Counter-Daesh Update

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

That is an extremely important and very good question. It is all very well trying to divert people away from the path of radicalisation, and we do what we can there, but one of the most difficult things is to reverse radicalisation once it has taken place, as I think the hon. Gentleman understands very well. However, we have a communications cell, as he knows, and we are working on it. We have all sorts of means to try to do these things, but the most important thing is to prevent people from being radicalised in the first place.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We have the Foreign Secretary in front of us today, and he has chosen his words very carefully, so I think we should reserve our ire for the evil of this regime. However, may I ask him about what this statement is really about, which is why Islamic State grew in the first place? Has the Foreign Office learned the lesson—here, I follow my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—of our catastrophic invasions of Iraq and Libya? Our deliberate destabilisation of Syria has unleashed untold misery. Has the Foreign Office really cottoned on to the fact that, if we undermine deeply unpleasant authoritarian leaders, we simply unleash totalitarian movements such as Daesh? And who suffers? The minorities in the middle east.

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If we look back at 2003, we see that, in the words of the Chilcot report, no one could say that our strategic objectives were entirely attained—I think that is putting it mildly. But there are signs of hope, and there are people across the region who are willing to take up the baton of leadership. There are national institutions being born. We must support them, we must encourage them and we must not disengage. It would be absolutely fatal for this country to turn its back on the region and to think that we can thereby somehow insulate ourselves from the problems that are germinating there. We must engage, we must support the political process and we must be prepared to defend freedom and democracy where we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

If I may say so, perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s question demonstrates that he has a lack of understanding of what has taken place, because, as he will readily appreciate, the United States has not abrogated, or “junked”, the joint comprehensive plan of action. The JCPOA remains alive; it remains intact. It is our intention in this Government, working with our French and German friends, and with China and Russia, as well as with the rest of the European Union, to keep that deal alive, because that is in the interests of the whole world.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Even if the Americans have 100% reliable intelligence to find every single nuclear site and rocket launcher in North Korea, the regime has thousands of guns mounted in caves near the border ready to bomb Seoul. In these circumstances, will the Foreign Secretary encourage the Trump Administration to pursue diplomacy in Korea, as in Iran? To coin a nostrum, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The best way forward is to continue with what I think is the common policy on both sides of the House, which is to encourage the Chinese to intensify the economic pressure on Pyongyang with a view to getting it round the table, and that is what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to help support and deliver an effective departure for the UK from the EU.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to help support and deliver an effective departure for the UK from the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

My Department continues to support EU exit negotiations, and the Government work to strengthen our relations with partners worldwide. As a champion of free trade, we will continue to seize the opportunities afforded by Brexit and guarantee our long-term global prosperity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Today is the feast day of St Benedict, the patron saint of Europe, who famously warned about “murmuring in the community” against the abbess. Will my right hon. Friend please proclaim that we do not want any murmuring from anyone against our vision of an open, free trade Europe—the best possible free trade deal, leading the world towards free trade and untold prosperity?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. Members on both sides of the House know very well that 80% or 85% of us were elected on a very clear manifesto pledge to come out of the European Union, to come out of the single market and—as the leader of the Labour party has said—to come out of the customs union as well. Nothing could be clearer than that. I think that what the people of this country want us to do is get on and deliver a great Brexit, and I have no doubt that, with the support of Opposition Members, we can achieve it.

Syria and North Korea

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and he is right to draw attention to the cardinal role of Turkey in this whole crisis. As he knows, Turkey has borne the brunt of the huge tide of refugees, and I agree very much with what he is saying about no-fly zones, which are strongly supported by Rex Tillerson and the US. However, they cannot be delivered without a ceasefire, which is why I return to this challenge we are making to the Russians: it is up to them not just to stop the barrel bombs that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but to deliver a real ceasefire.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary rightly dealt at length with the chemical attack, but I was surprised he did not take the opportunity to condemn also the appalling attack on Shi’a civilians in which 126 were killed, including 68 children, when fleeing from Foah and Kefraya. This highlights the problem faced by Alawites, Shi’a and Christians in Syria: however much they detest Assad, as we all do, they rely on him to protect them. For too long in this House, we have tried to engage in regime change—in removing Saddam, Gaddafi and now Assad. We should concentrate on humanitarian work and on protecting minorities in the middle east.

