Syria and Iraq: ISIS

Lord Singh of Wimbledon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. The UK is leading international efforts to counter Daesh’s poisonous ideology. Our work with the internet industry, for example, has helped to stop the proliferation of Daesh propaganda. We announced at the UN General Assembly in September that the UK would host a new coalition communications cell. That cell helps countries that have previously lacked the means or knowledge necessary to deliver effective communication interventions against Daesh to do so. It is already helping to drive the coalition strategic communications to counter Daesh’s extremism and ensure, essentially, that no media space is left uncontested.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we cannot destroy a negative ideology based on a harsh interpretation of medieval Islam by bombs and bullets alone? Is the Minister aware that the Muslim community and Muslim leaders have condemned Daesh, and will the Government work with them to ensure that their message of condemnation is carried to every mosque in the country—preferably in English, which is the language young Muslims best understand?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, this is a central theme of the Government’s counterextremism strategy, about which I spoke in last week’s debate. I fully agree with the noble Lord that to disrupt and defeat Daesh and its ideology requires more than just military action. It requires the disruption of its ideology in the ways that I described, and discrediting it across the world in the way the noble Lord indicated.