Global Britain and the International Rules-based Order

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Foreign Affairs Committee for initiating this vital and timely debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed to it this afternoon. I will say more about those contributions in a moment, but at the outset, I believe that this is an apt debate in which to pay tribute to the great Kofi Annan, who sadly passed away three weeks ago. I was looking back at a speech that he made to this Parliament in 2007 to mark 200 years since the abolition of the British slave trade. What he said that day resonates just as strongly now. He talked about the men and women who fought to abolish the slave trade, saying that they

“represented a moral truth…a moral passion that must at first have seemed utterly impracticable. Yet by persistence, by resolve, by eloquence, and by imagination, they changed history. They showed that moral suasion could prevail over narrow self-interest.”

For me, this entire debate today boils down to that same basic challenge. When we talk about global Britain, do we just mean aggressively pursuing our economic self-interest around the world in the shape of trade deals? Or do we believe in a Britain that acts as a global force for moral truth, moral passion and moral suasion and that seeks to change the world in which we live? We only have one planet.

When we talk of a rules-based international order, do we mean that those rules should be applied equally, consistently and with the same moral force to all countries, whether friend or foe, or do we decide in practice that there is one set of rules that we rightly apply with great vigour when it comes to countries such as Russia, Syria, Libya, Venezuela or Iran but another that we apply to America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel or China? That is the crux of today’s debate and why I have been so interested to hear speeches from both sides of the House. I applaud the many excellent contributions about Russia and the crimes committed by agents of the Russian state on our soil.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) rightly challenged the Government about suspicious deaths of Russians that have happened in the UK over the past few years, and he called again for those investigations to be reconsidered. He is right that the evidence is clear that there is no doubt of the culpability of the Russian state in the Salisbury poisonings. We also heard a condemnation of Russia from the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he was quite right to do so. I was particularly interested to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), who is creative and used lateral thinking in his contribution, which was of great value. I did not necessarily agree with all of it, but it is important to have people with an independence of thought who can help to inform not just the Government’s thinking but, frankly, that of the Opposition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) is right to say that, given that we continue to recklessly warm up our planet, it only has any chance if we work together with internationally recognised rules. At a time when the very rules that we have been abiding by until now seem to be being undermined, we must also face the challenge of having to develop new rules in order to maintain the planet on which we all live. I was very impressed by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez)—I hope that this is not a blight on her career—and her extremely thoughtful speech. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said many things that we agree with, particularly about the importance of a change of policy on Yemen and the importance of us having a proactive role with regard to the Rohingya.

All the speeches were timely, not just because of yesterday’s revelations, but due to several other factors that we must discuss today. We are living through a period in which the world order and the international rules that are supposed to underpin it are under greater threat than at any time since the 1930s. In every instance, the problems that we face come down to countries simply ignoring the rules that should govern our world. From Venezuela and the Philippines to Turkey and Egypt, we see the rule of law ignored. What were once democratically elected Governments have turned into autocratic regimes. From Yemen and Myanmar to Cameroon and South Sudan, we see the indiscriminate killing of civilians in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law. From the battlefields of Syria to the streets of Wiltshire, we see the convention on chemical weapons brazenly ignored and innocent victims injured and killed.

In North Korea, despite Donald Trump’s efforts, and in Iran, because of Donald Trump’s efforts, we see the threat of hostile states becoming nuclear states in breach of the non-proliferation treaties. In Russia, Israel and the United States, we see three leaders behaving as if none of the normal laws applies to them and actively trying to undermine the institutions that uphold them. Faced with such challenges, it is incumbent on us all to stand up for the world order, to stand up for human rights and international treaties, and to insist on working for peace through the United Nations. We cannot do that if the concept of global Britain, if our entire foreign policy approach, is not driven by values, ethics, rules and principles but is a simple case of what works best for our balance sheet.