[Boris Johnson]

I fully appreciate the point my hon. Friend makes and he is perfectly right when he says that our thoughts should equally be with the 126 victims of that appalling attack, many of whom were children, as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury said. There are many, many victims in this conflict, but the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 who have died in the past five or six years—I believe this war is now in its seventh year—have been victims of the Assad regime and its supporters. For that reason, I must say to my hon. Friend that I understand his hesitations, which are of course shared by many people, who think instinctively that perhaps it would be better to stay with the devil we know, but this is a very, very odious devil indeed, and as I look ahead I just cannot see how Bashar al-Assad can remain in power in Syria in the long term. We have to go back a long way in history to find somebody who has murdered quite so many of his population and retained office.

President Trump: State Visit

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

There are two ways in which those who agree that the state visit should go ahead can approach the debate. There is the argument along the lines of national self-interest, which is the relatively easy way, and there is the more difficult way: we have got to seek to understand what Mr Trump means to many people in America. I will start with the first. It seems obvious to me that great countries such as our own act in their own national self-interest, and they issue these invitations in order to further that self-interest.

Presumably, when we invited not one but two Presidents of China, we were prepared to overlook the fact that China is effectively a police state, that there is no freedom of expression, of movement or of association, and that there is outright religious persecution. In every single respect it is a state that does not share our values in any shape or form. Presumably, when we issued an invitation all those years ago to President Ceausescu and awarded him a knighthood, we felt it was in our national self-interest so to do. Indeed, we rescinded the award of the knighthood only on the day before he was executed by his own people.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point that there is not a great deal of consistency about the way in which we offer state visits, or for that matter the content of them. It was particularly useful when we offered one to the President of Colombia because that helped progress the peace process in Colombia. Would he not support the idea of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Procedure Committee doing a proper review of state visits so that we get it right for the future?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a perfectly valid point and I have no objection to it.

To continue the historical analogies, presumably when we invited President Mugabe, a racist homophobe, to have tea with the Queen, we were prepared to overlook his transgressions, and when we invited King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who presided over the ultimate misogynist state, presumably we felt that Saudi Arabia was an important ally of ours.

We have to be careful about what we wish for. Just think for a moment: if we listened to the petition—I accept that people have signed it in perfectly good faith, and it is a perfectly reasonable point of view—and accepted it and, as a result of the debate, we were to rescind the invitation, that would be catastrophic to our relationship with our closest ally. I will not labour that point, but surely my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has won the argument in the sense that our peace and security and the peace and security of the whole western world depends on our using influence with President Trump. I for one believe that our Prime Minister’s visit was an absolute triumph not only in furthering our national self-interest but by binding President Trump and his new Administration to NATO. We see the effects of that in terms of what the vice-president has been saying only this week. There is no doubt in my mind that it is in our national self-interest to accord respect and honour to our closest and greatest ally. Whether we like it or not, this man is the duly democratically elected leader of the free world.

To me, that is the easy argument to make, but I feel I have to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) in making what is probably a much more difficult and controversial argument. We had a debate a year ago on Mr Trump when speaker after speaker —even on the Conservative side—condemned him, saying he was outrageous. I was the only one who tried to understand the phenomenon and why people were supporting and voting for him. I made the point then, and will make it now, that it is unwise of us to try to transfer our own views and prejudices to the other side of the Atlantic. For instance, most people here think that I am on the far right of the political spectrum in this House, but here I am, a person who warmly supports gun control, who opposed the Iraq war and who relies entirely on the NHS. All of those things would make me an abomination in large parts of the Republican party. It is very foolish for us to lecture our conservative colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic about what is the right or improper nature of conservativism.

