Britain's Place in the World

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to be the final Back-Bench speaker in this debate and to follow the wonderful words of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), who has probably made the most powerful case for remaining in the European Union with the best deal—the one that we currently have. Certainly, if we do get to the point of having a second referendum, I will be banging the drum to remain in the European Union, not just for the residents of Hornsey and Wood Green but for every region in the UK, where he is quite right to say that there is no proper industrial strategy. In a sense, if we stick within the European Union, that is an industrial strategy. It needs improvement, but at least it is the bare bones of one that we can build on.

I would like briefly to bring out a few themes of the debate. Many Members have raised the right to go out on the streets and to have freedom of assembly. Some have mentioned the protests in Hong Kong, which we would all like to be much more peaceful, but even on our own streets, we see the protests of Extinction Rebellion because we know that climate change should be much higher up the foreign policy agenda.

Other themes include the global challenge of poverty and access to healthcare and education for all, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) talked about so clearly, and the UK’s role in energetically working towards a solution to the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. That does not seem to be breaking through at the moment, due to Brexit inertia; we cannot hear that voice.

My constituent Aras Amiri is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Evin prison outside Tehran. Where is the strong voice on these crucial issues and the cases of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Aras Amiri and others who are tragically in prison on trumped-up false charges?

Another theme is the protection of freedom of speech. Mr Speaker, I am not sure whether you have had a chance to read the wonderful book “In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin”, but I am sure that every Member of this House would like to put on record their thanks to the journalists who go out to the most dangerous parts of the globe and report back on our behalf.

In the dying moments of the debate, I want to underline what, for me, is the most tragic situation currently in the globe: what is happening to the Kurdish people in Rojava in the north of Syria. The Kurdish people have been our friends for a very long time. As an MP representing a constituency in the north of London, I know that the Kurdish community could not be more welcoming. I have enjoyed beautiful breakfasts when door-knocking, with wonderful hospitality—“Come in! Come and have a boiled egg, some lovely salad, a sausage and some tea.” I feel that we have let them down. We have not done enough; whether that is due to the Brexit inertia, I am not sure.

I had a slight hope last week during the urgent question on that issue, when I felt we were in that diplomatic space, which is what we were promised by the Foreign Office, but that night I switched on the television at 10 o’clock and saw the bombs falling. It is an absolute tragedy and a dereliction of duty on the part of the US to land us in it in this way. To not even tell us, but rather announce foreign policy on Twitter, is appalling. I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement today that they will suspend arms sales to Turkey. I would be grateful to have a bit more detail on the sequencing, but I am pleased to be able to say positive things about the Government’s policy, while decrying some of the absences. We need to have a much louder voice on this. We need to speak endlessly about it and try to get Mr Trump to understand that he simply cannot pull the rug from under the Kurdish community in Rojava.

In particular, we must talk about the experiences that so many women in that region have had. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) talked about the Rohingya women. We, as women MPs, must speak up about the rape and sexual assault that women in conflict zones experience. I want to hear our Government say that it is not on for soldiers to come over from Turkey and exploit women in that way. It is appalling.

We know that tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians have fled the region, and if Turkey is successful in its operation, more than 3 million Arab refugees will be resettled in the area. Although those refugees completely deserve the ability to return to Syria safely, it must not be at the cost of fundamentally changing the demographic make-up of the region and effectively cleansing the area of Kurdish communities who already call the region home. The excellent writer Philippe Sands talks in his compelling book “East West Street” about the difference between genocide and acts of violence against humanity. It is a very interesting intellectual debate. I fear that what will happen in Rojava is genocide, and I want our Government to redouble their efforts to do something about that, because they must not allow the US to get away with just walking away. I hope that the Minister will outline his vision on that.

Sadly, the Brexit debate has led to our voice being softer on the international stage, but I hope that we will be sensible on Brexit, so that we can get back to that central part of our narrative about being compassionate and caring about human rights and peace and being at the forefront of those important debates.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It has been a pleasure to listen to this debate, even though it has felt at times like bald men in a dark room fighting over a comb that is not even there. As we know, this is a Queen’s Speech devoid of any meaningful content, not least in the areas of Brexit and foreign affairs that we have been debating today. That is presumably why the Foreign Secretary has not even bothered to wind up tonight’s debate. All in all, frankly, it has been the biggest waste of Her Majesty’s time and the biggest indignity that she has been put through since the fallout over “It’s a Royal Knockout”.

