Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady is right to detect the disruptive hand and the destabilising agency of Iran in the region and certainly in the supply of missiles to Hezbollah and weapons to the Houthis. What Iran is up to is well chronicled and, together with our friends and partners, we are working at the United Nations and elsewhere to bring maximum pressure on the Iranians to cease and desist from their activities.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May we erect a new doctrine—perhaps we could call it the Johnson doctrine—that we have learned the lessons of our military interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria and never again will we attempt to use military force to remove unpleasant authoritarian regimes and replace them with disastrous totalitarian movements?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes—I am afraid—an excellent point. Of course we must push back on Iranian disruptive behaviour—it is entirely the right thing to do and this Government will continue to do it—but we must also be intellectually honest and recognise that collectively over the past 20 years or so western foreign policy has helped to create the conditions, alas, in which Iranian influence has been capable of expanding.