EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I do not know whether that was directed at people on the shadow Front Bench, but the situation is as I have set out. The key point is this: if we were to take any other position, we would have civil servants being asked not to support the position of the Government. We are approaching this in the way these things have been approached in referendums in the past—in 1975 and in the Scottish referendum—which seems perfectly reasonable.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Because this is such a divisive issue and because so many people feel so strongly about it, it has been decided that instead of Government taking the decision, the people should take the decision. What does it do for the sense of fairness among the people if the big battalions of the civil service seem to be lined up on one side of the argument and spin doctors in Downing Street do botched letters to the press from generals who have not even signed up to them saying that one side of the argument is right and the other side of it is wrong?

[Matthew Hancock]

The debate over how this would operate took place during the passage of the European Union Referendum Bill, which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe took through Parliament. During the passage of that Bill, there was quite a debate, for example, about how purdah should operate, and many concessions were made by the Government in order to ensure that the process is fair. The result of that was an Act that included the requirement for the Government to take a view and then to be able to set out information on various aspects of the referendum, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion because there is a problem whereby some clubs put up prices very rapidly every year, even though so much of the money for football comes through sponsorship, equipment and other sources. I will look carefully at what he says.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The vital debate and vote on the Trident successor submarine should have been held in the last Parliament, but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats. Given the fun that the Prime Minister had a few moments ago at the Labour party’s expense over Trident’s successor, it must be tempting for him to put off the vote until Labour’s conference in October. However, may I urge him to do the statesmanlike thing and hold that vote as soon as possible because everyone is ready for it and everyone is expecting it?

[The Prime Minister]

We should have the vote when we need to have the vote, and that is exactly what we will do. No one should be in any doubt that the Government are going to press ahead with all the decisions that are necessary to replace in full our Trident submarines. I think the Labour party should listen to Lord Hutton, who was Defence Secretary for many years. He says:

“If Labour wants to retain any credibility on defence whatsoever, it had better recognise the abject futility of what it’s leadership is currently proposing”.

I hope that when that vote comes, we will have support from right across the House of Commons.

EU Council

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This referendum is the Government’s policy, and the country will decide whether we stay in the European Union or leave the European Union. What I am doing is giving the country the very best choice there can be—by a vital amendment to the status quo—but in the end it will be Britain’s choice.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Did the Council discuss how free societies with free media should react to terrorist propaganda? The latest Daesh atrocity video seems to feature a well-known British extremist and a brainwashed child. Does the Prime Minister agree that although the broadcast media seem to have handled this material with appropriate restraint, some of the press, in the pictorial coverage, has been playing into the hands of the terrorist propagandists?

[The Prime Minister]

First, on what my right hon. Friend says about what Britain is doing in the EU to counter terrorist propaganda, we have taken the expertise that we have built up here and are sharing that with other European countries as we set up some new organisations. It is very important to win this battle of ideas—in some ways it is a battle of ideas, as we faced in the cold war. I am not sure I go all the way with him on what he said about “either television or newspapers”. As he said, television media have been responsible. I do not think it would be right to have some sort of blanket ban on showing any parts of these videos. Indeed, showing a part of these videos and just how ghastly and brutal this organisation is, for instance in the way it is using children, reminds everybody, not least those who might be tempted by this radical organisation, of just what a sick organisation it is. On the whole, the media have been fairly responsible about this, and I think it is much better to have that form of self-restraint than anything else.

ISIL in Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Hon. Members are being asked to back airstrikes against Daesh in order to show solidarity with our French and American friends, yet a gesture of solidarity, however sincerely meant, cannot be a substitute for hard-headed strategy.

Most Defence Committee members probably intend to vote for such airstrikes, but I shall vote against airstrikes, in the absence of credible ground forces, as ineffective and potentially dangerous, just as I voted against the proposal to bomb Assad in 2013. Indeed, the fact that the British Government wanted to bomb first one side and then the other in the same civil war, and in such a short space of time, illustrates to my mind a vacuum at the heart of our strategy.

At least we are now targeting our deadly Islamist enemies, rather than trying to bring down yet another dictator with the same likely results as in Iraq and Libya. Daesh must indeed be driven out of its territory militarily, but that can be done only by a credible force that is ready and able to do the fighting on the ground. So who will supply that force, without which airstrikes cannot prevail?

The failure of the ineptly named “Arab spring” in so many countries shows the two most likely outcomes: a victory for authoritarian dictatorship on the one hand, or a victory for revolutionary Islamism on the other. Moderation and democracy have barely featured in the countries affected, and Syria seems to be no exception. I am genuinely sorry to say that we face a choice between very nasty authoritarians and Islamist totalitarians; there is no third way.

