Situation in the Red Sea

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

While much of this debate will rightly focus on the rationale, execution and objectives of the recent airstrikes against Houthi rebel military infrastructure, I want to begin with some comments on who the Houthis really are. I have been deeply disturbed by comments in our national conversation painting them somehow as a progressive movement, as freedom fighters or as some legitimate representative body of the Yemeni people. That is so disturbing not only because people are not taking the time to educate themselves, but because the Houthis do not deny who they are. It is out there for all to see. Their rallying cry and flag are quite explicit:

“Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse upon the Jews”.

These are the words that this group puts on their flag. That is their rallying cry, and every action the Houthis take is with that in mind, with hatred in their hearts. Yet we see people, often well-meaning people—it is concerning that even people in this House have made such suggestions—suggest that Yemen has freedom fighters on its shores, and that somehow because Yemen, they claim, was a British colony, the Houthis should be seen as anti-colonial freedom fighters. Unlike southern Yemen, North Yemen was never a British colony. After the collapse of the Ottoman empire, North Yemen was ruled by the Imamate, a theocratic polity led by the religious leader of the Zaydi Shia.

The Houthis offer no vision for Yemen’s future. They seek a return to the past, free from ideals such as equality, women’s rights and democracy. What inspiration they draw from the modern world comes from the Ayatollah and the Islamic revolutionary movement of Iran. We can trace their violent rise to what was initially a moment of hope for Yemen. We all remember the Arab spring back in 2011, when Yemenis rose up together and toppled the dictatorship. Employing the Ayatollah’s handbook, the Houthis initially pledged themselves to co-operation and building a new Yemen, sending delegates to the national dialogue conference and building a deliberate façade, when they were actually working to reject the future that young Yemenis dreamed of. Armed by Iran, the Houthis blocked the 2014 referendum on the introduction of a new democratic constitution, and began a military campaign of conquest and repression. It is easy for us to pass judgment from afar, but the people of Yemen are the witnesses of their crimes.

Let me share briefly with the House the story of Baraa Shiban, a Yemeni democracy and human rights activist who sat on the Yemeni national dialogue conference and saw first hand how the Houthi used deception and oppression to secure their powerbase. Baraa has since claimed refuge in the UK, and now works on the cause of Yemen as a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He shared with me that, after the Houthi coup in 2014, they banned all political parties, closed all media outlets and suppressed Yemen’s fledgling civil society, which was just beginning to bud. They rejected all calls for elections, and instead chose to govern through fear and intimidation. Baraa was an eyewitness to the Houthi method of conquest from 2014. He saw two small rural villages refuse to surrender to the so-called rebels. In response, they forced all the residents to watch as they summarily blew up all the houses in front of them. He observed as they kidnapped and murdered the family of Akram Al-Zurqa, a community leader in his province, before filming themselves blowing up those families for vile propaganda purposes.

The brutality of the Houthi leadership has been recognised by our Government, and UN security resolutions have been put in place against leader Sultan Zabin for the rape and torture of politically active women. Let that sink in, Mr Deputy Speaker: women who choose to have a voice in Yemen will be tortured. The head of the Houthi security services arbitrarily detained them and raped them for speaking their minds. Not content with merely brutalising villages and women, the Houthis detained two of Baraa’s friends from the Arab spring protests, young journalists Abdullah and Yousif. They locked them in a weapons depot, knowing full well that it would be bombed by the Saudi-led coalition to oppose the Houthis, and they left them there to die.

That was a clear breach of international law, as was the industrialised taking of children and forcing them to be soldiers. The UN estimates that, in just one year between 2020 and 2021, 2,000 children were killed after having been forced to be soldiers for the Houthis. Tragically, the Houthis also expelled Yemen’s 3,500-year-old Jewish community from their homeland, and banished the last Jewish family back in March 2021. Yet now they say that they are acting in defence of Gaza. Now they say they have always cared about the Palestinian cause, despite having hated Israel—yes—but done nothing in the interests of the people of Palestine. This conflict is merely an attempt to distract from their own brutal regime at home and gain clout because, let us be clear, among terrorists there is a pecking order, and they are fighting for who is the big man on the block. The Houthis think this is their chance.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some very important points. It is worth mentioning that one of the other things that the Houthis have done is deliberately block humanitarian aid coming into the port, to starve the population. They might draw a parallel with the terrible situation in Gaza, but their actions show that they do not believe that at all.