For example, on 7 June 2018 The Guardian ran a special feature on the brutal campaign of violence by the regime of Cameroon’s President Biya against English-speaking communities in the west of the country, which was formerly known as British Cameroon. We owe those communities a historical responsibility. The Guardian quoted the ordinary men and women who saw their villages attacked by Biya’s military, who saw their neighbours and family members killed and who were forced to flee for their lives. It quoted the charity workers who are looking after thousands of displaced women and children, for whom they warned that going home would be suicide.

By any normal moral standard, the UK Government would be expected to be appalled by those reports, but not this Government. The very next day after that report was published the British Secretary of State for International Trade announced a £1.5 billion deal with a British natural gas company and President Biya’s regime, a deal which, in the words of the Department for International Trade’s press release, will generate a “huge revenue stream” for Cameroon’s public treasury. Cameroon’s regime is ranked as the 25th most corrupt in the world. Its ruler, in his 43rd year of autocratic power and with personal wealth of more than $200 million, is engaged in a systematic campaign of brutality and killings against the English-speaking community in his country, and all the UK Government can do is boast of doing trade deals that will only enrich him further. That is what this Government mean by global Britain.

Under the previous Foreign Secretary we saw the same approach over and again, where the sole consideration on every foreign policy issue was how to help British businesses make a quick buck. We saw that in Libya with his horrific talk of British developers turning the country into a paradise of beach resorts just as soon as they could clear away the dead bodies of the Libyans who died fighting Daesh. We saw it again in Yemen, where there was literally nothing Saudi Arabia could do—not using starvation as a weapon of war; not cutting off supplies of food, clean water and medicine; not bombing farms, schools and hospitals; and not killing thousands of innocent men, women and children—that would persuade the former Foreign Secretary even to suspend the supply of arms for use in that conflict, pending a proper war crimes investigation.

We saw it in Myanmar with the Rohingya, where the former Foreign Secretary toured the killing fields of Rakhine state and called out what he saw as industrial ethnic cleansing, but he refused to take the next logical step of asking the UN Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. The Government were afraid of upsetting China and jeopardising future trade deals.

[Mr Seely]

The shadow Minister makes an interesting and valid point about moral equality. I accept that, but it is slightly concerning that your side of the House tends to focus on Yemen a great deal.

[Mr Seely]

I apologise. The right hon. Lady’s side of the House focuses on Yemen a great deal. Does she understand the difference between the Saudis doing something badly and the Syrians, with their Russian support, bombing hospitals as a deliberate policy? There is a moral intent, which is different. One may criticise the Saudis for being sloppy and not valuing human life enough, but there is a difference.

[Emily Thornberry]

Dead is dead. Whether a person has been killed because those with the bombs have been behaving recklessly or doing it intentionally, they are still dead, and it is still in breach of international humanitarian law to do either. I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but we should strive to apply international law to countries equally. The idea of balancing one above the other is a slippery road.

In the end, the rule of law is one whereby we treat everyone equally before the law. If people have breached international law, they have breached international law and they should be held to account for that. That is my view and indeed it is our policy.

I was talking about Myanmar and the Rohingya, but then I wanted to move on to talk about Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Honduras and Sudan. The list goes on and on, and always with the same common factor: under the former Foreign Secretary, if there was a trade deal to be done, any concern for human rights and international rules would go out of the window. Above all, we saw it in his consistent policy, and that of the Prime Minister, towards Donald Trump: every abuse of human rights has been tolerated; every effort to destroy international treaties has been indulged; every attack on the UN has been pampered; and every mild criticism of him by this Government has had to be forced out of them, usually after 48 hours. Whatever Trump has done, this Government’s hand has remained outstretched, all in the hope of some mythical free trade deal to solve the almighty mess they are making of Brexit.