Our Government, however, are in denial about that. They do concede that airstrikes must be in support of ground forces, and they have come up with a remarkable figure, from the Joint Intelligence Committee, of 70,000 so-called moderate fighters with whom we can supposedly co-ordinate our airstrikes. It is very doubtful, however, were such an alliance to be successful, that the territory freed from Daesh would cease to be under Islamist control.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

Can the right hon. Gentleman comment specifically on the independent reports indicating that the Free Syrian Army is currently selling supplied weapons to Daesh in its own fight against Assad?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

It is certainly true that there have been well documented cases of such weapons ending up in the hands of Daesh, although I would not wish to tar the entire Free Syrian Army with what some of its factions might have done, or in fact have done, as the hon. Lady rightly suggests.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Lewis]

In a moment.

In an attempt to try to establish the facts about the 70,000, I made inquiries of two people whose expert opinion I much admire. One is the writer and journalist Patrick Cockburn, who is one of Britain’s leading commentators on Syria and Iraq and who was one of the first to write about the threat from what was then called ISIS, long before it captured Mosul. This is what he tells me:

“Unfortunately, the belief that there are 70,000 moderate opposition fighters on the ground in Syria is wishful thinking. The armed opposition is dominated by Isis or al-Qaeda type organisations. There are many small and highly fragmented groups of opposition fighters who do not like Assad or Isis and could be described as non-extremist, but they are generally men from a single clan, tribe or village. They are often guns for hire and operate under licence from the al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, or its near equivalent, Ahrar al-Sham. Many of these groups seek to present a moderate face abroad but remain violently sectarian and intolerant inside Syria.”

[Crispin Blunt]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Lewis]

No, I am sorry—I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Mr Cunningham]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a ridiculous situation where on the one hand the Government praise the Kurds, but on the other hand the Government’s ally, Turkey, is attacking the Kurds? How much more ridiculous can you get?

[Dr Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. It is not only ridiculous but highly dangerous. I will insert at this point something I was going to leave out, and say in passing that to have separate conflicts going on within the same battlespace, without reaching a proper agreement, can lead us into all sorts of nasty confrontations—the worst of which would be if we ended up eyeball to eyeball with the Russians when they and we share the same common enemy in ISIL/Daesh.

The second expert I consulted was our former ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, who describes the Free Syrian Army as

“a ragbag of 58 factions (at the last count) united mainly by a desire to use the FSA appellation in order to secure Gulf, Turkish and Western funding…most of the factions, which are extremely locally based, have no interest whatsoever in being drawn into battles against groups which basically share their sectarian agenda hundreds of miles away in areas with which they are unfamiliar.”

So instead of having dodgy dossiers we now have bogus battalions of moderate fighters.

Once Daesh has been driven out, as it must be driven out—if, eventually, we get an overall military strategy together, which adding a few bombing raids does not comprise—there arises the question of the occupying power, because an occupying power will have to remain in control for many years to come if other Islamists are not going to take over from Daesh. That occupying force must be a Muslim one, and only the Syrian Government army is likely to provide it. Indeed, as the Prime Minister himself acknowledged in the Commons,

“in time the best ground troops should be the Syrian army”.—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1501.]

Airstrikes alone are a dangerous diversion and distraction. What is needed is a grand military alliance involving not only the west but Russia and, yes, its Syrian Government clients too. We need—

[Crispin Blunt]

rose—

[Dr Lewis]

We need—[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I honestly think that my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has had more than his fair share in this debate, and I am going to make use of mine.

We need to choose the lesser of two evils and abandon the fiction of a cosy third choice. There is now a general consensus that the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a terrible mistake, but Saddam Hussein was every bit as much of a vicious dictator as we are told that Assad is. So ask yourself this when you are thinking about the hard choice that has to be faced tonight: you may feel pious looking back on the wrong decision that was made about Saddam Hussein, but a very similar decision confronts us tonight. It is a question of choosing the lesser of two evils, not fooling ourselves that there is a cosy third option, which is, in reality, a fantasy.

Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the so-called caliphate. As I tried to set out in my statement, there are the military objectives of trying to break up the terrorist training camps and infrastructure, and the terrorists themselves, but there is a bigger picture, which is that while this so-called caliphate exists, I do not believe we are safe. We should therefore be part of its dismantling.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s question about the characteristics of transition, this is what is being discussed in Vienna, but it should start with ceasefires. It should then proceed to the political work of drawing up what a transitional Government and institutions would look like, and then be followed, probably, by elections and, at some stage, a transition away from the current leadership. As I said in reply to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), this will not be a perfect or scientific process, but to me it is essential, because in the end it is political transition that will help us to complete the final destruction of ISIL—military force cannot do it on its own. I am not coming to this Dispatch Box saying that there is a purely military solution—there is not; there is a political, diplomatic and military solution, and we need to do all of the bits of that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Many hon. and right hon. Members, including me, entirely agree with the Prime Minister that ISIL/Daesh must be crushed militarily in Syria—the crushing will indeed have to be military—but, as he acknowledged at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, airstrikes alone will not be effective; they have got to be in co-ordination with credible ground forces. I have to say that the suggestion that there are 70,000 non-Islamist, moderate, credible ground forces is a revelation to me and, I suspect, to most other Members in this House. Adequate ground forces, in my view, depend on the participation of the Syrian army, so if the dictator Assad refuses to resign, which is the greater danger to our national interest: Syria under him or the continued existence and expansion of ISIL/Daesh? We may have to choose between one and the other.