Nevertheless, this evening does give me two opportunities: first, to summarise some of the excellent points that have been made by my colleagues during this debate; and secondly, to ask the Minister of State, who has been asked to stand in tonight, whether he can answer some questions on the Foreign Secretary’s behalf. More than 80 days have passed since the new Foreign Secretary was put in place, and he may like Phileas Fogg have been around the world in that time, but neither his conference speech in Manchester nor this Queen’s Speech give any indication that he is across his brief or even that he has his focus on the right priorities. Indeed, as the lawyer for the Harry Dunn family observed on television this week after a meeting with the Foreign Secretary—excuse yet another profanity, Mr Speaker, but I am quoting—they got the impression that

“he didn’t know his arse from his elbow”.

Let me see whether the Minister of State can do rather better this evening, and my first question to him relates to the Harry Dunn case. Can he tell us the exact date when diplomatic immunity was withdrawn from Anne Sacoolas, if it was ever granted at all, and if it was never granted, why she was not held in the UK for questioning?

I will go on to further questions for the Minister later, but for now may I mention some of the excellent contributions made in this debate by some of our colleagues in the House? We heard the shadow Brexit Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), and the former shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), demolishing with forensic skill the Prime Minister’s proposed new deal and explaining why it would be even worse for our country in its impact on jobs and the economy than the one already and repeatedly rejected by this House.

We heard the Chair of the International Development Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), speak with his usual eloquence and authority about the rules-based international order and how it applies to conflicts in Syria and Yemen. Those sentiments were passionately echoed by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) and my hon. Friends the Members for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire). They called for clarity and courage from this Government, and they are absolutely right.

We heard an impressive speech from the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on our relationships with America and China, and with the EU and the Commonwealth. However, I would say to him—perhaps he can read it in Hansard—that, given his unfounded concerns about the Opposition’s attitude to the Commonwealth, I was very glad to spend two weeks of the summer recess visiting my counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, just as he mentioned William Hague did in 2011.

[Catherine West]

May I just say that I heard from my fellow Antipodeans about my right hon. Friend’s wonderful presence in Australia, and about how much she was welcomed in the commonwealth—the old commonwealth?

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank my hon. Friend very much.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) talked with great force about the crisis between two of our Commonwealth cousins, India and Pakistan, with the constitutional and human rights of the Kashmiri people being trampled in the middle of that. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) about how we have let down the Kurds, and I believe she is absolutely right.

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham). It was not a speech about foreign policy, but it was one of the most passionate speeches that I have heard for a very long time, with his pure, naked anger at the fact that men in his constituency have a life expectancy of 64, whereas men in the Prime Minister’s constituency have a life expectancy of 80. No wonder he is so angry, and his eloquence said it all.

We heard so many excellent contributions—there were many more that I have not had time to mention—but it is left to the Minister of State to close this debate, and I have a number of specific questions for him. They are based on the Foreign Secretary’s recent speech in Manchester, which at least attempted to address some foreign policy issues, as this Queen’s Speech has so brazenly failed to do.

First, may I ask the Minister why, in the course of a speech of 1,300 words, the Foreign Secretary did not once mention these countries or their leaders? He did not mention Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Cameroon, Brazil or Brunei, and he did not even mention Kashmir. These are not peripheral issues, but ones that should be at the top of the Foreign Secretary’s brief, yet he found time to make jokes about Luxembourg and to tell us how much Donald Trump loves Britain. This is of course the kind of love that expresses itself by ignoring everything that our Government say to him—from climate change, trade wars and the Iranian nuclear deal to the unforgivable betrayal of the Kurds in northern Syria. But even though the Foreign Secretary did not discuss any of those countries, I am delighted to hear that he said in Manchester that he would “relish, not shrink” from our global duty to bring the perpetrators of injustice and war crimes to account. So let us put that commitment to the test.

I hoped that in this Queen’s Speech we would hear a commitment to work through the United Nations to end the airstrikes and the atrocities being committed by Turkey and its jihadist death squads in the Kurdish regimes in northern Syria. I was hoping that we would hear a commitment to table a new resolution before the Security Council of the United Nations demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties in Yemen, in every part of the country. I was hoping that we would hear a commitment to recognise the state of Palestine while there is still a state left to recognise. I was hoping that we would hear a commitment to hold a judicial inquiry into the historical allegations of the UK’s involvement in torture and rendition, and the operation of our country’s secret courts. I was hoping that we would hear a commitment to table a resolution for agreement at the United Nations referring Myanmar to the International Criminal Court for investigation of its crimes against the Rohingya, because of course we hold the pen on that issue as well.

I was hoping that we would hear commitments to correct the historic injustices over the two Amritsar massacres, the discriminatory demob payments from world war two given to non-white soldiers in the colonial regiments, the Chagos islanders’ right of return, and our nuclear test veterans. Those issues would all feature in a Labour Queen’s Speech—the Kurds, Yemen and Palestine, torture, rendition, the Rohingya, Amritsar, demob pay, the Chagos islanders and the debt owed to our nuclear test veterans—but under this Government, those issues go utterly ignored.