefited from an artificially weak currency, to which the periphery nations have contributed. Germany has had a very strong manufacturing base allied to a weak currency, which has made for heady growth, but if we take Europe as a whole, it is falling behind. Many people do not recognise that.
I worry that the Government have ruled out the idea of a referendum. I think that is a mistake as we go into a summit, because it cuts off a key negotiating ability. I also worry that we seem to be saying we do not want a two-speed or two-tier Europe, but on the other hand we are trying to join in the chorus of “we must save the euro”, which can only mean closer fiscal union, which can only result, as Angela Merkel has readily acknowledged, in a two-tier, two-speed Europe. It is nonsense and a contradiction. Anybody who believes that closer fiscal and political union will not fundamentally or materially affect our relationship with the EU is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Before I finish, I will attempt to knock down one or two myths surrounding the debate. The first myth is that we must save the euro. In my 15 years in the City running hundreds of millions of pounds for charities, pension funds and private clients with some very large fund management groups, I have never heard so much economic clap-trap. The whole concept to begin with was flawed. The idea that we can bind divergent economies into a single currency without full fiscal union was and remains a mistake. Not only the concept but the solution is flawed. The problem is that we are not addressing the core issue of competitiveness. We have Governments spending too much relative to their means.
This recession, unlike all other post-war recessions, is built on debt. It is a deleveraging, not a destocking, recession. Accordingly, we have to grow our way out of that and reduce our debt. We cannot, as we all know, borrow our way out of debt. The solution does not fit, so I am not convinced that the solution put forward by the present eurozone leaders will work, anyway. However, let us give them the benefit of the doubt. Let us say it buys time. The problem is that by cutting off the option of devaluation—put that and the fact that the solution does not fit to one side for a second—even if it buys time, we are making the austerity packages much worse.
I have previously broached the fact that there have been some 80 situations in which countries have left currency unions since the second world war and have benefited from the growth that has followed. We saw it in our own case when we exited the exchange rate mechanism. By binding countries into a single currency, we have to make the austerity packages more severe, because we are ruling out the option of devaluation, which would increase competitiveness. The eurozone leaders do not seem to understand that. If there was an orderly break-up of the euro, certainly for the periphery nations, the Germans would still want to sell their cars and the French their wine. Believe me, life would go on.
Many say that the banking system could not survive the write-off of the debts. That point was made earlier. However, the markets have already discounted the debt in many of these countries by 60%. It would not come as much of a shock if there was a 50% write-down. In many cases, that would represent a 10% uplift by the banks themselves. This is an economic point that has not been widely acknowledged and accepted. The markets have already downgraded the debt, so this will be a downgrade instituted by politicians. Look at what the markets themselves are telling us.
Nobody has been able to quantify or substantiate why it would create economic mayhem if we did not save the euro. Siren voices also suggested that if we left the ERM something similar and awful would happen. Actually, almost to the day, our economic recovery kicked off.
Finally, if the eurozone wants to crack on and create closer fiscal union, that is fine. That is not, or should not, be mutually exclusive to our objective of wanting to negotiate a different and fundamentally new relationship with the EU. They are not mutually exclusive. Many commentators seem to suggest that by wanting to renegotiate the relationship, we are breaking up or being awkward about what the 17 eurozone members want to do. That is not the case. If they want to take that path, it is up to them, but their taking that path should not restrict us.
Mr Baron
I will keep my conclusion brief. It is often said that now is not the right time to renegotiate our relationship with the EU, but we have been told that for almost 40 years. If this is not the right time, when will be? The idea, perhaps, is that we will somehow renegotiate a new relationship after the crisis, but as I have said, our track record on doing such things is not good if one looks back over the past 40 years.
We are at a defining moment, and we need a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with the EU based on free trade, competitiveness and growth—just like that enjoyed by other countries such as Switzerland—and not on the political union and dead-weight regulation that is harming this country and making it far less competitive than it should be. We are not paying our way in the world, and we need to fundamentally readdress the whole situation and create a new relationship. Now is an ideal time to do that. Growing elements in Parliament know that, as do people outside this place. My hope is that the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, will now understand that as well.
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. When we were in government in 1999, 11 out of 15 Governments were on the centre-left and we attended such meetings, which proved very useful indeed.