[Alicia Kearns]

It is no surprise that my right hon. Friend makes an important point. Whether it is blocking aid, forcing children to act as soldiers or raping and torturing women, the Houthis have no interest in supporting anything but their own power. They have consistently lied to the people of Yemen, and we cannot allow them to act again. I urge anyone in this country who is suggesting in any way that the Houthis are acting in the interests of the Palestinians please to take the time to look at things. If they will not, they should at least look in the mirror.

Moving on, I want to look at why we are absolutely right to take this action. These strikes were a strategic necessity. Article 51 of the UN charter is absolute on the legal right to self-defence for maritime freedom. In the days leading up to the airstrikes, we saw the UN Security Council come together and agree that action was needed. There was a motion calling for an immediate end to Houthi attacks on shipping. Leading up to the strikes, there were 26 attacks in those waters. That might not have been much reported in the media here, but it was elsewhere. Our Royal Navy has had to defend itself against the worst attack against our ships for decades, and the US is having to deploy Tomahawk missiles to protect itself. That was almost unheard of for a long time. We all heard the arguments from the Defence Secretary. We all know full well that almost 30% of all shipping containers pass through those waters, and 90% of ships are having to avoid the area.

I want briefly to look at the Houthi military capabilities, because there is a view held, particularly among some young people, thanks to a very unhelpful TikTok account. The House knows my views on TikTok, and it is unsurprising that it is helping to spread unhelpful narratives. On this account, a young man seems to be bobbing around on the waters outside Yemen—he could be the star of a movie, I admit—suggesting that the Houthis are working in the interests of Palestinians. The Houthis are incredibly well armed, beyond what many people think. They have Iranian support, and the Iranians have provided rockets and drones, but they also have their own domestic capabilities.

We have to remember that the former dictator of Yemen defected to the Houthi cause, and he brought with him ballistic and cruise missiles. Those are now being used against the Royal Navy, the US and allies. The Houthis have one F-5 jet. Some may say that it is only one jet, but it is attacking the Royal Navy; we have seen them using these weapons against us. They have helicopter pilots. They have so much more domestic capacity beyond what they are being given by the Iranians. Will the Defence Secretary at some point update the House on what assessment we have not just of how we strangle Iranian donations of equipment to the Houthis, but of how much more equipment the Houthis have hidden? We know they have buried it underground, and we also know that they took a great deal when they took control. We need to tackle how we strangle the supply of equipment from Iran.

Moving on to strategic concerns, I have already asked the Defence Secretary how we assess the point to which we need to degrade Houthi capabilities so that they change their intent. This is a deterrence mission; it is a mission to put deterrence back in place. How far down the process of attrition are we? How do we ensure that we do not become the air force of the Yemeni Government? How do we ensure that we have a point to which we are operating, rather than just continuing to try until we see the Houthis change direction?

I am also concerned because Yemen is still in a state of civil war. Although the Houthis control the majority of the population, they control only about 40% of the territory. Meanwhile, we have al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Daesh, both operating in Yemen. My understanding is that there may be some sort of informal relationship between AQAP and the Houthis, because AQAP has been able to move equipment and matériel across the country to where it has its bases. However, as I touched on, terrorists have a pecking order, and they like to be the big man on the street. I am concerned that we will see these two groups step up their operations and capitalise on what they see as a competing terrorist group being under attack. How do we make sure that we are acting now so that other terrorist groups are not capitalising on those attacks?

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) rightly raised his concerns about Iraq. That was the first question I asked the Foreign Secretary when he rang me to talk about the airstrikes. I am deeply concerned by our significant footprint in Iraq, not least because over the past few months we have seen increasing attacks on our assets by Shi’a militias beholden to the Iranian regime.

We have also seen the IRGC commit an airstrike in Erbil, and that is concerning but an opportunity. For the IRGC to have taken responsibility for such an airstrike is a step change; we have not seen it do that in the past. That gives more credence to what we will hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sir Liam Fox) about the need to proscribe the IRGC, and it also fundamentally changes how we can talk about the IRGC and its operations. What is the Government’s assessment of how the Red sea situation is likely to escalate, particularly in Iraq? How are we working to protect our assets?

I will touch briefly on Syria. Many colleagues will know that, when the vote came to Parliament, the decision not to intervene militarily in Syria was one of the driving reasons for my joining this place. I still believe that a great mistake was made on that day. Syria has become—forgive me if this sounds flippant—the Amazon warehouse for terrorists. Whether it is narcotics, weapons, people, Shi’a militias or trafficking—you name it—all that is taking place in Syria. What are we doing to reduce the risks emanating from Syria to our assets and interests on the ground?