Even though the new Foreign Secretary has not taken part in today’s debate, I genuinely hope he will usher in a change of approach from that of his predecessor. The test will be whether he can show, through his actions rather than his words, that “global Britain” is about more than trade and that it is also about morality, values and principles. If we want to have a world order based on international rules, we must apply the same rules not just to Russia, but equally to every country, whether or not we have military alliances with them, whether or not we trade with them and whether or not Donald Trump wants us to. That is the only way we can restore what Kofi Annan called for, which was “moral truth”, “moral passion” and “moral persuasion”, to our country’s foreign policy. If this Government cannot do that, it is about time they made way for a Government who will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am very happy to make all consular assistance available to the hon. Lady’s constituent.

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

I join Members from throughout the House in welcoming the new Foreign Secretary to his place; I genuinely hope that he will bring a more constructive tone in debating foreign policy challenges around the world and a more proactive attitude when it comes to resolving them. With that in mind, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has shown such strong concern over last week’s United Nations report on the actions of the Myanmar military against the Rohingya. I hear that he will be visiting Myanmar at the earliest opportunity to seek answers, but I am not sure what he means by that. The evidence is damning and the conclusions obvious, so what questions does he believe still need to be asked?

[Mr Hunt]

First, I should say that it is a great pleasure to have the right hon. Lady shadowing me. As Health Secretary, I was shadowed by four different shadow Secretaries of State; I hope the right hon. Lady will stay long enough for us to really get to know each other.

Things need to happen if we are to deal with these very serious issues. It is important that I visit Burma/Myanmar to meet the military and Aung San Suu Kyi and see for myself the situation on the ground. But there are things that we can do only in concert with other countries: one is referral to the International Criminal Court, which can come only if there is a consensus on the Security Council. There is a huge amount of work for Britain to do—both individually, as we are doing with our aid support, and with other countries.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer. I listened carefully to his earlier explanation of the long, hard road to a referral to the International Criminal Court, but we have not been afraid in the past to support resolutions to refer Syria to the ICC and expose Russia in the court of public opinion when it vetoes them. Why are we not prepared to do the same with China? In 2005, China and the United States abstained on Darfur rather than using their vetoes—the weight of public opinion can be a powerful tool.

With all due respect to the Foreign Secretary, if he wants to mark a genuine break with his predecessor, instead of travelling to Myanmar to ask more questions to which we already have the answers, why does he not just travel to New York and demand justice through the United Nations?

[Mr Hunt]

With the greatest respect to my new shadow, that is exactly what I am going to do and what I have said I will do. I will be in the margins of the UN General Assembly raising the issue with my counterparts from the other permanent members of the Security Council. But I also want to visit Burma/Myanmar, and I think I will be able to make a stronger case if I do.

Syria

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He of course was at the forefront of the initial aid effort in Syria, when he was Secretary of State for International Development and I was his hard-worked minion in that Department, at the beginning of the conflict. He is absolutely right that we have to maintain access for humanitarian efforts. We have so far committed £2.71 billion in response to this crisis. We have provided over 27 million food rations, 12 million medical consultations, 10 million relief packages and over 10 million vaccines. We are going to continue with our efforts. At the Brussels conference in April, we pledged to provide at least £450 million this year and a further £300 million next year to help to alleviate the extreme suffering in Syria and to provide vital support to neighbouring countries, which have taken up so much of the consequential effects of this horrid conflict.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I apologise for my lateness.

Before I say anything else, I am sure the whole House will join me in sending our thoughts to those affected by the fires in Greece and the floods in Laos. We send our best wishes to the authorities in those countries which are responding to those tragedies.

Mr Speaker, thank you for granting this urgent question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing it and on bringing to the House such important and impassioned insights from her recent visit to the Turkish border, along with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely). I can only endorse what she says in terms of the need to increase flows of medical supplies and equipment to those doctors and first responders working to save civilian lives in Syria. I thank the Minister for his response on that point, but I would like to reiterate one specific question asked by my hon. Friend, about the safety of the doctors. She talked about doctors feeling as though they had targets on their backs. I think that is something we need to respond to specifically.

