Britain in the World

Debate between Catherine West and Alistair Carmichael

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), who has made her non-maiden speech, and to welcome her back to the House. When she was here representing the interests of constituents in Portsmouth South, she had a reputation for bringing an intelligent and thoughtful analysis to the debate. It is clear that her time away from the House has, if anything, served to improve that ability, so she is very welcome back.

I am also particularly pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), who made an alarmingly accomplished maiden speech. I suspect that following her in the speaking order is something that I will just have to get used to. I confess that I did not know that St Albans was as well provided with licensed premises as we now know it is. I am my hon. Friend’s mentor, and it strikes me that perhaps my duties might extend beyond Westminster and may require me to spend some time mentoring her in her constituency.

The hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) made the important point that in many or, indeed, most parts of the world, the United Kingdom is still seen as a force for good on the world stage, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and also because we have a long and distinguished history of standing up for the values of democracy and human rights. We do not always meet the standards that we might reasonably set ourselves, but, taken as a whole, we are seen in a positive light, and I think that is going to matter more now than ever.

The recent assassination of Soleimani in Iraq has definitely raised the temperature in what is an already febrile region. I do not mourn Soleimani at all. The man was a butcher, make no mistake about that. Others have said that he doubtless had the blood of British service personnel on his hands, and I think that is almost certainly the case. The difficulty is that once we start to use that as the rationale for actions of that sort, where do we go next and where do we stop? The same accusation could ultimately have been made against parliamentarians in different conflicts in different parts of the world down the years, most recently, possibly, even against some of those who have sat in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I therefore urge some caution in using that as a justification for the assassination of Soleimani.

The lack of an early response from the Prime Minister was, I would suggest, a mistake. It was not a catastrophic error, but it is one from which we must learn, and it brings into question the ever-changing nature of our special relationship with the United States. I say that it is ever changing because it is clear that different Presidents of the United States bring different aspects to that relationship. It is important to remember that our special relationship is with the United States and her people, not with any Administration that happens to be in the White House at any given time. We need to be alive to the possibility that this is perhaps one of those moments in that relationship when we have to be more prepared than previously to plough our own furrow in foreign affairs. It is not the first time that we find ourselves in that position.

I am a lot more optimistic than I was this time last week. What has happened has brought us to the brink. We looked into the abyss, we saw what the consequences of that sort of conflagration would be and now, when even the Saudi Arabians are saying that we have to de-escalate tensions, there is a willingness to find a way back from the brink. I would suggest that, from that situation of confusion and some folly, some opportunities may be found. It is important that we as a country should clarify what our objectives are now in relation to Iran and, I would add, Iraq. I think it would be good if we could identify as an ultimate, aspirational goal the demilitarisation of foreign powers in Iraq. That, if we were to achieve it, would represent significant progress.

The objectives that I would identify for the United Kingdom, however, are a renewed approach to nuclear non-proliferation and progress on human rights in Iran, particularly in relation to religious freedom. I have worked for many years with the small Baha’í community in my constituency, and for many years I have been a member of the all-party parliamentary group on the Baha’í faith. The persecution of the Baha’ís and the use of capital punishment in Iran are a stain on that country’s reputation; and, of course, this is a moment when we should be renewing our effort to see the return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other dual nationals.

When we have identified those objectives, the next question we should ask ourselves in this essay is “How do we achieve them?” I do not think that we can achieve them through some sort of neo-imperial lecture tour. I think it would be much more sensible for us to work with our many allies and friends in the region—to work with our friends in Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the middle east. They, I suggest, would be heard much more sympathetically as interlocutors when it came to advancing those objectives.

I was grateful to the Foreign Secretary for his response to my intervention about the situation in Hong Kong. Those who were in the last Parliament will have heard me speak about the subject many times, and I make absolutely no apology for that. For several months we have seen running protests, with an escalating level of violence in all of them. Just last week the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong heard remarkable testimony from Dr Darren Mann of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, who described his experience of arrest as a result of offering medical aid to those who had been injured while protesting against the Government. When your Government are prepared to arrest medics off the street, you realise that things have taken a serious turn for the worse.

[Catherine West]

Does the right hon. Member agree that until there is a full inquiry into police brutality, we will not really know the answers? Should not we in this House, and those in many other Parliaments, press for the facts about the police brutality in Hong Kong?

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Lady and I have worked on this issue in the past, so she will not be surprised to hear that I agree with her absolutely. That pressure is what is needed. It was shocking enough to hear about the arrest of medics—doctors and nurses—who were offering help to injured protesters in the streets, but the really shocking thing that we heard from Dr Mann last week was that when he took his testimony to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross, they said, “There is not much that we can do: we have to stay neutral in this matter.” You cannot stay neutral when you are faced with that sort of brutality, and when the most fundamental human rights are at stake.

We have seen China renege on the joint declaration. It is surely time for the United Kingdom to respond, and that response must go beyond the hand-wringing that we have seen so far. We have witnessed the massive concern that now exists among the Hong Kongers about the British National (Overseas) passport scheme. It was always a messy compromise, and it was never going to be anything better than that, but I think we have reached a point at which that messy compromise is simply no longer sustainable. Surely Hong Kongers with BNO passport status should now be given the right of abode.

As I said to the Foreign Secretary, it is shocking that the global head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, should have been denied entry to Hong Kong this weekend. That must be proof, if proof were needed, that what is going on there is something of which China is ashamed, and something on which the House should be prepared to shine the light of scrutiny, because scrutiny and accountability are what will bring the change that is needed there.