Libya

Debate between Alistair Burt and Kwasi Kwarteng

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That is a very timely intervention, because that is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. For far too long, we have had emotional responses to situations. I remember the debate very vividly, although I was a new Member of Parliament and less experienced and less versed in issues relating to the middle east then. We talked a lot about the humanitarian crisis and what we needed to do to intervene to stop the potential bloodbath. All of that was well understood, but we did not stop and think.

[Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. I apologise for not being able to stay for the whole debate to hear what the Minister has to say in response. May I gently remind my hon. Friend that simply to dismiss our intervention in Libya as an emotional response and to say that the Government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office did not think through the consequences is not fair? That does not adequately describe the work that went into Libya afterwards, which included intensive work with politicians to create the opportunity for elections. In recognising what happened, which is immensely difficult, he might pay tribute to the work of the Foreign Office, our diplomats and our ambassador, who worked so hard to try to create something. He must not assume that it was simply an emotional response without regard to the consequences.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fully appreciate my right hon. Friend’s point. He was at that time a Foreign Office Minister largely responsible for the middle east, and he served in that post with considerable distinction. I fully appreciate his efforts.

My phrase “emotional response” might be a little dismissive. It is very brutal and horrible to have to say this, but we have to look at the consequences of what happened. We have to look at the situation, put our hands up and say, “This is not a good situation.” I appreciate that there were lots of motivated, highly skilled diplomats, and that lots of thought went into the intervention on the ground. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO Secretary-General said that, if we just look at the means by which we carried out the intervention, it was effective, but I am afraid that the judgment of history is that it was not particularly successful, based on the consequences of our actions. At some point we have to be hard on ourselves and look at the outcomes. We can say, “We discussed this endlessly, we met all these committees, we had all this planning and we got votes through Parliament”, but—to use that old phrase—the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If the pudding does not taste very good, something has gone wrong, and we have got to accept that.

[Alistair Burt]

While we are looking at our intervention in Libya in 2011, perhaps we might also look at the consequences of the vote on Syria in 2013. Perhaps my hon. Friend will agree that deciding whether to intervene or not is very difficult. The same consequences can arise from both because we are not fully in charge of all the circumstances.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The conclusion—one does not require the brains of an archbishop to reach this—is that when we intervene, we should have a plan for the follow-through, perhaps for up to 18 months. I am not one of those people who is against all interventions, but I am against interventions the consequences of which have not been properly considered, or properly planned for. That is not a radical thing to ask.