As we all know, no amount of medical supplies and equipment will be sufficient if we reach the point in coming weeks where Assad and his foreign backers seek to capture not just Idlib but northern Latakia. If the assaults go ahead, the loss of life in those areas will be catastrophic, and the humanitarian crisis from civilians fleeing the violence will be just as devastating. The question is: what are we doing, in this country and as an international community, to prevent that from happening? I believe, as most Members do, that the only solution guaranteed to stop that loss of life and to end the suffering of the Syrian people is a peace deal brokered between all parties and predicated on the withdrawal of all foreign powers.

That, however, raises another grave question: who will broker such a deal? It simply cannot be left to the Russians, the Iranians and the Turks to stitch up an agreement between themselves, and it cannot be left to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump to decide Syria’s fate in a room by themselves. We need the resumption of the Geneva peace process. We need all parties around that table and we need to protect the interests of all communities, including our Kurdish allies. against Daesh; otherwise, they risk being sold down the river once again. I therefore ask the Minister what progress is being towards the urgent resumption of those talks?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I echo the right hon. Lady’s expressions of concern about the fires in Greece and the floods in Laos. She is of course absolutely right. We are all very saddened to learn that a country to which so many of our own citizens go at this time of year has already suffered 50 deaths as a result of raging fires in this period of very dry weather.

I omitted to respond to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on the question of the 21 doctors who had written to the Foreign Secretary. The letter has been received and has been passed to the Secretary of State for International Development, who will answer in due course in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

The right hon. Lady is right that there can only be a political settlement, but there is no magic wand that the UK can wave on its own to try to solve the problem. It has been one of the most protracted and insoluble conflicts I have ever seen, as someone who has watched the middle east and the near east for over 30 years. It is the one to which there is no obvious answer, compared with so many of the difficult protracted differences that exist in the region. More territory is controlled now by Mr Assad and his associates than before. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that Idlib and the north-west is now particularly vulnerable. We are perhaps seeing movements towards the foot of the Golan Heights near Quneitra where, if there is a conflict with the Israelis, it would obviously be very serious indeed. Ultimately, the solution is a political one. That means the United Nations and engagement of a sort with Russia, which I am sorry that Russian actions have put into reverse over the past few months. But a political effort with all responsible and interested countries is the only way to overcome this conflict.

Demolition of Khan al-Ahmar

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The short answer to the last part of my right hon. Friend’s question is yes. The wider issue that he raised—and he put this extremely well in the Westminster Hall debate last week—was the contrast between an Israel for which many of us feel very deeply, and which we believe has many admirable qualities, and some of its actions which seem to go against that history and culture, and about which we have a sense of deep concern and sometimes bemusement. I know that it will have its reasons to defend its actions, and it is for the Israeli Government to do that, but the rest of us are disappointed and very perplexed today.

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

Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who chairs the Britain-Palestine all-party parliamentary group, on securing it.

Just a week ago, when the Minister spoke about Khan al-Ahmar—it is a village that both of us have visited, and I know that he has worked on this issue assiduously—he agreed that, if the village were demolished, if its 181 residents were forcibly removed, and if their homes and their school were razed to the ground to make way for new illegal Israeli settlements, that action would

“call into question the viability of a two-state solution. ”

It could, he said, be construed as

“a breach of international humanitarian law”.

However, he also said:

“It is still possible for any demolition not to go ahead. ”—[Official Report, 26 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 744.]

A week on, I am afraid that—as we all know—we are no longer dealing in woulds, coulds and possibilities. We are dealing with the reality: the reality that this forcible eviction and demolition, this breach of international law, this hammer blow to the two-state solution, is taking place as we sit here today.

We are all tired of asking what can be done to cajole or compel the Netanyahu Government to start listening to their international allies, to start complying with UN resolutions on settlements, or to start acting with some basic fairness and justice on the issue of building permits. That is all increasingly just a waste of breath. I therefore wish to ask the Minister two different questions today, which I believe are more worth while.

