European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that Britain is a magnet for inward investment. In fact, we are getting 50% more inward investment than either France or Germany, the next two biggest recipients of such investment. The interesting point is that, since I made my Bloomberg speech and that referendum commitment, there has been no sign of change in the inward investment from countries in the rest of the world coming into the United Kingdom, because they know that it is right to hold that renegotiation and that referendum.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

We can all wish for a political solution and a national unity Government in Libya, but the reality is that it is not happening and an al-Qaeda or ISIL-linked state is being established on parts of the coast, which is a serious threat to our country and the rest of Europe. What are we going to do about the situation in Libya, rather than just wishing for a change?

[The Prime Minister]

It is not a question of simply wishing for a change; we are working with our allies to help to bring one about. The aim so far has been to produce a national unity Government by bringing together the different parties that there are in Libya. We have not taken the approach that some in the region have taken of trying to pick sides and creating conflict between the various parties. I accept, however, that as we see the growth of ISIL in Libya, we are going to have to challenge all those who could take part in a national unity Government to oppose ISIL and any formation it is able to achieve in Libya. That will be an important part of the stability that we seek not just for the sake of the Libyan people, but for that of our own.

Murder of Lee Rigby

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are some worrying instances in the report. Some delay is inevitable, because, as I have explained, when a huge range of cases is being covered, from the highest-priority cases to those that are given a less high priority, and more high-priority cases suddenly arise, people have to be removed from something, and that sometimes results in delays. However, I think the report shows that there are sometimes delays that are over and above what is normal in such cases, and that is clearly not acceptable.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that we are facing a struggle with an ideology—the ideology of violent Islamist jihadism, which, although it is only a small minority ideology in the Muslim community, is linked to the phenomenon of the self-starting terrorist? Does he agree that we need not just our state institutions but the whole of our society to challenge, confront and defeat that ideology?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman has said. I think we sometimes make the mistake of looking at a particular area of the world and thinking that that is where the problem is coming from when the problem is actually extremism itself, which manifests itself in the parts of the world with the greatest amount of civil war and trouble and so forth. The problem is the extremist ideology, and, as the hon. Gentleman has said, we do not defeat that just by military means. We defeat it by ensuring that we drive it out of universities, colleges, prisons, schools, community centres where appropriate, and mosques, because some of them have been taken over by extremists on occasion. That is why this public duty, and the funds that we are providing, are so important.

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am not quite as gloomy as my hon. Friend, and I think there have been occasions such as when we got out of the bail-out schemes, when we cut the European budget, and when we vetoed a treaty, where Britain taking a very firm stance has sent Europe in a different direction.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to recognise the important contribution to the European Union agreement of this country’s Climate Change Act 2008, which was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition and supported subsequently by this Government? Will he also take this opportunity to tell his Back Benchers that we would not have got the European Union agreement covering 28 countries if we had continued only to have national policies, and that therefore our membership of the EU is vital for our continent’s future?

Recall of MPs Bill

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I am going to answer the hon. Lady’s point if she is patient.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the electorate, the hon. Member for Richmond Park said it is necessary to have 51% of the electorate. No, it is not. In Colorado the recall election had a turnout of 36%, and under what is being proposed by the hon. Gentleman and his supporters it is only necessary to have 51% of the turnout. A small number of people might turn out, and a huge swathe of people in a constituency who might have strong views on other issues but not the issue in question might not be mobilised and might not vote. So to the idea that somehow this would be democratic, I say there could be a situation where there was a 60%, 65% or 70% turnout at a general election, and then a much lower turnout for a recall election—as low as 10% if police and crime commissioner elections are anything to go by—could determine the future of that Member of Parliament. It would take a very strong individual then to stand up before the electorate after the damage done in that process, because we all know what would happen with that individual.

The idea that somehow large numbers of people would give power to the mass of people is therefore complete nonsense. In the United States this gives power to large numbers of small groups of well-organised individuals. People should google the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council—which is actually the libertarian wing of the Tea party and is where this proposal is coming from. I think this is very dangerous for progressive politics both in the United States and this country.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that I received an e-mail a few days ago from the British equivalent of the Tea party: the front organisation of the right wing of the Conservative party, the TaxPayers Alliance, which is supporting these proposals?