I respectfully beg to differ with those hon. Members who have said that the Prime Minister has a strong hand in the negotiations. Last Friday, the Prime Minister was relegated to a quick sandwich lunch with President Sarkozy in Paris, without the inclusion of even a press conference in the programme. The French press hardly noticed that he was there. Given that we are one of the largest economies in the European Union and used to be at the heart of its decision-making, it is incredible just how isolated this Government have made the UK. Today’s New York Times leads with an article that says that the UK is merely a “bystander” at this European Union summit. That is not in the national interest.
The past few days have served to remind us how the Conservative party likes to debate the European Union and of—perhaps this is a point of nostalgia for some—the long, tortuous and, in some cases, destructive history of the division in the Conservative party on the EU. It is worth remembering the context of the Prime Minister’s current position and the labyrinthine trajectory he took to get there. In his bid to secure his party’s leadership while in opposition, he promised to withdraw his MEPs from the centre-right European People’s party, but they still sit in the European Parliament with the same group, which the Deputy Prime Minister has called
“nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes”.
After becoming the then leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister told his party to stop “banging on about Europe”, because he hoped that the issue could be put to one side and ignored. How wrong he was.
I say to this Government that, for a year, they ignored the impending crisis in the eurozone. It was only recently that they stopped being asleep at the wheel and woke up to the seriousness of the situation. Six weeks ago, we saw the unedifying spectacle of nearly half of Conservative Back Benchers defying the Prime Minister’s three-line Whip and voting for a referendum on our membership of the European Union. During that same debate six weeks ago, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to repatriate powers from the European Union. He reiterated that demand last month at the lord mayor’s banquet and declared himself a sceptic who wanted a European Union that was a network, not a bloc, while in the same breath extolling the benefits of our membership and demanding a say at the top table.
Mr Baron
It is rich for the hon. Lady to criticise the Prime Minister, because when her party was in government, it not only sacrificed the rebate that had been negotiated, but oversaw the transfer of swathes of power to Brussels. The list of measures that she is highlighting runs very shallow with those who remember when her party was in government.
Emma Reynolds
I say to the hon. Gentleman that, when my party was in government, we were not isolated in the European Union. The previous two Prime Ministers had a good relationship with both the French President and the German Chancellor, and such a relationship is very important to our national interest.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) on securing the debate. While the debate was going on, I was thinking that he and I have known each other for more than 30 years. Although it is fair to say that we have not always managed to agree on political subjects, I have never had any doubt whatsoever about his integrity or his patriotism. I pay tribute to him for the way he put his case today.
We are, indeed, in the rather unusual position of debating a meeting that is about to start and that, to judge from what President Van Rompuy said on Monday, may well go on for many hours after dinner tonight and into tomorrow morning. I therefore need to preface anything I say with the caveat that events may overtake us. I will also be quite straight with hon. Members and disappoint the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) by saying that I am not going to go into detail about the Prime Minister’s negotiating position. The only people who would benefit—indeed, who would be delighted—by a full disclosure of the Prime Minister’s negotiating tactics would be the Governments of other countries represented around the table, who might not necessarily share identical negotiating objectives.
I want to try to respond at least to the broad questions raised during this debate. I certainly agree with everybody who has said that the British Government have a duty to be vigilant and to defend vigorously the national interests of the British people. As the Prime Minister made very clear yesterday, we will support the objective of securing fiscal discipline in the eurozone, but not at the expense of either our industries or our independence. The crisis in the eurozone is forcing the European Union and the eurozone 17 in particular to confront fundamental choices. It matters hugely to the United Kingdom that the eurozone is successful in sorting out its problems.
One point on which I agreed with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East was the interconnection between this country’s economy and the economies around the wider Europe. Many of the statistics are well known. The eurozone accounts for roughly 40% of United Kingdom trade, and its stability matters globally. Around 15% of United States trade is with the eurozone and one can measure the concern of the United States Government by the fact that the Treasury Secretary, Mr Geithner, was dispatched on rapid visits to Paris and Berlin earlier this week.
The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) talked about wanting an orderly deconstruction of the eurozone, which was far too sanguine. He slightly skated over the fact that in every conversation I have had with Ministers of any of the 17 Governments of the eurozone, they have said that they are committed to keeping the eurozone project going. In addition, as far as one can tell from opinion research, the populations of those countries still consider the euro to be an essential part of the national interest of their country. Hon. Members may think that those views are misplaced, but they are the views of the countries that have chosen to join the euro, and, ultimately, we have to respect their sovereign decision.