Does the Minister share my concerns that we are fast approaching a dangerous place where even some respected Palestinian figures are moving away from the idea of a two-state solution towards seeking democratic control over a single state, with all the implications that that would have for the potential Israeli minority? If he does share those concerns, will he also agree with me that before that shift in opinion can take hold, and before the actions of the Netanyahu Government render a two-state solution a geographical impossibility, this is the time for the United Kingdom to lead the major nations of the world in recognising the Palestinian state, and to do so immediately, while there is still a state left to recognise?

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the right hon. Lady for what she has said. I agree with many of her remarks. The danger that she identifies of a two-state solution slipping away has, of course, been potentially real for some time. Individual actions such as this are doubly difficult to understand and accept at a time when we have all been anticipating a development that would be workable and allow us to move forward.

No one quite knows what the boundaries of a future state might be, but we all have a sense of what the parameters would be. That is why the concerns about the E1 area outside Jerusalem have been so important and have perhaps led to some restraint over the years. But if that is to go, what is left and what is next? So that is what we need to do. As I said a moment ago, we are currently in conversation with like-minded European partners about what the response should be and there are a number of options, but the best thing we should be thinking through is what option preserves the important chances there still are for a two-state solution, which has been so long sought for and is still in the mind of the UK the only viable possibility of providing both justice for the Palestinians in some measure and security for the state of Israel. If there is a different answer, I, in 30 years, have not heard it.

Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. As he rightly says, he was the Minister who made statements to the House on whether there should be a judge-led inquiry. Indeed, as Justice Secretary, he made a statement in January 2012, and as Minister without Portfolio, he made a further statement in December 2013. In the further statement, there was a slight measure of doubt about whether there would indeed be a judge-led inquiry. He said:

“It will then ​be possible for the Government to take a final view as to whether a further judicial inquiry still remains necessary”—[Official Report, 19 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 916.]

That remains the case. As I said earlier, the Government will give careful consideration to whether a judge-led inquiry is necessary.

I say again to my right hon. and learned Friend that this inquiry has gone on for very many years—his statements about the judge-led inquiry were made in 2012 and 2013, and here we are in 2018. I take issue with his use of the word “complicity”, which I think was a notch too strong. I think that it is honest to say that the ISC found no evidence that agencies had deliberately turned a blind eye.

Perhaps the main issue here is whether in our intelligence agencies it would be right, 15 years after the event, to take someone who was then a junior operative in the field and put them in front of a judge-led inquiry. It is senior people who should take responsibility. Whether someone who was then of a lower rank should be subjected to such an inquiry 15 years later is, I think, one of the serious question that must be asked before a decision is made.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this hugely important urgent question. I congratulate the Father of the House on securing it. Today, as on so many other matters, he has spoken a truth, logic and wisdom that transcends all party divides and will, I hope, be listened to by his own Government.

The ISC report lays bare the sheer scale of our country’s involvement in torture and rendition. In doing so, it vindicates those who for years sought to expose these facts—investigative journalists, civil liberties campaigners and Members of this House—and who were right to claim that the full truth was being hidden. As detailed as the report is, it still does not give us the full truth, and we will not have the full truth until we have a full and independent judicial inquiry—an inquiry with access to all available evidence and the ability to question directly the military and intelligence officers involved. I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about junior officers, but we expect that of police officers, for example, when there are investigations. We expect police officers of all ranks to answer questions and the same should apply here.

We also need to have access to all the Ministers and security chiefs who oversaw those activities. Like all such inquiries, we do not need it just to examine what went wrong in the past; we need it to learn lessons for the future and to provide recommendations that cannot simply be ignored by the Government. Most importantly, we need it to ensure that never again is the UK involved in these illegal and barbaric acts.

