Libya and the Middle East

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have never supported Colonel Gaddafi or his regime, and I think that his regime is illegitimate. Clearly that prompts the question of how long we are going to go on recognising it in any way, which is why I have requested another urgently needed piece of work. We must ensure that we do everything that we can to isolate it. We must cut off money, cut off supply and cut off oxygen from the regime, so that it falls as fast as it possibly can.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

You will recall, Mr Speaker, that 10 days ago, in an urgent question, I begged the Foreign Secretary to suspend arms sales to the region and to gear up the Foreign Office response. I am very glad that the Prime Minister has got a grip on that.

I welcomed the last part of the Prime Minister’s statement about building on what is being done to create a new approach to democracy. Would he consider creating a British foundation for democracy development? It would include businesses, non-governmental organisations, the media, judges and trade unions. Its work would be similar to the work of the know-how fund, and the work that was done to support people in eastern Europe after 1989 and in the Iberian peninsula in the 1970s. Could some development money be spent on that? If so, we would be able to create something that could help everyone in the future rather than recriminating about the past.

[The Prime Minister]

I am not always in complete agreement with the right hon. Gentleman, but this is one such occasion. I very much support the whole idea of greater party-to-party contacts and political contacts, and building up what I call the building blocks of democracy in terms of civil society and political parties. This is an area in which Britain has expertise and excellence. We have the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, of course, so we need to ask whether there is more we can do with that, or whether we need to build a new mechanism. I am, however, glad to see cross-party support for something that Britain could play a unique part in helping to build.