Lord Pearson of Rannoch debates involving the Leader of the House during the 2019 Parliament

Wed 18th Aug 2021
Mon 3rd Feb 2020

Afghanistan

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts
Wednesday 18th August 2021

(2 years, 7 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Pearson of Rannoch Portrait Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl) [V]
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My Lords, the Taliban exist within Islam and its sharia law—they are Islamists. This brings us up against the problem of how we describe and distinguish between the vast majority of our own Muslims, who are peaceful and a great credit to our society, and their violent co-religionists. We talk about “political Islam”, “radical Muslims” and “Islamists” when we refer to the violent type and about “Muslims” when we refer to our peaceful friends. This confusion is perhaps most on display in the concept of Islamophobia, which is an unhelpful word because it is not phobic to fear the modern world’s most violent ideology, as pursued by the Islamists et cetera.

The evil in human nature is also active today in China’s treatment of the Uighur Muslims and in the Buddhist Burmese treatment of the Rohingya. However, according to thereligionofpeace.com website, in the 30 days before the recent Taliban success there were 182 deadly Islamist attacks in 24 countries, in which 1,084 people were killed, with 1,100 wounded. Since 9/11, there have been 39,849 such attacks worldwide, or roughly four every day. The vast majority of these attacks have been on other Muslims, but by no means all—Charlie Hebdo, the Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Streatham come to mind. In the three years to 2014, more than twice as many British Muslims went to Iraq and Syria to wage Jihad than joined the British Army. Staying at home, the Batley schoolmaster remains in hiding for his life, just because he showed his pupils a picture of Muhammad.

So I submit that it is not phobic to fear Islam, which is responsible for by far the most violence on our planet today. However, if we so much as even try to learn and talk about Islam, we are immediately called Islamophobic by the Muslim Council of Britain, Tell MAMA and other suspect organisations, yet we can say what we like about any of the world’s other religions and nobody turns much of a hair.

However, there is good news, too. The Abraham Accords are holding up, and the Grand Mufti of Egypt has recently issued a fatwa, declaring that the Islamist terrorists are criminals, in which he is supported by over 100 leading muftis worldwide. This is a landmark event. More and more Muslims are coming into the open with interpretations of Koran that put it into a modern context and deny its Islamist interpretation. Some of them are in this country risking a death penalty. The burden of my story today is to ask the Government and our security services to watch over them and so help them to further their purpose. The future of our civilisation may depend on that.

Global Britain

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts
Monday 3rd February 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Portrait Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
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There is no requirement for alignment under the withdrawal agreement, and the political declaration sets out our commitment to discuss open and fair competition as part of negotiations on an ambitious future relationship. As the noble Baroness rightly says, we already start from a place of exceptionally high standards and we intend to maintain our standards in all these areas. In many instances we actually have higher standards than the EU and we do not need a treaty in order to do that. We are absolutely committed—we have made commitments time and again and have said repeatedly that we do not intend to lower our high standards; we intend to lead the world.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Portrait Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-Afl)
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My Lords, the Statement says:

“We will have a new relationship with the EU, as sovereign equals, based on free trade.”


May I repeat an Oral Question I put to the Government last Thursday, 30 January, which I fear they did not understand? It was whether they would

“offer the European Union a new treaty, subject to World Trade Organization jurisdiction, which would continue the United Kingdom’s existing trading arrangements with the European Union”.—[Official Report, 30/1/20; col. 1506.]

What better free trade could we have than that? I suggested then that this offer would be generous to the European Union, if accepted, and would get rid of the Irish border problem, the need for much of Operation Yellowhammer and the endless lengthy trade negotiations which lie ahead. Can the noble Baroness explain why we do not do that?

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Portrait Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
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We have set out our negotiating mandate and what we intend to discuss with the EU in this WMS. That is the basis upon which we will be taking forward our discussions. What the Prime Minister has made very clear is that we are looking to negotiate an FTA like Canada’s, covering goods, services and co-operation in other areas. That is what we have set out, that is the position we will be starting with, and we look forward to engaging with the EU over the coming months in order to make sure that we have an excellent deal for both sides.