Mr Trump is not my sort of conservative—I have nothing in common with him—but let us look at some of his comments and the charge of misogyny. Of course, what he was reported as saying in a private conversation was horrible and ridiculous—I hope none of us would make those comments—but which one of us has not made some ridiculous sexual comment at some time in our past? [Hon. Members: “Me!”] Well, in private. Let he is without sin cast the first stone. He has apologised. That is not really a reason to withdraw an invitation.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I had better give way because someone is casting an aspersion.

[Hannah Bardell]

I cast no aspersions, but is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the comments made in public by Trump on a number of issues, including marriage equality for LGBT people, and his comments on sexual abuse and attacking women, which were made in private, recorded and then broadcast, are a legitimate perspective? Does he stand there and think it is acceptable to say in the Chamber and this House that that kind of position is acceptable?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I said precisely the opposite. As far as I know, I have never spoken like that and no friends of mine have ever spoken like that. I completely deplore it and find it ridiculous to speak like that in private. All I am saying is that most of us would be rather embarrassed if everything that we had ever said in private in our past was—

[Alex Salmond]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have given way twice, so I think I had better get on now. I knew this would be a difficult argument. It is easy to dodge it, but I think it is only fair to make it.

As regards the argument of racism, I do not believe there is any proof that the travel ban is racist. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world and there is no question of a travel ban on Indonesia. All the travel ban countries are riven by civil war and the travel ban builds on work done by President Obama, so to accuse the new President of the United States of racism, misogyny and all the rest is overstating it.

I knew that these arguments would be difficult to make, but the fact is that 61 million American people voted for Mr Trump and support him, like it or not. Even if he fills people with rage, the fact is that he is there. He is the duly elected President of the United States. Our interests rely absolutely on trying to influence the man, and on bringing him over here to tie him to our point of view. He would never be elected in this country—his views would have no traction. He would never become the leader of the Conservative party in this country. None of us would campaign along the lines he has campaigned on. We all disagree fundamentally with many things he has said, but he is there. He is elected. We have to work with him. That is why it would be a disaster if the invitation were rescinded.

[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]

US Immigration Policy

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am sure that the mood of the Chamber of the House of Commons will be reflected in all discussions about how the visit is to go ahead, but we should bear in mind that he is the elected Head of State of our closest and most important ally, and there is absolutely no reason why he should not be accorded a state visit, and every reason why he should.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Certainly, if we got the Queen to have tea with the President of China, I do not see why she should not have tea with the President of America. As all our security for 70 years depended on the special relationship, and with regard to our prosperity and a future trade deal, was not the visit of the Prime Minister an absolute triumph? We are all thoroughly proud of her. Is not the first fruit of this special relationship the fact that the Foreign Secretary has ensured the rights of British citizens?

[Boris Johnson]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the Prime Minister’s visit. I think it was a very great success, and the two evidently kindled an important relationship. The parallels that were drawn extensively in the US commentariat between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and our Prime Minister and the new American President were very apposite. We can look forward to a new era of security and stability, working together with the US.

Human Rights: Burma

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the UK Government’s representations to the Burmese Government. As I noted, we have made representations at both ministerial and ambassadorial level. He talks about the representations that the Foreign Secretary will make. I will ensure that the Foreign Secretary is aware of what is said in this House, as I am sure he already is. He cares very deeply about Burma, and the fact that he is going out there very soon should give the right hon. Gentleman a great deal of comfort.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the UN, and I stated the position on that: we support the UN special rapporteur. He will know that we have also been supportive of the Human Rights Council, but this is about building multilateral support for actions, and that is where we seek to work together with other partners.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Years ago, during the time of the Labour Government, I organised a debate in Westminster Hall about the persecution of the Karen people, which has been a long-standing serious situation. Those people gave us unstinting loyalty during the second world war, and they have been repaid with persecution ever since. What further steps can the Government take on that persecution, to ensure that the human rights of the Karen are protected?

