Counter-Daesh Update

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

May I say that our first thoughts are with the members of our armed forces who are involved in the campaign against Daesh and who every day put their lives on the line in the service of their country? We also recognise the heroism of Flight Lieutenant Thomas Hansford. We owe them all a very great debt.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement for this, the first supposed quarterly update on Daesh since 3 July, almost seven months ago. That is all the proof we need—if we need it—that this truly is a Government who do not know their quarters from their halves or their halves from their elbows. There is a serious point, though, because the commitment to provide Parliament with quarterly updates on the campaign against Daesh was included in the motion on which this House voted when it authorised intervention in Syria. It is not acceptable that we have had to wait for more than half a year for this statement, and I hope the Foreign Secretary will apologise for that failure to comply with the terms of the 2015 motion.

In the time I have, I wish to ask the Foreign Secretary to address a much more serious and profound issue regarding the status of the 2015 motion. As the whole House will recall, that motion stated explicitly that it was designed to

“eradicate the safe haven”—

that ISIL had—

“established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria”.—[Official Report, 2 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 323.]

During the debate in December 2015, the former Prime Minister repeatedly made it clear that the motion had been worded in that way explicitly to address the concerns of Members that this military action should not lead to a wider open-ended intervention in Syria. That was the rationale on which many Members supported the motion, and now we are in a position where we have been told that that rationale no longer exists by the President of the United States himself, who claims that Daesh has been all but destroyed and that, as a result, US troops will be withdrawn within a matter of weeks.

Before we get to the implications of that announcement for our own engagement in Syria, may I ask the Foreign Secretary to address the implications for Kurdish cities and towns in northern Syria? Does he agree that, after all the sacrifices made by Kurdish forces in the war against Daesh, and still being made by them today, it would be a disgrace for America and the world if they were now abandoned and left to the mercy of Turkey and its militias? Will he make it clear that that will be avoided at all costs?

Next, what estimate has the Foreign Secretary made of the remaining strength of the Daesh forces still in Syria in terms of numbers and firepower and does he agree with the White House that it is just a matter of weeks until they are destroyed? Furthermore, does he agree with the President’s conclusion that, once those Daesh remnants have been destroyed, the coalition’s military engagement in Syria can be brought to an end?

We are all aware that many people, including President Trump’s own advisers, strongly oppose that conclusion and argue that an ongoing military presence is required to prevent the re-emergence of Daesh until such a time as Syria is peaceful and stable, with a new, strong and unifying Government in place who are able to tackle the threat on their own. Indeed, many of the President’s advisers argue that continued military presence is necessary for other reasons, including the need to contain Iran. However, if the Foreign Secretary subscribes to the views of the President’s advisers, rather than the President himself, can he spell out for us where, in the 2015 motion, it was made clear to the House that our intervention was not just designed to eradicate the safe haven established by Daesh, but would include maintaining an open-ended military commitment in Syria in case Daesh should ever return? Given that that was never the policy that this House was asked to support, will the Foreign Secretary accept that the 2015 mandate for military action will need to be renewed if our engagement in Syria is going to continue even after those Daesh remnants have been destroyed?

I am afraid that I must close by asking the Foreign Secretary about the civilian death toll from coalition airstrikes in Syria. As he will know, there is a large disparity between the official military estimate of just over 1,000 civilian deaths, and the estimates produced by organisations such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which puts the toll at 3,300, including 1,400 women and children. May I ask the Foreign Secretary what estimates the Government have made of the true level of civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes and, based on the investigations into those airstrikes, how many does he estimate have sadly been caused by British planes and British drones?

[Mr Hunt]

First, I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for the tone of her questions. I will do my best to answer them as clearly as I can. I apologise for the fact that we did not keep the House updated as frequently as we promised and that this statement is long overdue, so she has my apology without reservation for that. We did lay a written statement just before Christmas, but that is not good enough; the commitment was to verbal statements.

The right hon. Lady is correct in what she said about the 2015 motion. There is a very important matter that we need to address in my response to her comments. The motion did talk about eradicating safe havens, but it is very important to say that the territorial defeat of Daesh does not mean the defeat of Daesh. The President of the United States has talked about a territorial defeat. Daesh now holds just a few square kilometres of the Middle Euphrates valley, so its territory has come down massively from an area nearly the size of the United Kingdom, and it is possible that it will lose that even this week, according to some of the comments that the President has made. But that does not mean that it will be defeated. However, it also does not mean that we are saying to the House that our commitment to a military campaign is indeterminate. The right hon. Lady used the phrase “open-ended military commitment” and that it is not. We are committed to the defeat of Daesh in Syria. That is what the mandate is and we will stick to that mandate.

The right hon. Lady talked about the Kurdish SDF fighters. I want to put on record to this House the incredible courage of those fighters. I stand in the House today to report what I think most Members would consider to be an extraordinary and—dare I say it—rare success in foreign policy, whereby it is possible to see an evil organisation a shadow of its former self. That would not have been possible without the incredible courage of the SDF fighters. It would absolutely not be acceptable to this House, the Government or the country were there to be adverse consequences to those fighters from other regional powers. I had that discussion with the United States when I visited there on 24 January, and it shares that view. Indeed, Turkey also knows our opinion on that issue. The SDF plays an important role for us right now, because it holds a number of foreign fighters captive and is responsible for looking after them, so its role will continue to be extremely important for some time.

In this battle, it is important not to claim victory too quickly. If we do so, we risk Daesh re-establishing a territorial foothold. Indeed, concerns are already being expressed that that is beginning to happen in parts of Iraq now. We do not want to declare victory too quickly only to find shortly afterwards that the very thing that we thought we had defeated is back. That is why we need to continue until we are confident that Daesh will not be able to establish a territorial foothold, but that is not an open-ended commitment. This is a military commitment to make sure that the military job is properly completed.

On the deaths from coalition strikes, I am not aware that the Government have an internal estimate that is different from the estimates that the right hon. Lady told the House, but I will find out and write to her, if I may.

I fully recognise that the whole matter of military intervention overseas is a very difficult issue for many Members of this House. It is something that this House takes its responsibilities on extremely seriously, and that we rightly debate very carefully. I think that we can all think of military interventions that have not been successful in the way that was promised, but this is not in that category. This is a military intervention—not by Britain alone, but with a global coalition of allies—that has been extremely successful in reducing the threat to British citizens. It has also been one in which Britain played a particularly important role, because we led the part of the campaign that was countering Daesh disinformation and online propaganda, which was one of the main recruiting sergeants. We can, as the right hon. Lady rightly did, pay enormous credit to the members of our armed services who have done such a remarkable job.