[Mr Jones]

That does not surprise me.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park has not even thought about finance and spending limits for recall, or about the work that would be done to undermine someone in the lead-up to it.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The immediate decision before us in this debate is about military action, but behind that, this is about values. This is not a war against Islam. Islam is one of the great world religions, which is practised freely, without any harm to anyone, by millions of people in this country and around the world. This is not about Islam, but about co-existence.

Co-existence is absolutely fundamental to our society—the ability to elect Governments who are freely chosen by the people, equality of rights between men and women, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are fundamental—but ISIS rejects every tenet of it. That is why ISIS kills, with impunity, fellow Muslims, Christians and Yazidis; engages in sexual exploitation of, and the trade in, women; and cares nothing for anyone who does not sign up to its single truth. This is not about Islam, but about co-existence.

The shadow of past decisions—particularly the 2003 decision to invade Iraq—is a long one in debates such as this one. That is because there is a live debate about the degree to which we are responsible for creating or fomenting violent jihadism. It is important to be clear about that. I accept that past decisions have angered jihadists and perhaps encouraged some people to join them, but it is a fundamental mistake to think that we are responsible for violent jihadism. Let us not forget that the bombing of the World Trade Centre on 11 September took place two years before the invasion of Iraq. Syria, until recent days, has been a byword for non-intervention by the west; yet it is now the headquarters of the global jihad.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not also the case that there was a plot against the World Trade Centre in the 1990s, that the bombing of USS Cole was in 1998 and that al-Qaeda carried out plots and activities of a similar kind well before the intervention in Iraq?

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is worth stressing that the United States Administration’s policy for the past five or six years has been absolutely to resist intervention, but we still have violent Islamic jihadism and ISIS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I support military intervention by the United Kingdom in Iraq and will vote in favour of the motion. The situation is extremely troubling. The refusal of the west to recognise in a meaningful way the moderate elements in the opposition to Assad in Syria, coupled with the organisational ability and fanaticism of IS, gave IS the space to grow. Some outside support, wealth accumulated by smuggling, oil and kidnapping, and, perhaps, as rumours suggest, handouts from Gulf states, only increased its attractiveness to jihadists around the world.

Given the ideology of IS, it was inevitable that it would spread into the troubled western area of Iraq. The speed of its advance in June may have come as a shock, but we should not be surprised that it has flourished and grown. What may have been surprising was its ability to make common cause with various groups and organisations in Iraq that share little of its ideology, particularly the remnants of the Ba’athists and some tribes. However, it quickly became clear that others would be allowed to operate only as long as they followed IS. There are a number of well-founded stories of tribal groups suffering massacres of their young men after trying to argue or change course.

IS has released many self-glorifying videos that show the treatment of captured Iraqi soldiers, with lines of men being marched into the desert and shot, or knifed on the banks of rivers. Videos have been released of Sunni imams being killed because they would not turn over their mosques to IS. Minority groups such as the Yazidis and Christians have been persecuted, and hundreds of women have been taken away to who knows where. Vian Dakhil, Iraq’s only Yazidi MP and someone I know well, pleaded for the Iraqi Parliament to act as the Yazidi people fled the terror. Vian herself was injured in a helicopter crash as she tried to help her people. Although many have been rescued, they have lost their homes and their security. Untold numbers of people have perished and lie on the mountains or in the desert.

I remain deeply troubled by the way in which the international community has stood on the sidelines. The United Nations doctrine of responsibility to protect has counted for little during the past few months in western and northern Iraq. The only people to help were the Kurds from the Kurdistan region of Iraq and from the north-east of Syria. I am the co-chair of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, and I have had the opportunity to visit several times. I have seen the region develop into a thriving open society with a growing economy. That successful, semi-autonomous region is under attack from IS, and it is being defended by the dedicated and brave peshmerga.

[Mike Gapes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the British Government should have given support to the Kurdistan Regional Government much earlier than they did? Does she agree that the fact that we provided arms directly only after other countries, such as Germany, had done so showed that we were behind the curve and should have acted much sooner?

