Queen’s Speech

Lord Williams of Baglan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Baglan (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate on the gracious Speech. I make no apologies that most of my remarks deal with the Middle East, an area I know well and where I served the United Nations for several years. It is my belief that security in the region from the Maghreb to the Gulf is deteriorating and many of the threats to this country emanate from that region—as other noble Lords suggested.

Three days ago, Pope Francis, in an extraordinary gesture on Sunday, invited the Israeli President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas to Rome, where they participated in prayers in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths. It was a bold gesture but also a poignant one. It was, after all, more than 20 years ago in 1994 that these two men—90 year-old Shimon Peres and 80 year-old Mahmoud Abbas—contributed so much to peace in the region by signing the Oslo peace accords that led to the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. It was poignant, too, because President Peres will shortly step down as head of state, to be replaced by Reuven Rivlin, who has espoused the concept of a greater Israel. On the Palestinian side, President Abbas is now ageing and his successor—whoever that might be—will find it much more difficult to make peace with Israel.

A year is a long time in politics and it is worth reflecting where we were this time last year. Then in the debate on the gracious Speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, referred to “a critical year” ahead for the peace process between Israel and Palestine and also mentioned,

“the first ever democratic presidential election in Egypt”,—[Official Report, 15/5/13; col. 404.]

when President Morsi was elected. Some 12 months on, I am afraid there is little optimism to show for that. Once again, progress on an Israeli/Palestinian peace process has eluded us and is for the foreseeable future halted with seemingly little pressure from the quartet of the United States, EU, Russia and UN. The quartet was established 12 years ago precisely to advance that process. Tony Blair is now in his seventh year in his appointment as envoy of the quartet. A few more years and he will match his tenure in office as Prime Minister. He said in his speech last month that economics goes side by side with politics. On that he is clearly right. But, frankly, progress on either has been meagre. How could that be otherwise when one party—Israel—is a powerful nation state that controls nearly all the borders of Palestine and occupies most of the territory while continuing to build settlements?

As for Egypt, the first ever democratic election—mentioned last year in our debate—ended in a putsch leading to the trial and imprisonment of President Morsi. I have no truck with the Ikhwan—the Muslim Brotherhood—but point out that Morsi’s successor was elected on a smaller turnout of 47% even though the concept of polling day was elastic and was extended not once or twice but thrice and with all sorts of incentives offered to prospective voters. I gently remind the House that President Morsi remains the only elected President of Egypt who is a civilian in the 62-year history of the Arab Republic of Egypt. All the others have been generals or, in the latest case, a field marshal. What is our policy now? Do we still believe in peace between Israel and an independent Palestine? What are our hopes for a democratic Egypt? The Minister should answer these questions.

For all the difficulties in Palestine and Egypt, the heart of the storm remains the conflict in Syria. I take this opportunity to praise the efforts of my former UN colleague, Lakhdar Brahimi, who worked tirelessly as the envoy of the UN and chaired the Geneva peace process. The immediate prospects for Syria are grim, and dire for resuming that process. In the short run we must do more to expand the UN’s humanitarian endeavours and to reach refugees wherever they are. There is no doubt in my mind that more can be done here.

In that regard, the limited truce achieved recently in the city of Homs could perhaps be followed by others. There are reports of a similar initiative in the second city of Aleppo, perhaps aided by the apparent resumption of back channels between Iran and Turkey. In the absence of a global peace, the pursuit of local humanitarian measures, as we saw many times in the Bosnian war of 1992-95, may be all we can achieve in the coming months.

In neighbouring Iraq, the sudden military attack on Mosul yesterday and on Tikrit today underlines the increasing dangers of the Syrian war encompassing neighbouring countries. We need to do far more to help, with allies, the neighbouring states of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

I shall finish by pointing out that we have heard much today of Russia—a key country in any settlement of the Syrian conflict and without which it will be impossible to make progress—but little of China, a country far less democratic than Russia, which today published a White Paper on Hong Kong, asserting its rights as a unitary state to establish comprehensive jurisdiction over all local administrations including Hong Kong. It seems clear that the Communist Party in Beijing is increasingly intent on thwarting moves towards universal suffrage in Hong Kong in the coming years and our Government must give close attention to this issue.