I ask the Minister today to listen to the ISC, to listen to the Father of the House and to listen to the united voice of the Opposition parties in this House, because we all recognise the need for a comprehensive investigation of the UK’s involvement in torture and rendition and the use of secret courts, with unfettered access to all potential evidence and witnesses. Many in this House have great confidence in Judge Adrian Fulford, but in my view anything that is inquired into should be done in a way that is structured and formal.

We all recognise the need for a public consultation of civil liberties groups on the current consolidated guidance to identify the gaps and grey areas that have allowed these abuses to happen and to recommend the changes that must be made, so that we can all be confident that they are not happening now and can never happen again. But we also all recognise that, to achieve these things, there is only one course of action: we urgently need, and the country is owed, a full judicial inquiry.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I listened very carefully to what the right hon. Lady said and I would be grateful if she thought again about the words she used when she accused officials in our agencies—I think that I quote accurately—of being “involved in torture”. They were not involved in torture, so I really think the right hon. Lady may want to come back to the House and say that, actually, that is an inaccurate accusation.

These were very unique times. The twin towers had been blown up in the biggest terrorist attack we have seen. It went right to the heart of the United States psyche, and there was inevitably going to be a very strong and strict response. We are, of course, very close allies of the United States and work very closely with them on intelligence matters. What the response led to was a lot of officers being asked to do things that they had not been trained for and had never encountered before. It took time to understand that there were certain practices going on which required new rules. Perhaps, if there is a fault, it is the time it took for that appreciation to dawn. But once it did, I think it is of credit to this country and our intelligence agencies that they reviewed their practices, revised them and adjusted as best they could to the new world in which they were working.

The right hon. Lady says that I should listen to the ISC. I can say that I have done so, as I was on the Committee. Not only did I listen to it, but many of those interviewed also had to listen to me. The inquisition and witness sessions of the Committee, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), were very robust indeed. I also say to her that Adrian Fulford is part of a structured and formal apparatus. The fact that the Prime Minister has said that he should look at the consolidated guidance in the way that she has is, I think, addressing some of the outstanding issues, which, quite rightly, the House would like to see studied.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point. Thankfully, President Trump’s writ does not run in this country. We run our own affairs, we make our points to the President of the United States, and we do so with vigour where we disagree. The Prime Minister and I disagree with what he has been doing over the separation of kids from their parents. It is right for the UK to speak out over that and we will.

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

May I first sympathise with the Foreign Secretary that, due to his emergency duties abroad, he was unable to join last night’s fight against Heathrow expansion? Four years ago, the Foreign Secretary was asked what was the biggest lesson he had learned—[Interruption.] Four years ago, he was asked what was the biggest lesson he had learned from his supposed hero Winston Churchill. His answer was:

“Never give in, never give in, never give in”.

For some reason, Churchill did not add, “Unless you can catch a plane to Kabul.” The Foreign Secretary clearly has a new hero, and we know who he is—the clue is in the hair. He said on 6 June that he is “increasingly admiring” of Donald Trump. He has begun to tell us some of the reasons why, but could he help those of us who are yet to be convinced by telling us three things about the current President that he increasingly admires?

[Boris Johnson]

I hesitate to say it, but I have anticipated the right hon. Lady’s question. I have pointed out, No.1, that it was admirable that Donald Trump’s Administration responded after the chemical weapons attacks by the Assad regime supported by the Russians. It is a good thing that the United States is trying, and trying very hard, to solve the problem of a nuclear-armed North Korea. I admire at least the President’s efforts in that respect. It is also a good thing that the President is encouraging our European friends and partners to spend more on their own defence. We will certainly assist in that effort.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his attempt to answer that question, but even he surely knows in the depths of his soul that when we have a President such as Donald Trump who bans Muslims and supports Nazis, who stokes conflict and fuels climate change, and who abuses women and cages children, it is not a record to be admired, but a record to be abhorred. I simply ask the Foreign Secretary not just why he joked that a man like that should be in charge of our Brexit negotiations, but why he seriously thinks that he should have the honour in two weeks’ time of visiting Chequers, Blenheim Palace and Windsor Castle, and of shaking hands with Her Majesty the Queen.