[Meg Munn]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that subject. Kurdistan has opened its heart and arms to the many refugees who have fled to its territory. Many of them have fled from fighting and car bombs in different parts of Iraq and, in the past three years, many have fled from the conflict in Syria. During the past two months, the number of refugees has increased dramatically as Sunni, Shi’a, Yazidis and Christians have fled from IS. The unstinting support and protection given to the refugees is a credit to the Kurdish people.

It makes little sense to consider the serious situation in Iraq without considering Syria. Of course, it is right to respond to the request of the Iraqi Government and provide them with assistance, but to imagine that IS will recognise a border on a map is simply wrong. When Parliament was recalled on 29 August last year, the estimate of the dead in Syria was approximately 100,000. Of those who were against intervention because it would make things worse, I asked whether there were any signs that things would improve. We know that the stark answer to that question has been no. We failed to intervene, and the number of dead stands at more than 200,000. I support the UK’s being part of the military coalition in Iraq. I welcome the Prime Minister’s words on Syria, but I urge the Government to keep an open mind on possible further action in Syria. Only by recognising that the situations of the two countries are entangled and finding ways to deal with both will we have a chance of removing IS from the equation altogether.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although its origins lie in Islamist jihadist groups in Iraq and elsewhere, ISIL is not an Islamic organisation; nor is it a state. I think that our media should stop referring to it by using its self-description, and I am glad that the motion does not use those words.

I want to make two points in the limited time that is available to me. This criminal caliphate cult—for that is what it is—is a threat to all the communities in the region, and, because of the 15,000 foreign fighters who have been attracted to it, including 3,000 European Union citizens, it is a threat to us. I have a large number of Muslim constituents, and—I cannot go any further than this—there are people in my borough who have been arrested, detained or imprisoned for terrorist offences. It is vital that we do not take action that gives the narrative that we are against Islam; we are not. We are fighting to defend Islam and Muslims in the middle east region and also in this country. The worst crimes of this brutal terrorist organisation are being carried out against Islamic women.

Finally, on the Kurds, I am pleased that the British Government are now giving the support that they should have given earlier to the Kurdistan Regional Government, and that we are seen by the Kurds as a friend.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the plight of the Kurds. Does he also agree that they need not just military assistance, but humanitarian assistance? There are hundreds of thousands of them fleeing both Syria and Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

[Mike Gapes]

I went to the KRG last year. I visited the area of Dohuk and the Domiz refugee camp. At that time, there were about 150,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees, half of whom were living with families in the city of Dohuk, and the other half in a well-organised refugee camp. Now, there are many more. There were 250,000 Syrian Kurds who fled last year. Now it is estimated that the KRG, which has a population of about 4.5 million people, has taken in 1.4 million refugees or displaced people from the rest of Iraq. Similar stories apply in other countries in the region. The Kurds have taken in Christians, Yazidis, Sunnis and Shi’as. They have not discriminated; they care about humanity. This is a functioning democratic society that needs our support, investment and humanitarian assistance. Above all, the brave but lightly armed peshmerga who have put themselves on the line need far more equipment and training.

A few weeks ago, the capital city of the KRG, Irbil, was potentially going to be swept aside. The Americans and others were thinking about evacuating personnel. It was only because of the peshmerga’s bravery that the KRG was kept safe. It is vital that ISIL is driven back, defeated and ultimately eliminated. The ideology it represents has to be challenged not just by us but by those from within the Muslim world—the imams, the various mosques, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere.

NATO Summit

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hear what my hon. Friend says, but I would say that the convention that has grown up is that if a premeditated decision is made by the Government about action to be undertaken—whether the war in Iraq, or my view that it was right to consider action in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria—it is right to consult and, if possible, to have a vote in the House of Commons. I do not think that we need to write that down in some book of rules for it to be the overwhelming convention. But as I have said, there are times where very rapid decisions have to be taken, and I think that the House of Commons understands that when that happens, as was the case with Libya, you make the decision and come straight to the House to explain yourself afterwards.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Prime Minister clarify the position as regards arming the Kurds? He said in his statement that

“we will continue to support the Kurds, including by providing them with arms”.