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for my right hon. Friend, who thinks about these things very carefully. There are a lot of grounds of agreement between us: we agree on the dangers of ISIL; we agree that it needs to be crushed; we agree that that will need the involvement of ground forces; and we also agree that, as I put in my response to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we need an ISIL-first strategy—ISIL is the greater threat to the United Kingdom. I think the only areas of disagreement between us are on a technical point and a slightly more profound but not unbridgeable one. The technical point is that what I have said about 70,000 moderate forces in Syria is not my figure; it is the considered opinion of the Joint Intelligence Committee, a Committee that was set up and given independence to avoid any of the mistakes we had in the past of the potential misuse of intelligence and other information. This is its considered view; that document has been entirely cleared by the Committee, as has my statement.

The other issue we have to come to is that of course my right hon. Friend and I agree that in time the best ground troops should be the Syrian army, but my view is that that will be more likely to happen after a political transition has taken place in Syria. My contention is that the problem of believing it can be done with Assad is that we will never get the ceasefire and we will never get the participation of the Sunni majority in Syria while Assad is still there. I think the area of disagreement between us is narrowing, as is the area of disagreement between Britain, America and France, and the Russians; we all now see the need for there to be both a military and a political solution.

National Security and Defence

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The thinking here is that just as in France it was necessary to surge the number of uniformed personnel on the streets—perhaps to provide a security cordon or keep people safe—so we should get rid of the divide that has existed for many years about the deployment of military personnel on the streets of Britain. The right hon. Lady asks when these people will be trained. The first 5,000 are already able to fulfil that function should it be necessary, and we will get to the figure of 10,000 that I announced. This is not about members of the armed forces supplanting or taking over from the police; it is about them being at the disposal of the police, perhaps to provide a security cordon or a certain amount of safety. In the past we had a rather artificial divide between those two functions, and it is time to get rid of that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Defence Select Committee will be assessing the SDSR against a checklist of the threats and vulnerabilities that were published in our report at the weekend, but I am sure that most Members will find at least some relief in the plugging of gaps such as naval aviation and maritime patrol aircraft, and especially in the emphasis on flexible and versatile armed forces to deal with our inability to predict crises before they are upon us. Will the Prime Minister say a little about press reports concerning the pay of armed forces, and will he indicate when the maingate contracts for the successor to the Trident submarines will be brought before the House for debate and decision?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that members of the Defence Committee have a checklist and will scrutinise that document thoroughly, and I look forward to their conclusions. We are keeping the annual pay upgrade and the increments that our armed forces have. A package has been set out for new joiners, and I am sure the Committee will consider that carefully. My right hon. Friend welcomed the maritime patrol. On the maingate decision, we will be moving ahead with the four submarines and at the appropriate moment we will hold a vote in this House.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We do not believe it is right to take part in the European relocation quota because we think that a better answer for Britain, which is such a major investor in the refugee camps, is to take people directly from the camps. In that way we will not encourage more people to make this perilous journey. By taking a long-term view, and looking at the asylum seekers we have taken and the people we have resettled from around the world, I would say Britain is absolutely fulfilling our moral responsibility, and we absolutely play our part.

In terms of the hon. Gentleman’s question about Iran, of course there is an opportunity for greater dialogue with Iran now that this nuclear deal, which I think is a good deal, has been done, but Britain should enter into that in a cautious and sceptical way. We ought to remember that Iran is still a supporter of terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah, which I know he describes as friends but which I see very much as enemies. We also need to make sure that Iran is playing a positive role in Syria, rather than the role it plays now of propping up the hated Assad regime.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and for North Somerset (Dr Fox) have both raised the possibility of safe havens in Syria itself to stem the flow of refugees at source. If this is to work, it would require a United Nations mandate, which would require the support of Russia. Do the Government recognise that remaining fixated on removing Assad puts a bar on any solution of this sort? Will the Government make up their mind that the main threat to our interest is Daesh? If so, we can then proceed to have a genuinely international coalition and agreement against that main threat.

[The Prime Minister]

I very much respect my right hon. Friend’s views, but on this occasion I do not agree with him on two grounds. I do not think it is right to look at Syria and say that we have to choose between ISIL or Assad. It would be a great mistake to think that because Assad is perhaps the lesser of two evils we should back him. Assad is one of the chief recruiting sergeants for ISIL because of the butchery of his own people. I do not think there is a workable proposal for safe havens as things stand today, but it has been possible in past times to intervene in that way to try to keep people safe. If you were acting to try to alleviate a humanitarian emergency, you could act in that way, but the problem is that safe havens would require a large military intervention, and a large military intervention that I do not currently believe is the right answer.