ISIL in Syria

Debate between David Burrowes and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I will not dwell on any sense of resentment that the Social Democratic and Labour party might have about the Prime Minister’s line about terrorist sympathisers, but I will say that I think it was unworthy and that it warranted an apology in this debate. However, today is not about any personal offence that Members of this House might feel; it is about the real fears and threats and the dire suffering faced by people in Syria and the concern that so many hon. Members have expressed for the safety and security of our constituents.

People in Syria, as we know, are caught between the barrel bombs of Assad and the barbarism of Daesh, and they struggle to reach the barbed wire now going up in Europe. Yes, their plight demands a comprehensive strategy and compels a much stronger response from this Government and others across Europe. The Prime Minister has told us that he is offering a comprehensive strategy. He told us in his opening statement today that he has listened to many of the considerations and concerns raised by hon. Members, and in effect he has collated them and co-opted them in the rolling references we now see in the motion, which is presented as a comprehensive strategy. I do not believe that it is coherent or complete. It do not believe that it is convincing in the collateral considerations and claims that are or are not addressed. I do not believe that it is cohesive in how its different dimensions meet and join.

Like the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), I think that it is right that we test the logic of what we are hearing on both sides of the debate. I am not among those who, in arguing against the motion, claim that airstrikes will increase the risk of a terrorist attack in any constituency in the near term; I do not think that it makes a difference one way or another to a threat that is real and live. However, I think that there is a severe risk of feeding what we are trying to fight—of feeding a wider agenda of radicalisation—by agreeing to airstrikes and so adopting the role that the jihadism playbook craves us to adopt.

We are told that we should agree to airstrikes in Syria because they are merely an extension of what is already happening. The people who tell us that are the same people who tell us that there is no danger of mission creep in what the Government propose, yet there has already been an absolute mission flip. Only two years ago the idea was to go in and airstrike against Assad, and now it is to go in and airstrike against the very people we would have been assisting had we conducted airstrikes two years ago.

[Mr Burrowes]

What feeds the terrorists’ agenda is territory, and the more territory they gain, the bigger their so-called caliphate becomes and the greater their ability to recruit other jihadists, including from this country. The fact that we have been able to reduce that territory—we have regained 30%—has degraded their ability to radicalise other jihadists.

[Mark Durkan]

But let us remember that their concept of the caliphate is not merely geographical; it is an altogether different concept.

There is a danger of western powers piling in because we think that what is proposed is merely an extension of what we are already doing. It has been argued that we should not recognise the border between Iraq and Syria because ISIL does not recognise it, so is ISIL to dictate the terms by which judgments are made? We should not be taking our standards from Daesh.

It has also been argued that we have to take such action to stand by our allies. Does that mean that this House will have to agree to the next thing our allies do? What about ground troops, for instance? Many hon. Members who support airstrikes have been very clear that they would not agree to the deployment of ground forces. Indeed, we are told that one of the merits of the motion is that it contains no commitment to ground forces. What if people say that that is what is required? What if the operational circumstances and exigencies of the conflict are such that ground forces are required, because the 70,000 Free Syrian Army people are not there? They cannot be provided by CGI. What if everybody agrees that ground forces are needed to achieve what the Government want in Raqqa?

What happens when Assad decides that he is moving into Raqqa, supported by Russia? We will then have a conflict within the alliance itself, because what the Government propose is on the basis of a shifting alliance with some very shifty allies, including some who have been the syndicators of terrorism, powers and personages within the Gulf states. Members should question what Turkey has been doing in relation to oil and arms and Daesh; question what Saudi Arabia has been doing, and they are our allies. When the Government’s mission changes, where will we go? We will have mission creep.

Charitable Registration

Debate between David Burrowes and Mark Durkan

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I will not say ditto completely to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), but I join other hon. Members in commending the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on raising this important issue. It is clear from the indications that the Charity Commission has given that this will be an escalating premise if the precedent is allowed to stand, which is why everyone should be worried.

In an intervention, I referred to the Small Charitable Donations Bill, which provides the opportunity to say who should qualify for gift aid on additional schemes. In the Bill Committee, I asked the Economic Secretary whether HMRC, in its conduct of gift aid and the associated scheme under the Bill, would be bound by the Charity Commission’s decisions, or whether it would make its own judgment. He said that HMRC would apply its own understanding of the Charities Act, but I now understand that HMRC is withholding some gift aid payments from Brethren trusts pending the outcome of the tribunal. It seems to me that Members who are rightly putting questions to the Minister today and thundering at the Charity Commission for the adverse implications of what it is doing will have our chance, as parliamentarians, in a couple of weeks’ time. I hope that some of us gathered here can put our heads together and propose an amendment to the Bill that will ensure the concept of community buildings, as provided for in the Bill, is not confined, elaborately and convolutedly, to the Catholic Church or the Church of England, but applies to all Churches.

Like other hon. Members, I think it is terrible that the Brethren have to try and advertise the benefit that they provide to the public. They help the public in my constituency and they are passionately and socially engaged. The emphasis in their living guidance on separation should not be misinterpreted and misrepresented, as the Charity Commission has done. They have never wanted to advertise it—no Pharisees they—and they should not have been driven into this position. As parliamentarians, we have the opportunity to draw a line under this in a couple of weeks.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Is it not the case that we also had chance, as I did, when I was a member of the Select Committee on Public Administration, to question the Charity Commission and others about the implications of the changes in legislation? Assurances were given then that there was no intention of this kind of thing happening. When we scrutinised the matter on the Floor of the House, it was said that there was no intention of such a thing happening. To use another analogy, the Charity Commission is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It has overreached itself, and it needs to get back into line with what Parliament intended and with Select Committee scrutiny. If it cannot do so, we must ensure that we get it back into line.

[Mark Durkan]

I fully endorse the point made by the hon. Gentleman. We should remember that the legislative buck stops with us, and we will have the opportunity to draw a parliamentary line under this in a couple of weeks’ time.