Middle East (IRC Report)

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests and to the more than 20 visits over the past year or so that I have made to the region. The title of this debate and the report call for a time of new realism. The speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Stone, suggests that we also should not totally lose sight of idealism, but it is very hard, given the fact that the first three and a half minutes of the chairman’s speech were taken up simply listing the atrocities, conflicts and tensions that exist within the region.

Over the weekend, I was in my home area in the Scottish Borders and there was a festival at Galashiels Braw Lads that marked ceremonies that took place on the Tweed in 1503 on the marriage between the English and Scottish royal families. The war between the two countries continued and peace was fragile for centuries still.

Modern Arab history started with the Ottoman conquests in 1516-17. Regions have long folk memories—and conflict-afflicted areas have significantly long folk memories. From the end of the Ottoman conquests to the end of the First World War, when western powers staked claims, then to the Cold War and the growth of Arab nationalism and Baathism, and now more recently a region convulsed by intrareligious tension and desires for liberties from the rule of hierarchical and closed systems of powers, we are seeing a major instability, as the committee report states and as the chairman so ably outlined. The birth of modern Arab history also saw the end of rule by themselves for four centuries. The global power bases of Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo were replaced by Istanbul, then London and Paris. The fall of the Ottoman empire a century ago heralded a century of flux, and on the anniversary of that we are now facing a century to come where we have few answers and, in many respects, few hopes.

We are perhaps in the first decade of a new period of the regional history. The failure in many respects of the nation state and the removal of a regional order is to be replaced by the birth of a technological century focused on young people—but young people with fewer opportunities ahead of them than previous generations, with record levels of unemployment and the ability for technology to spread fake news and extreme ideology as well as the positive elements of their own societies.

We have to take stock and it is right that we debate what role Britain can play in the century to come. We cannot wipe clean our history within the region, nor should we be restricted by it. I commend the committee staff and our policy adviser for helping us consider the areas we should be focusing on in the next century.

We start from considerable UK interests in the region. As the chairman said, our annual trade with the GCC states is worth a hefty £38 billion; British Armed Forces are involved in both Syria and Iraq as part of the coalition against the hideous Daesh; and humanitarian assistance from the UK is second only to the US, with over £2.3 billion committed. It is saving lives every day of every week and we should be proud of it. Our staff in the region are doing sterling work. NGOs from the United Kingdom are also doing fantastic work. As Boris Johnson alone says—he likes to be quoted in regard to our relationship with Qatar—they own the Shard, the Olympic Village, Harrods and Chelsea Barracks, and London City Hall is owned by Kuwaitis. The list goes on and shows the depth of our relationship, not only in military and diplomatic but also in economic ties. However, I detect that there is a greater enthusiasm from the Government to highlight the economics and the trade rather than a wider interest in the political and social relationships within the region, and that that is likely to be the focus as we enter a new post-Brexit scenario.

Given the breadth and complexity of the current position, we could dedicate days of debates on each of the different individual issues—on Syria, on the Israel-Palestine question, on Iraq and the future of that country, on security in the eastern MENA and Maghreb region, on the Gulf tensions and the relationship between Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, not to mention the incoherence of US policy and the aggression of Russia. All these issues warrant deep and careful consideration, so inevitably we must limit ourselves in this short debate to observing a number of issues and making recommendations.

I have some sympathy with the Government’s response to the committee. They argue that because there is so much complexity there is no one single solution nor one single approach. I welcome the Government’s response that we now have a one Whitehall approach on the Middle East, as they put it. I cannot speak for other members of the committee, only for myself, but I was not able to witness that within the evidence the Government presented to the committee. I hope that at least, if nothing else, we have stimulated some focused thinking within Whitehall.

The Government cite regularly our P5 status in the Security Council, our unique history in the region, our EU membership, up until now, and our very close ties with the United States. But with this comes responsibility. I hope the Government are taking seriously the observation from the committee that the UK has had an inconsistent approach and lacks vision, because it was meant with great sincerity. I agree with the consensus of the committee in its recommendation that the role we wish to play in the region needs fresh, forward-looking thinking—one that should focus almost relentlessly on the next generation of young people, in addition to their relationships with their nation states. We can at least enhance the next generation’s view of us and what we represent as a country, our values and interests. The problems are complex and multifaceted, but as Chris Doyle of CAABU put it:

“British Middle East policy has never been consistent or even ethical. And that is almost certainly an unrealistic goal, but it should aspire to narrow the gap between perceived interests and its proclaimed values, though it has to be clearer what both are in the first place”.


In a much-lauded speech in December last year on the UK being back east of Suez, the Foreign Secretary said that,

“any crisis in the Gulf is a crisis for Britain—from day one; that your security is our security and that we recognise the wisdom of those who campaigned for a policy of engagement east of Suez—that your interests military, economic, political—are intertwined with our own”.

If we are back east of Suez, the test most surely would have been in the current tension within the GCC, but where has the UK been on this to seek a resolution? With inconsistency from the US, which the chairman alluded to, and inaction from the State Department we simply must draw the conclusion that the Foreign Secretary’s speech was, if not irrelevant, certainly a considerable overstatement. I suggest that there is scope for a London conference, where we would use our pretty considerable relationships in the region to seek not only a temporary solution but a deep solution addressing deep and complex relationships between the two.

On Syria, we detected inconsistency. That was highlighted simply in the Foreign Secretary’s session with us: at the beginning of the session, he had a policy, but it had altered by the end. The Government’s response to the committee adds a little more clarification, but not wholesale. On Syria-Palestine, our recommendations are clear, and I hope that the Government will give an equally clear recommendation.

In my final moments I wish to address the humanitarian crisis that is afflicting the region. We have migration in the region, perhaps even more than during the Lachish campaign 3,000 years ago—it is an unprecedented historical crisis. In last week’s Queen’s Speech debate, I asked the Government whether the international community was meeting its objectives for raising the funds. Last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, stated that £12 billion had been raised in one day; the largest amount ever for a humanitarian crisis. Last week, the Minister told me there was £8 billion and only £6 billion has been allotted. I hope he can provide clarification.

The committee report deserves cold, realistic reflection. I hope that this debate will be the start of that and that the Government will continue to give it due consideration.