[Boris Johnson]

I have given several examples already of the ways in which our views coincide with those of the current American Administration. I have also said that, where our views differ, we are not afraid to say it. The fundamental point, on which the right hon. Lady and I are in complete agreement, is that it is right that the United Kingdom should welcome to this country the Head of State of our most important and most trusted ally. She is on record as saying that in the past. If she now dissents from that view, it would be surprising, and I would be interested to hear it from her own lips.

[Emily Thornberry]

I would like to answer but unfortunately I do not have any more time.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the Foreign Secretary knows that the right hon. Lady has had her two questions, and therefore that it would not be legitimate to put a third on this occasion. There may be other occasions. We come now to Question 2 and we need to speed up.

Gaza: UN Human Rights Council Vote

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I thank my right hon. Friend. We have made our position clear about the HRC on a number of occasions. We have expressed concern that elements of the HRC’s work have been clearly biased against Israel and that detracts from the other good work that it does. We will continue to maintain that position, but equally, if this inquiry is not the right vehicle, there must be another.

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

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) on securing it. I join him in welcoming the independent UN investigation into violence in Gaza. While we have already heard debate about the wording of the resolution agreed by the Human Rights Council, I have to say, as I did last week, that that debate is frankly immaterial as long as the objective of setting up an independent investigation is achieved.

The issue today is why the British Government, which claimed repeatedly last Tuesday to support that objective, chose three days later not to vote for it. The crux of that decision was made clear in the Government’s statement on Friday, which called for the Israeli authorities to be allowed to conduct their own so-called independent inquiry. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, I am afraid we should not be remotely surprised. After all, this is the Government that say that Saudi Arabia should be allowed to investigate itself for bombing weddings in Yemen. This is the Government that say that Bahrain should be left to investigate itself for torturing children in prisons. Time and time again we see this: if you are an ally of the Government, you get away with breaking international law with impunity, and you are also allowed to be your own judge and jury, too.

Before the Minister gets up and extols the virtue of the Netanyahu Government, may I remind him of the last time that that Government were allowed to investigate themselves over an alleged breach of international law? In July 2014, four children were blown to pieces on Gaza beach while playing hide and seek in a fisherman’s hut. And the resulting investigation: a blatant piece of nonsense, full of basic untruths, exonerating the IDF completely and saying that the old fisherman’s hut was in fact a Hamas compound. That is what an independent investigation by Israel looks like. That, instead of an international commission of inquiry, is what this Government on Friday decided to support, and that is nothing short of a disgrace.

[Alistair Burt]

Of course I read the right hon. Lady’s tweets over the course of the weekend. I remind her that among the other Governments that she was calling disgusting are those of Germany, Japan and, as I said, four other EU partners. It shows how careful we have to be in relation to this. Let me quote what the United Kingdom said in relation to the explanation of vote:

“Our abstention must not be misconstrued. The UK fully supports, and recognises the need for an independent and transparent investigation into the events that have taken place in recent weeks, including the extent to which Israeli security forces’ rules of engagement are in line with international law and the role Hamas played in events. The loss of life, casualties and volume of live fire presents a depressingly familiar and unacceptable pattern. This cannot be ignored.

To that end, in addition to abstaining on today’s resolution, we call directly on Israel to make clear its intentions and carry out what must be a transparent inquiry into the IDF’s conduct at the border fence and to demonstrate how this will achieve a sufficient level of independence. This investigation should include international members. The death toll alone warrants such a comprehensive inquiry.”