[Alok Sharma]

Collectively in this House, we all care deeply about human rights, wherever they may be being affected. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me, I would be happy to take up that specific issue, but I make the general point that human rights absolutely matter to this House, to the Government and to the British people, and will continue to be at the forefront of everything the Foreign Office does.

Aleppo

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

Following Rwanda, a new international initiative establishing a duty of care was agreed, under which the international community would not stand by when a leader chose to kill his own people. That agreement was introduced so that comments about acts of genocide and other phrases that came out at the time could no longer be used to justify the hesitancy of the international community to step forward. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we bypass certain legal processes to move forward. In Kosovo, we had troops on the ground and we had collective international, regional and local support. In Kurdistan, a UN resolution backed the action taken there. He has raised a profound question. Should we go into a situation to do the right thing, even though we do not have international legal cover because such cover has been vetoed by a P5 member at every opportunity?

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am sure that the Minister is right—for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—to rule out unilateral action, but what did he mean by his attacks on the Labour Front Bench and on people like me who refused to support military action in Syria? What could possibly be achieved by more bombs falling on that benighted country? Surely, our priority should be peace. We should condemn violence wherever it comes from, including the terrible violence inflicted by the Assad regime and the attack on a school in western Aleppo, which has not been widely reported. I hope that the Minister will condemn that attack. If our priority is to strive for peace and end violence, we have to accept—whether we like it or not—that the appalling Assad and his Russian backers are going to stay. We must therefore drop our demand for them to go. We have to engage with everyone—Assad, the Russians, the Sunni rebels—to try to get peace, because that is what the people want.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is familiar with the complex make-up of Syria today given all its history. Once we move forward from this situation, it is likely that there will be a federal model that recognises the country’s differences and groupings. We face a situation today in which Russia is backing and placing all its money on the existing regime. It has a connection and relationship that goes back to 1946, which needs to be honoured and reflected. I say to the Russians—to Bogdanov, to Lavrov and to Putin—that they should have that relationship with the people of Syria, not the Syrian regime. They should have a conversation with Dr Riyad Hijab, the co-ordinator of the free Syrian opposition, and then move forward from there, so that Russia can continue to have a sphere of influence without attaching itself to the tyrant that is President Assad.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As I repeatedly told the House, we may be leaving the EU but we are not leaving Europe, and we are certainly not leaving the EU for a small time to come. In that time, we are fully paid-up members and it is my view that we should take part to the full, including in such cultural co-operation as the hon. Gentleman describes—and we will do so. We will also continue to take part in such European cultural ventures beyond our exit from the EU.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T3. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that a radical free marketeer, admirer of Mrs Thatcher, opponent of Maastricht, Catholic, social conservative cannot be an entirely bad egg? So will he give his félicitations to François Fillon for his progress so far in the presidential elections—after all, he is a great anglophile—and in doing so underline that our priority must be good relations with our nearest and dearest ally?

[Mr Speaker]

Until the hon. Gentleman named the name, I thought he was about to make a job application.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the Foreign Secretary take this opportunity to welcome the visit this week of Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is meeting the Queen? I know a bit about Russian Orthodoxy, having been married within the Church. The Russian Orthodox Church has suffered appallingly, particularly in Soviet times, but it is growing now. This is an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary to make it clear that whatever our differences with the Russian Government at the moment, we have absolutely nothing but support for the Russian people and her faith, and their perseverance in times of trial.

[Boris Johnson]

I defer to my hon. Friend’s knowledge of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is important that we keep open all lines of communication. Archbishop Kirill may have some interesting points to make. It would be even more important if he took back a message from the UK that we do not tolerate what is happening in Crimea, in eastern Ukraine, and, above all, in Syria. I hope that his visit will be a factor for change in the Kremlin.