Iran-Israel Conflict

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary knows that many of us have been prepared to speak up again and again on behalf of suffering Palestinians and be a critical friend of Israel, but will he agree that on this occasion we must stand shoulder to shoulder with our Israeli ally? The fact is, Iran is a death cult, and death cults like the Nazis or Iran cannot be appeased simply through diplomacy. Iran is cocking a snook at us—it is inches away from a nuclear bomb. I am sure he is going to make this absolutely clear, but will the Foreign Secretary therefore stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and our American ally in proclaiming the right of Israel to exist at all?

[Mr Lammy]

Absolutely.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Thank you.

[Damien Egan (Bristol North East) (Lab)]

A painful lesson of Israeli and, indeed, Jewish history is that when someone says that they want to destroy them, we must believe them. The Iranian regime has made its intentions to destroy Israel clear for decades now. We will all be familiar with the term “never again”, which came out of the concentration camps of Europe. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is one of those moments where we can say that never again is now?