Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The short answer is yes. Hezbollah appears to have been rearmed in recent years, and the conflict in Syria has provided the opportunity for Iran to supply more weapons—and more dangerous weapons—to Hezbollah. The possibility of a confrontation remains high. Those who have been committed to violence should renounce that commitment and make progress on reconciliation among the Palestinians on that basis, and all the parties involved should seek the peace we all want in the region.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What steps he is taking to improve Britain’s relationship with Russia.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

We cannot have a normal relationship with Russia, given how it has behaved in Ukraine and Syria, and given its continuing behaviour in the cyber sphere, but we must engage with Russia, which is what we will do and are doing, to further mutual interests where they exist.

[Mr Sheerman]

I urge the Secretary of State and his whole team to reread George Kennan’s famous 1947 article on containment, because Kennan predicted that the then Soviet Union, now Russia, would come forward to destabilise Europe, the United States and Japan. Will the Secretary of State also note what Hillary Clinton said yesterday: there is

“a new…cold war and it is just getting started.”?

[Boris Johnson]

I remember reading George Kennan’s article many years ago and it contains much wisdom. The tragedy is that, in many ways, Russia is behaving as though there is a new cold war, and our objective is to prevent the situation from getting any worse by constraining Russia and ensuring that we penalise it for its malign and disruptive activities. However, it is also our objective to engage where we can, which is why I will be going to Russia later this year.