I turn to Iranian proxies. The Houthis are only one of Iran’s proxies and allies. As I said earlier, different proxies have different relationships. I believe the Houthis to be more of a disobedient ally than a direct proxy, because the command and control is not as significant as it is with Hezbollah. We have Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’a militias and the Assad regime in Syria. What work are we doing to ensure that we have a clear assessment of the differing relationships between different proxies and allies with Iran? Some will be receiving just intelligence. Some will be receiving matériel. With some, there will be direct command and control. Some will feel greater loyalty to others. We need to assess the extent to which Iran will conduct further conflict and chaos to defend each of those proxies. For example, I suspect that Hezbollah is far more happy to wage full-on warfare in defence of the clerics in Iran than the Houthis would be. How do we ensure that we get there?

I have severe concerns about Hezbollah’s future actions. Nasrallah has so far decided to stay out of the action, but the reality is that that could change in a moment. Again, this goes back to who wants to be seen as the best terrorist on the block, and Nasrallah is deeply ideologically tied to the Ayatollahs—more so than any others. While in the past Hezbollah has acted almost as a trip wire to protect Iran’s nuclear capabilities, now, unfortunately, while we may not see significant restraint, it has been showing significant restraint, given its capabilities. I am concerned about what we may see going forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is always good to follow the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), and I actually agree with quite a lot of what they had to say—I might go into that in a bit more detail in the next few minutes.

It seems strange to be having a general debate of this kind on a Wednesday afternoon in Government time. As the shadow Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), suggested, a general debate on defence and security has morphed into a debate on the situation in the Red sea—a more current and certainly more substantive topic, but one that will, I have to say, allow me to make the same points that I was going to make in a general debate, albeit within the frame of what I hope I am wrong in thinking is looking increasingly like some type of long-term commitment.

Those of us who speak about defence on a regular basis—I see some familiar faces here today—can probably finish each other’s speeches by now, as Members will probably have seen on the odd occasion. Whether we are colleagues on the Defence Committee—and I see that the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is present—or ordinary Members who are interested in the subject, we tend to be a very dedicated bunch. While I certainly do not agree with everything that everyone has to say, I certainly always learn a lot from the contributions of Members such as my friend the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who is also present, and indeed the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), who has left the Chamber. It is safe to say that when it comes to debates such as this featuring as the last item on a Wednesday, Members usually have to care to take the time to participate.

That is why it is so frustrating, from my perspective, that time and again the Government’s rhetoric in relation to our defence and security, the current situation being a case in point, so rarely matches the action taken—again, from my perspective—and why I sometimes wonder, if His Majesty’s Government pay so little heed to the contributions of those on their side of the house, who exactly they are listening to.

Before I explore that much further, and perhaps add to what was said by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, let me state the obvious: the Houthi movement is an obscurantist, antisemitic and theocratic death cult that has violated human rights and international law every step of the way. Not only does the Houthis’ current strategy continue these violations of international law, but they seek to use the suffering of the Palestinian people in a way that cannot be justified.

However, in my view—this is the point that may distinguish my remarks from not just those of the Government but those of the shadow Defence Secretary—the fact that current events in Palestine are not the cause of the Houthi attacks on shipping does not mean that they are not symptoms of the same phenomenon: namely, western indifference to the region, followed by periods of intense military involvement, and little effort made to address longer-term issues.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I will, briefly, but I want to move on quickly.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I just want to probe the hon. Gentleman slightly on his comments about the west not being involved in the region until something crops up. It was the Royal Navy, and other navies, that were protecting shipping from Somalian pirates, and it is the Royal Navy that has bases in Bahrain to support ships travelling through the strait of Hormuz. The west is involved in the region, and although that may be highlighted more now, I wanted the hon. Gentleman to clarify his comments: he is presumably not suggesting that we have not been involved in the region until now.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Perhaps he should refer to what was said by his hon. Friend the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee about the diplomatic effort. I thought that her point about Arab-led initiatives was well made. Perhaps the Government should listen to that as a future intention. I think that is more to the point than engaging in military action, which has been ongoing for some time.

My SNP colleagues and I gave the first round of strikes against the Houthi targets qualified support earlier this month, and we do so again in respect of the latest strikes, but as we begin to slide towards what seems almost like an inevitable longer-term commitment, it cannot be said often enough that the “what”, the “how’” and the “why” of UK grand strategy are, at least from my perspective, dangerously out of sync. Let us start with last week’s keynote announcement from the Defence Secretary, who I see is no longer in their place, that

“The era of the peace dividend is over and 2024 will mark an inflection point.”

