King’s Speech

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in the Minister of State’s position. I have long admired his robust style and over the last few years I have often said to myself, “What a good Tory speech that was. I wish we’d said that”. I suspect that has killed off both our chances of further promotion.

In the late 1970s I exercised in Germany as a volunteer soldier in the magnificent 51st (Highland) Division, waiting for the Soviets to invade. That never happened because, thanks to Ronnie Reagan and Margaret Thatcher bringing in cruise missiles and then negotiating disarmament from a position of strength, they brought down the wall and destroyed the Soviet Union.

We thought things were dangerous then but, in my 55 years involved in politics, this is the most dangerous time I ever recall. Back then we had mutually assured destruction and neither side wanted to press the nuclear button, but can we say the same thing now with the mad Islamists running around? Would they think it worth while to nuke Israel even if their half their country was destroyed in retaliation? I simply do not know. Or take Kim Jong-un in North Korea: we have ignored him since he is 5,500 miles away but, now that he along with Iran is supplying weapons to Putin, he is aiding and abetting genocide and war in our own back yard.

Of course, the threat from China is far greater than from Russia. The Chinese do not intend a war with the West because they think we will surrender before then. They aim to defeat us in three ways: first, with military superiority so the US will not dare to get into a long and bloody war with them; secondly, they expect to destroy us economically, so we in the West must reduce our serious dependency on Chinese goods, especially products essential to our survival; and, thirdly, they are destroying us politically. Our universities have prostrated themselves at the feet of Chinese money, letting the PRC intimidate Chinese students here, and they have taken over a host of United Nations and other international organisations. When we add together military, economic and political superiority, we can say that China poses the greatest threat to our western liberal and democratic order that the world has ever seen.

The last of the countries in this dangerous quartet is Russia. Ukraine is fighting a war against Russia that we in the rest of Europe no longer have to fight. It is therefore vital that Russia is defeated, because if Russia wins or gets some fake, stalemate peace, Moldova will be next, followed by the Baltic states.

The war against Ukraine started in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and we in the West did absolutely nothing about it. There were vacuous noises from Obama, Germany bought even more gas and Putin got a green light for further aggression. Now we are hard pushed to give Ukraine all the weapons it needs for victory—but it could have been worse. In 2016 only five NATO countries out of 31 spent 2% on more on defence, with eight of them spending under 1%, including the wealthiest countries in Europe. Then in 2016 President Trump called NATO “obsolete” and asked why America should pay to defend us. Like it or not, he was right. His comments rightly scared most NATO countries, so last year 23 paid more than 2%, but eight were still down at 1%. Now Trump has said that it is not America’s job to defend Europe from Russia—and I am afraid he is right again. However, only the USA can save Europe from Russia, and we need to beg him to change his mind to get continued US support until Europe is in a position to defend itself—if he is elected.

I have only one question for the Minister, and this was touched on earlier at Questions. Russia is firing missiles from inside Russia that kill civilians and destroy infrastructure in Ukraine, but we permit Ukraine to fire back only missiles that do not hit Russian missile sites but destroy more of Ukraine’s own infrastructure. Why in the name of God are we tying our hands like that? If it is the case that the last Government also had the same policy, it was equally silly and lily-livered. Let the Ukrainians destroy Russian sites with whatever missiles we give them.

I am worried about the situation in the United States. The extreme-left media there—like the New York Times and CNN—have all conspired with the Democrats over the last four years to cover up Biden’s mental decline. So long as Biden was ahead in the polls, they all pretended that he was fully compos mentis. Now we will have six more months of a President who we are told is awake only between 10 in the morning and four in the afternoon, and that is not good for the peace of the world.

On the Middle East, I stand four-square behind Israel in its attempt to eradicate the evil Hamas terrorist organisation. I deplore those who were marching in our streets on 8 October, one day after the attack, celebrating the massacre of Israelis and calling for an intifada revolution. That was a full three weeks before Israel launched its ground assault. My only question for the Minister is this: I understand that the Foreign Secretary is calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages. I worry, perhaps wrongly, about the order of that. Will he confirm today that it is Labour Party policy that we get the release of the hostages and then an immediate ceasefire? That is my view, and I hope it is the Government’s view too.

Red Sea Update

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord is talking about a sort of sea-change in the level of activity. I certainly do not think that the Government believe that we have got to that position yet. As far as the historical aspect is concerned, far be it from me to take a view as to what was and what was not the right thing to do at the time. I cannot imagine that anybody thought that it would be a good idea to end up where we are, with Yemen being effectively split and some of the most needy people, certainly in the area and probably in the world, put under the pressure they are by this terrorist organisation.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his comments and contributions tonight. First, in 2001, the British Government proscribed an organisation called the Islamic Army of Aden, which was probably responsible for the attack on the “USS Cole”. That is now largely a busted flush as an organisation, and trivial in comparison with the Houthis. Will my noble friend please urge the Arabists in the Foreign Office to proscribe the Houthis as the evil terrorist organisation they are?

Secondly, we are spending millions on missiles, taking out individual missile and drone sites, which are easily restored. Will we now try to cut off the head of the snake, take out the command and control and the headquarters, hitting the senior leadership?

Thirdly and finally, could the Government please find the money to buy—or beg, borrow or steal—some F35s to put in those two big empty boats, whichever one happens to be working this week?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I shall certainly take away the points that he makes. Precision-driven strikes to disrupt and deter is one thing. To move to something more sustained is a decision that would have to be taken by the allies as a whole.

Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is impossible to deliver a balanced discourse on this important subject in two minutes, so let me get off my chest what I believe are some grave injustices which are making a mockery of treating our former soldiers with fairness and respect. Take the case of a former soldier who fired at an armed terrorist,

“whilst bullets rained down in all directions”.

He either fired or waited until the IRA terrorist had killed the other soldiers on guard duty. That soldier received a “certificate of appreciation” from the GOC Northern Ireland—but now he has been questioned about committing possible murder in that attack, which happened in 1972. The soldier is aged 75 and is a Chelsea Pensioner. What in the name of God has happened to decency, justice, fairness and common sense when we are interrogating Chelsea Pensioners for doing their duty to this country?

But it gets worse; two former soldiers are being prosecuted for the alleged murder of IRA killer and terrorist Joe McCann. The soldiers were investigated at the time and were rightly cleared. Will they get a fair trial? Of course not. Of the three soldiers who opened fire that day, one has since died and two RUC officers who may also have fired cannot be found. There are no forensics linking the shots to any particular soldier, so no one knows who actually fired the shots—but that does not matter to the Northern Ireland prosecution service. The Northern Ireland prosecution service is headed by Barra McGrory, the former lawyer of McGuinness and Gerry Adams. You could not make this up if you thought about it.

As the former soldier said, he feels that he is being treated like a terrorist. But of course, he is totally wrong in that regard. If he had been an IRA terrorist, he would have been granted immunity by Tony Blair in one of the grubbiest deals that has ever been done by a UK leader. No wonder that soldier says that he feels betrayed by the Government, with all IRA killers granted immunity and more than 1,000 soldiers being investigated for possible crimes against them. He says, “I’d like a Minister to stand up in Parliament and say something”. I know that my noble friend is not permitted to do that and that it is not his department’s responsibility. That is why I am making this little speech tonight. I am ashamed of what is being done to those brave men who have served us so well. The time has come to stop this betrayal of our soldiers, and to stop it now.