What I am clear about is that the instability in the eurozone is already having what the Chancellor has described as a “chilling effect” on the United Kingdom’s economy, and a collapse of the eurozone or a prolonged recession in the eurozone as a result of financial instability persisting will be thoroughly bad news for jobs and for hopes of economic growth in our country. It is not only important but urgent to try to sort out the problems of the eurozone. As a number of hon. Members have said, many of us argued from the start that there were flaws in the way that the euro had been designed and that it seemed illogical to have a currency union and a single monetary policy and interest rate without some common agreements and structures in place to govern wider economic and, in particular, fiscal policy.
We can argue that those problems should have been tackled at the start and that the warning signals should have been read when countries breached the stability and growth pact and no action was taken, but we are where we are. I certainly believe that there is a sense of real urgency and of peril among serious-minded leaders of other eurozone countries. They are now speaking in terms of an economic catastrophe that will spread much more widely than the single currency area if this instability is not resolved, and resolved swiftly.
Mr Baron
My right hon. Friend is of course right. In the history of the world, there has not been a monetary union that has worked that has not also had to include fiscal union. It is fundamentally flawed. What is more important now is not history but the future. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that perhaps the one reason eurozone leaders are so passionate about the euro is that it is part of a political project for political union, and that they are therefore overegging the economic consequences. Where history can also help us is to remind us that since 1945, as I have highlighted—there has been no riposte from the Minister on this point—we have had 80 instances in which countries have left currency unions. The vast majority have benefited in growth terms from having left a currency union. I suggest to the Minister that he should think carefully. Perhaps the motive of these eurozone leaders is that they see the euro as a weapon that is crucial to political union.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a perfectly sensible point about the fact that other countries have departed currency unions since the second world war. It is fair to say that we have not had such a break-up of a currency union on this kind of scale, with economies that are so closely integrated, and in an age when information and capital can be moved rapidly, not just in national jurisdictions but globally, at the click of a computer mouse. Studies that I have seen say that it would be much, much more damaging and risky for the eurozone to break up, particularly if it broke up chaotically, than it was for some of those other currency separations, such as those of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Incidentally, Slovakia, having broken with the Czech Republic, then decided to enter the eurozone and has engaged in some challenging austerity and competitiveness measures in order to try to make a success of that commitment.
Where I would agree with my hon. Friend is that this has been seen, by those who took part, as a political project as well as an economic project. However, to an extent that we sometimes do not appreciate in this country, those political ambitions have a much greater resonance among the wider electorates in many countries on the continent of Europe than they do here. That is due to all kinds of historical reasons with which we are fairly familiar. I want to emphasise that the prime objective of the summit ought to be to sort out the issues that remain unresolved from the eurozone meetings of 21 July and 26 October. Whether we talk about the European financial stability facility, bank recapitalisation or the detail of the Greek write-down, there is detail that has yet to be finalised, and that needs to be addressed rapidly. So, too, does the need for competitiveness, not only in the peripheral eurozone economies but in the global context of the European Union as a whole. It needs to be embraced as a priority by every single one of the member states and the European institutions. If I have time, I will come on to that. There is some evidence that that challenge is starting to be recognised and addressed.
I accept too—I will make this point very briefly—that if eurozone countries choose to push forward with greater economic integration, there will be a democratic challenge as well. How are economic policies to be made democratically accountable? I accept that that is a challenge for those countries. It is clearly for them, as independent sovereign countries, to decide how they individually address that.
Many hon. Members raised the issue of possible treaty change, and the safeguards that the United Kingdom would require should the eurozone follow that path. Let me set out the options in broad terms. One way to introduce stronger rules for the eurozone, which of course would not apply to the UK, would be a change in the treaty governing all 27 members of the European Union. That would be the most comprehensive way to provide tough sanctions to ensure that eurozone countries stick to their own rules on debt. A second option would be to allow the 17 countries of the eurozone to create a separate intergovernmental treaty of their own. That has happened before, with the Schengen agreement on open borders and with the European stability mechanism. The 17 are free to do that again. The likelihood, however, is that the signatories to such a treaty would want to draw on the EU institutions that belong to all 27 member states to monitor and enforce compliance with any new rules on tighter budget discipline. In both instances, we would have the power of veto. Treaty change at 27 requires unanimity and, while the content of an intergovernmental treaty at 17 is a matter for the 17 signatories, it cannot cut across the provisions of the existing EU treaties, nor can it seek to use the EU institutions without the specific agreement of all the EU 27.