On the surface, that is a pretty banal observation, but whether we call it the polycrisis or the age of grey-zone conflict, those of us who come to these debates on a regular basis have been talking about the possibilities of this type of thing happening at least since I arrived in 2015. I am not sure how 2024 will be anywhere near the inflection points that 2014 or 2022 were; none the less, that is a bold statement from the Secretary of State. It is important to say that he also backed it up with the announcement of a £405 million investment in so-called drone-killing Sea Viper missiles.

On the surface, it would seem that the Secretary of State has got his why and his what sorted. We just need a how, and that is where I think we begin to run into trouble. For all the high-falutin’ rhetoric from the MOD main building, I am not sure that anyone here really believes we are going to meet the how in the form of an increase in defence spending to meet these new threats, given the disastrous state of the MOD’s finances, as seen in the latest National Audit Office report.

We are in the middle of the cost of living crisis, as we all know well. Inflation seems to be coming under control; it is only worse in the defence sector, and the proliferation of US dollar-dominated contracts is not going to make things easier, especially with a soft pound and the reality that we are now living in one of the poorest countries in western Europe. Any increase in defence spending at this time means a cut elsewhere in the budget; that is simply a reality. Although there are those, particularly on the Opposition Benches, who are brave enough to say that they would like to make cuts elsewhere to do this, I have seen absolutely no indication from the Government that they intend to do so.

I am no economist—hard to believe, I know—but I believe that practitioners of that special art call it a “revealed preference”. An example would be when a potential leadership candidate advocates spending 3% of GDP, only to quietly drop the commitment when they become Chancellor. All our recent Prime Ministers have made all the right noises when it comes to the problems in international security, but none of them, at least from my perspective, has met that challenge with a significant increase. Indeed, I think we can all agree that if that redoubtable and dogged former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace)—I let him know that I was going to mention him in the debate—was only able to secure an increase to 2.5%, and even then only by the end of the decade, I do not think anyone is expecting his successor to be any more successful.

I should point out—I say this as something of a sceptic about increasing the defence budget or even the value in such arbitrary targets—that we judge Governments based on their record, and this is what this one has. Once we start to scratch at the how in the UK strategy, the what and the why also start to come unstuck. Let us take the Sea Viper order: what was presented as an announcement to counter this new and specific threat has actually been on the table since 2012, only to be constantly shifted to the right because of pressures elsewhere on the budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I have to say that I was disappointed by the approach the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) took to the operations we have had to carry out in the Red sea to protect international shipping. He makes the point, perhaps reasonably, that budgets and the finances of this country are under great pressure and that there has been a cost of living crisis. That crisis has occurred through instability around the world, whether we are talking about supply chains during the pandemic, Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine or, now, the threats to shipping at the key point of entry to the Red sea. Those all have a fundamental impact at home, so investment in defence is not something that just takes money out of the pot that the Government need to spend: it helps to build the security that our constituents need.

Through history, people have too often looked at distant lands and said, “That’s got nothing to do with me.” That view never was true, but today it could never be less true. We see that when we look at exactly how global supply chains end up with things in our supermarkets and when we look at the fuel crisis. Of course, it is not just the increase in the cost of shipping that will add to inflationary pressures, but the fact that modern industry works to a just-in-time system. Widget A may now take three weeks to get to widget B, which may only take a week to get somewhere. That will cause huge back-up production problems in the factories and production plants that move things on to the system. So the time constraints of having to go around the Cape to deliver the goods that are needed that have suddenly been hoisted upon global shipping will end up having a direct impact on our constituents once more. Therefore, it is important that we invest further, certainly in the Royal Navy.

I take issue with people in this House who want to do a disservice to the Royal Navy, which is one of the most advanced and finest navies in the world. We have replaced the vast majority of our capital equipment in this century alone. The technical ability of our Royal Navy outdoes that of a great number of countries, including in respect of many of the capabilities produced in the United States. The Type 45 destroyer was a visionary destroyer and allows wars to be fought in a way that was not feasible before. With the introduction of the Type 26s coming forward, the Type 31s, and the fact that we have renewed our hunter-killer submarines and are renewing Dreadnought, we have huge infrastructure. That is in addition to aircraft carriers, which have always had an important strategic aspect, especially when we are trying to operate alongside the allies. Comments have been made about it always being the USA picking up the burden, but Britain punches above its weight by having that capability.

