King’s Speech

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary not only strengthens the Government, but there has scarcely been a time where it has been more important to have an experienced, strong, recognisable voice at the top tables of world negotiation.

I believe that skilful diplomacy could also have a real part in reducing the threats of war. Putin has callously imposed a monumental military mess on his country, with his botched invasion of Ukraine. However, the Russian diplomacy operation is one to be observed and, to some extent, feared. I can think of three obvious triumphs that they have had: they have managed to alienate the BRICS from the West; they have ensured that there has not been universal opposition to the Ukraine invasion; and they have succeeded, partly with the help of Turkey, in delaying by many months the necessary accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO.

I want to talk about the role of Hamas. I declare my position as co-chair of the APPG for Egypt. The parent and political wing of Hamas, and many other Islamist terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda, is the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in 1928, ironically with a grant of £500 from His Majesty’s Government. Hamas was founded in 1988. When it was founded, it was described in its constitution as the military arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. On 28 January 2011, Hamas infiltrated Egypt, got all the way to Cairo and released many of the political prisoners under the banner of the Arab Spring, which the West initially thought was going to lead to democracy. It was only after the fall of the Morsi Government that Egypt made Hamas call itself Hamas, rather than use the title of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Political Islam, which is the hijacking of the ideology of the noble religion of Islam, is a major threat to world security and peace. That was fully revealed in 2014 with the formation of ISIS from the Iraqi franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood. ISIS took the West by surprise, as did the heinous 7 October Hamas pogrom on Israel, with Hamas clearly anticipating the violence of the Israeli response and the global concern that followed. Political Islam seeks a worldwide caliphate under sharia law: a theocracy without national borders. Thus, like any theocratic state, it is the antithesis of democracy, because it does not provide for a change of government by election. It also defies the basic concept of the United Nations, which was formed to protect the sovereignty of nation states.

It is more than a coincidence that, later that same April, the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for the long-advocated two-state solution broke down. Sadly, the Israeli Government seem to have failed to realise that, after the Hamas attack, it was crucial to minimise activities in the West Bank against the Palestinians. Given the increasing voting power of Jewish fundamentalists and the West Bank settlers, it is hard to envisage Israel reversing policy, never mind withdrawing from the West Bank. Yet I believe that the price that Israel must pay for both victory in the Gaza war and subsequent peace is the two-state solution.