Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend had the wisdom to vote against this ill-fated intervention. Does he agree that it is concerning that we are sending so-called advisers to the region? In other interventions of this kind, where advisers go, troops cannot be far behind.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The parallel is Vietnam 1963, when several thousand CIA advisers descended on that country. That eventually turned out to be 500,000 US troops, 100,000 of whom died there. A million Vietnamese also died in that conflict. We should be slightly more careful, more sanguine and less gung-ho about the process.

Turkey has tried to bring about a peace process, as has the African Union, but what hope is there for a peace process and a diplomatic settlement if the language coming from NATO and others is, “We are going to win this conflict”? That is the subtext.

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[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am very pleased indeed to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Before going any further, I would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on what I thought was an important and brave speech. I am going to touch briefly on the Israel-Palestine question, on Afghanistan and then, of course, Libya.

On the Israel-Palestine question, I cannot add much to what many others have said, but let me say this. I have heard Conservative Members say that we do not understand the Israelis’ wish for security. I was a Member of this House at the end of the ’80s, when an IRA bombing campaign on the mainland was still happening and I remember Mrs Thatcher being blown up in the Grand hotel in Brighton. I also heard the Canary Wharf bomb going off from my kitchen in the east end of London, so do not tell those of us who lived through that era that we do not take security issues seriously.

The proposition was put forward that Israel wants all these triple locks, guarantees and so forth before it will move forward. What triple lock guarantees did John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour party have before he opened the first tentative negotiations with the IRA back in the ’80s? What triple lock guarantees did Nelson Mandela have when he was in prison and first opened overtures to the apartheid regime? The truth is that in the most bloody, difficult and seemingly intractable situations that we have seen in my lifetime, people have had to be prepared to go forward without the triple lock guarantees about which some Members have spoken, but with a will to bring about peace. As long as Israel believes that it has the unconditional support of the United States and Britain, it will continue to shelter behind the notion of triple lock guarantees.

[Nick Boles]

I accept what the hon. Lady says, but does she accept that there was no question in the Irish situation of the people of this country being driven out of this country by those in the IRA who were fighting us? They wanted us to get out of what they perceived as their country; they were not trying to deny our right to be here. The fundamental situation faced by Israel is that some, though not all, of its neighbours believe that Israel should not exist and that all its people should be driven into the sea. That poses a security risk of a quite different quality.

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[Ms Abbott]

The hon. Gentleman should speak to some of my friends in the Democratic Unionist party about how they perceived their security as part of Britain in the ’80s.

Let me move on and deal with Afghanistan. I have been fortunate enough to visit Afghanistan and to meet, talk and stay with our troops there. I was very struck by the bravery of our ordinary soldiers. Not many people realise that the level of mutilations—not just death—is far higher in Afghanistan than anywhere else our armed forces have been sent since the second world war. In talking to ordinary troops—which Ministers and shadow Defence Ministers do not necessarily do—I found that those who had been on two or three tours of duty said that they were regarded as liberators on their first tour, but were now regarded as an occupying force. Members who are familiar with our history will know that no British occupying force has won a war in Afghanistan since the 19th century. [Hon. Members: “We didn’t win that one, either.”] No, we did not. The idea that there is a military solution to what is going on in Afghanistan has a basis in history, but no basis in fact.

When my party was in government Ministers often presented, as Ministers do now, the notion that we were waiting for the Afghan police and armed forces to be ready to take over, but if we wait for that we will still be there in a hundred years. We must act decisively and stop making the mistake that we made with, for instance, the south Vietnamese: the mistake of propping up a regime that needs not to be propped up, but to face reality.

It seems to me that the best thing we could do for our brave soldiers who have lost their lives and limbs fighting this war is to use the occasion of the elimination of bin Laden—whatever we think of the circumstances—to do what we should have done before, and withdraw from Afghanistan. Let us by all means give that country support with development and nation-building, but let us stand back and withdraw from military intervention that history tells us is doomed.

I voted for the intervention in Libya, but I did so with a heavy heart. I was present for the debate—because I think that one should take part in debates on such important occasions—and I was persuaded that unless we intervened as the Government suggested, the civilians of Benghazi would meet a horrible fate. However, a number of developments in Libya since then have been extremely disappointing. For instance, where is the Arab League? I was in the Chamber when we were promised that we would have its support, and that we would be fighting alongside Arab troops. Where are they? We have sold those people billions of pounds-worth of arms. What has happened to the arms, the aeroplanes and the armaments? Where are they? This has the look and the feel of a straightforward western bombardment of a north African country, and I must tell the House that that is not sustainable politics. Where is the Arab League, and how can it be persuaded to shoulder its responsibility in relation to Libya?

I am also concerned about the sending in of advisers. Where advisers go, can troops be far behind? As one who sat through the entire debate on Libya, I am clear about the fact that there is no will in the House to become involved in a land war in north Africa, and as it happens, I do not believe that there is a will among the British public—Labour, Conservative and all points between—to become involved in such a war. I sincerely hope that we shall not see a further escalation of the Libyan intervention without returning to the House for a full debate.

Was it Walpole who said, “They are ringing the bells today, but tomorrow they will be wringing their hands”? I believe that unless we adopt a more decisive approach to what is happening in Afghanistan and do not simply allow ourselves to be sucked in, the British public—however much they appreciated the humanitarian impulse that led us into Libya—will be wringing their hands tomorrow.