Where I do think we run into a problem with the MOD and its funding is that, because of rules set by previous Chancellors and carried on as to the difference between borrowing for capital and not spending on revenue, and how that has worked out, it has always been easy to produce a capital spreadsheet in order to produce more ships, but no one ever looks at how much revenue we are going to need to keep those ships running, to keep them serviced and to crew them. That, in itself, needs to be addressed.

Be under no illusion: the situation in the Red sea speaks to the wider issue of the importance of maritime security, which affects the entire world. Although we are part of NATO and we can draw on the support of many allies from around the world to help police the situation in the Red sea, demand for such support will only increase, especially as the high north is used more frequently as a passage for trade during the summer months, in which China is already showing great interest.

The idea that an arc that seems to emanate from or be influenced by Iran is forming around the disruption of maritime trade cannot be dismissed. As has already been mentioned, Iran has an influence on the Houthis in Yemen and on Hezbollah, and we know it is arming Russia. The Russians are doing everything they can to stop grain getting out of Ukraine. The blocking of the Red sea will impede the ability of vital food stocks to get to many areas of the world, leading to starvation, not least in countries such as Lebanon, which is unstable as it stands and has a huge economic crisis. Lebanon has not recovered from the explosions at its grain silos and relies heavily on grain from Ukraine, but it would suit Iran’s overall objective in the region to cause instability in another country neighbouring Israel.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) made clear, we are not willing to tolerate these tiny activities in which Iran takes part. However, we have to be aware that we always look at the issues with western eyes. When those countries look east, they have allies—Russia has been able to trade with many counties to its south and east—and western sanctions only go so far.

I am confident colleagues want to speak in the debate and further develop these ideas. The situation in the Red sea is another flash-point warning that we must invest further in our maritime capability so that we can secure and keep open trade routes that affect the entire world. The investment that we make now has a direct impact on our constituents and their ability to deal with the cost of living crisis, because is not only those who are thousands of miles away who are affected by the situation; it has an impact on even the corner shops in our villages.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Gray]

Both my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) are seeking to involve me in a debate about a matter that happened some 10 or 15 years ago and is well beyond the scope of the debate. My point is not about whether or not striking against Syria was right, wrong or indifferent, but about the fact that we in this House chose not to do so. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), was absolutely right to say that not doing something is often as bad as doing something.

We in this House had a shortage of information—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) knows a lot about these things, and I am ready to admit that I do not—of briefings, of secret intelligence and of legal advice, but we chose to take that decision. It seems to me that, in the extremely dangerous world that we live in, we will see an awful lot of these decisions taken in the months and years to come. The way in which matters were handled this time shows that the pendulum, which had swung from the divine right of Kings in the middle ages, whereby the King decided on his own, to the time in 2003 and 2013 when we allowed this House to vote, albeit not necessarily sensibly, has swung back to precisely where it ought to be—namely, that if this House votes on something, it is, by that means, diminished. We cannot then hold the Government to account; we cannot come back and say, “You, Mr Government, have got that wrong,” because we voted for it. And if we had voted for it, the Secretary of State would surely say, “But you voted for it!”

Our whole purpose in this House and this Chamber is to scrutinise what the Government have done, hold them to account and, if necessary, remove them when they do the wrong thing.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[James Gray]

Well, I am trying to wind up, but yes, of course.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

My hon. Friend mentioned the world becoming a more dangerous place. We have known throughout the history of the NATO alliance that deterrence is one of the best ways to keep the peace. That is why we have the continuous at-sea deterrence: nobody knows where or when it may be used. To further his argument, if we want to keep the peace, is there not far greater deterrence in a decision being taken immediately rather than with 24 or 48 hours’ notice?

[James Gray]

I am not certain that my right hon. Friend, whom, incidentally, I congratulate on his knighthood, has quite grasped the subtlety of the point that I was trying to make, which was not so much about the substance of defence but about the way in which we take decisions in this House.

The point I was making was that if we vote on something, as happened to the Labour party over Iraq in 2003, it then becomes extremely difficult to criticise the Government for what they do subsequently. It is right that we should scrutinise the Government, but we should not vote on these matters. We should have huge debates, statements and votes after deployment, but the moment that we allow ourselves to be forced into whipped votes before deployment, we are, by definition, emasculating this House. It is quite wrong from the point of view of defence and from the point of view of parliamentary scrutiny. We demand the right to scrutinise the Government, and we can do that only if we do not vote on the wars.