United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Debate between David Winnick and Richard Drax

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I wish we could have had this debate before military action had been taken. I referred to that on a point of order and do not want to dwell on it because time is very short, but we must establish that, when military action is going to be taken, the House of Commons should debate the issue first. There is no doubt what the result of any vote tonight will be, and there would have been no difference if one had taken place on Saturday, but it would have been better if the House had so decided.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, if we had delayed such action any longer, which he wanted to do so that we could debate it in the House, people would have died?

[Mr Winnick]

The action started late on Saturday. We could have met on Saturday; we have done so on previous occasions. I have been present at Saturday sittings, and in my view that could have taken place, if not on Friday itself.

In view of the Security Council resolution, there is no doubt about the legality of the military operation. The Security Council has clearly carried the resolution, and the issue is not about whether the action is legal, because it clearly must be so, but about judgment and whether such intervention is justified. Much has been made of the Arab League and so on; incidentally, I do not know how many, if any, Arab League countries could be considered democracies. Be that as it may, I accept that none of them is quite in the same category as Gaddafi’s Libya.

Interestingly, the secretary-general of the league, just two days after the heavy bombing, is reported to have said that

“what we want is the protection of the civilians and not a bombardment of more civilians.”

If he is saying that at this particular stage, what is he going to say in the following days if the bombing continues? Undoubtedly, there will be civilian casualties, and yes, Gaddafi will make much of it, make propaganda—one would not expect otherwise. But one does not need to be a military expert to accept that one cannot carry out such military operations without civilian casualties. So while we talk about protecting the people and the reason—the justification—for the operation, we have to recognise that many innocent people are going to be killed or slaughtered, whatever word we use, because the situation cannot be otherwise.

We have spoken and debated from a western point of view, but I ask the House to look at the situation from the Arab point of view—not that of the Arab League, or the Arab rulers, but that of the ordinary people in Arab countries. They want a decent life; that is why the protests grew out of the suicide in Tunisia. Of course they want a decent life; that is one reason why there is such an influx of, and motivation for, immigration. We want a decent life, so do our constituents and so do the people in countries of acute poverty and deprivation. Human beings are the same the whole world over.

Let us look at the situation from the Arab point of view. In Yemen, the regime slaughtered 45 people last week. They were protesting. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia there is repression, and of course Saudi Arabia actually took military action to intervene in Bahrain. Has anyone suggested that we should intervene against Saudi Arabia? Of course not. Even if repression grew in Saudi Arabia itself, or in Bahrain, one thing would be absolutely certain: the British Government would not draft a resolution with the United States to put before the Security Council of the United Nations. We know that.

It is interesting that every time we go to intervene somewhere there is a reference to the occupied territories: “We are going to do what we can for the Palestinians.” Yet the position of the Palestinians remains the same: more than 40 years of occupation, humiliating conditions, the wall, the deprivation of liberty, and the rest. Has there been any change as far as the Israeli occupation of the occupied territories goes? Not at all, but Prime Ministers—not just this one—always refer to it. I do not doubt their sincerity, but it is interesting as far as the occupied territories and the United States’ support for this current military action are concerned.

Only a few weeks ago, a resolution—