I took that “we” to mean NATO, because he was referring to the alliance. Yet he has just said in an answer both that we are supplying them with weaponry from other countries and—I think this is what he said—that we might arm them directly. Is he now saying that we will arm the Kurds, which I would welcome, and what weaponry will we give them?

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think we should listen very carefully to our Kurdish friends and allies, because they are in the front line against this ISIL monster. The action that they have taken has been effective and brave, and we support the air strikes that the Americans have undertaken. So far, our action has been about supplying them with weapons, support, non-lethal equipment, body armour and suchlike, and as I have said, we are prepared to go further.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister talked about learning the lessons of history. A previous Conservative Prime Minister, 23 years ago, was prepared to use British air power in a military exercise to save the Kurds. Why should we just leave it to the United States, particularly when the Kurdistan regional government have called for the whole of NATO to express solidarity and provide weaponry to them and air power to fight this genocidal caliphate?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As I have said, the question we should be asking ourselves in this House—I am interested in the reactions of colleagues today—is what we can best do to help those on the ground who are doing the vital work in combating ISIL. Up to now our approach has been some military support, some support through intelligence and weaponry and some support through humanitarian aid, but we should continually ask ourselves how we can assist them in a way that also helps to keep us safe back here in the UK.

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not have a candidate for the job, because as a political party leader I think it is wrong to elect the head of the Commission in this way—that is the whole problem. I have to say that the position Labour would have been in if Martin Schulz had ended up as the Commission President would have been even more embarrassing for you.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that a British exit from the European Union would be an economic disaster for this country, damaging our trade and employment, and reducing British influence in Europe and the world?

G7

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am certainly doing everything I can to make a series of points, including that we need reform in Europe, which means a particular programme of reform, and people who are capable of carrying it out. I also keep coming back to an important point of principle: if Britain were to give way on this issue and say that we accepted it, we would effectively be saying that we accepted a change to the whole way in which Europe worked for ever into the future. I sometimes find it frustrating that many other European leaders agree with me completely about the need for reform and for people who can carry it through; we need to make sure that everybody works together to get the right outcome, but I am absolutely clear that this is a point of principle and one on which we should not budge.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister referred to Syria. Was there any discussion with the other leaders about the terrorist threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both in Syria and in Iraq? This morning, there were reports of the imminent capture of the main oilfield, as well as of the events in Mosul. Does not that prove that the John Major and Labour Governments were right to give support to the Kurds to establish their autonomy and the protection and stability that exists in at least one part of Iraq at this time?

[The Prime Minister]

First, there was a discussion about the current state of Syria and there was also, as I have said, a discussion, including my bilateral with President Obama, about the specific ISIL threat in Syria and Iraq. The threat is being played out in terms of terrorist kidnap and terrorist training. British people are going to Syria and being trained, with the risk that they will come back here or to other parts of Europe and carry out terrorist offences, so it is one of the most serious security challenges that we face.

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the Kurds, but I also agree that there is no option for an international-facing, open-trading nation such as Britain to turn away from the world and say we will not have anything to do with these problems because they are all too difficult or complicated. Those problems will come back and bite us unless we act with allies not only to make ourselves secure here at home, but to try to help to deliver security there as well.

European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The deep country knowledge that resides in our Foreign Office and diplomatic service is an immense asset for the Untied Kingdom. As Prime Minister, I see that all the time, particularly when dealing with some of the countries mentioned by hon. Friend that suddenly have a significance far beyond what they previously had. That is why we are opening embassies and investing in the language school and why the Foreign Office is a very important part of our soft power.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

NATO is based on extended deterrence. Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and huge conventional forces. What discussions has the Prime Minister had with the United States and countries such as Poland and the Baltic states about reconsidering some of the approaches to ensure enhanced security for those countries that border Russia?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary is in the United States at the moment discussing exactly those sorts of issues. As I have said, I think the most important thing is to reaffirm our NATO commitments, reassure our NATO allies and make sure that we are providing things such as aircraft to help with air patrols, so that the Russians can see that, on Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, they are not just dealing with national forces, but international forces that are part of NATO. I do not agree with the suggestion that sending more troops to be stationed in Germany would somehow make an important statement. I think that the most important thing is the reassurance of NATO allies and a very clear message to Russia about the consequences of further action.