If we want to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened, I maintain that the HRC resolution was not the way to do it. We want the inquiry to succeed. That, we believe, is what we defended last week and will continue to pursue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

May I begin by thanking the Foreign Secretary for leading our cross-party efforts over the last two weeks to destroy the Prime Minister’s “customs partnership” proposal? I trust that he finished off the job earlier this morning. Unfortunately, however, that leaves us with his own crazy Mad Max—I mean max fac—proposal. May I ask him a very simple yes or no question, which has already been asked several times by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee? Does he believe that cameras are physical infrastructure?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising this matter, because it may provide her with an opportunity to elucidate the Labour party’s policy on the customs union for the benefit of the nation. I seem to remember that at the last general election, Labour Members campaigned on a platform to come out of the customs union. Now they say that they want to stay in “a” customs union—a customs partnership. Their policy is absolutely clouded in obscurity. If the right hon. Lady wishes to part those clouds of confusion, this is her moment.

[Emily Thornberry]

We are quite willing to exchange places with those on the other side of the House. All we would ask of them is that they call a general election.

I do not think that that constituted even an attempt to answer the question that I asked. Like the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary seems to be unable and unwilling to state the blindingly obvious. So much for plain-speaking, bluff authenticity.

Let me try another key question about the max fac proposal. Can the Foreign Secretary confirm—[Interruption.] He does need to listen, otherwise he will not understand the question and will be unable to answer it. Can he confirm that if the technology on which his proposal relies takes five years to become fully functional, the UK will be obliged to remain part of the customs union, and to be bound by single market rules, until at least 2023?

[Boris Johnson]

The right hon. Lady had an opportunity to be clear about what Labour wants to do. Conservative Members have been absolutely clear. The Prime Minister has said it time and time again: we are coming out of the single market, we are taking back control of our borders, our laws and our money, and we are coming out of the customs union. In her Mansion House speech, she gave plenty of indications of how we will deal with the problems that the right hon. Lady has described.

Gaza Border Violence

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the violence at the Gaza border and its impact on the middle east peace process.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

As I said in the statement I put out from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office yesterday, the violence in Gaza and the west bank has been shocking. The loss of life and the large number of injured Palestinians, including children, are tragic, and it is extremely worrying that the number of those killed continues to rise. Such violence is destructive to peace efforts.

We have been clear that the United Kingdom supports the Palestinians’ right to peaceful protest. It is deplorable, but true, that extremist elements have exploited the protests for their own violent purposes. We will not waver from our support for Israel’s right to defend its borders, but the large volume of live fire is extremely concerning. We continue to implore Israel to show greater restraint.

The United Kingdom remains committed to a two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital. All sides now need to show real leadership and courage, promote calm, refrain from inflaming tensions further, and show with renewed urgency that the path to a two-state solution is through negotiation and peace. We agree with the United Nations Secretary-General’s envoy that the situation in Gaza is desperate and deteriorating and that the international community must step up efforts.

We call on the special representative of the Secretary-General to bring forward proposals to address the situation in Gaza. These should include easing the restrictions on access and movement, and international support for urgent infrastructure and economic development projects. We also reiterate our support for the Egyptian-led reconciliation process and the return of the Palestinian Authority to full administration of the Gaza strip.

We must look forward to and work urgently towards a resolution of the long-standing issues between Israel and the Palestinian people. Now more than ever, we need a political process that delivers a two-state solution. Every death and every wounding casts a shadow for the future. The human tragedies should be used not as more building blocks for immovable positions, which will inevitably lead to more confrontation, but as a spur for urgent change. Yesterday’s tragedies demonstrate why peace is urgently needed.

[Emily Thornberry]

1 am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

Yesterday’s horrific massacre at the Gaza border left at least 58 dead and almost 3,000 injured. Our first thoughts today are with those Palestinians who are mourning their loved ones or waking up with life-changing injuries. What makes yesterday’s events all the worse is that they came not as the result of some accidental overreaction to one day’s protests but as the culmination of six weeks of an apparently calculated and deliberate policy to kill and maim unarmed protestors who posed no threat to the forces on the Gaza border. Many of them were shot in the back, many of them were shot hundreds of metres from the border and many of them were children.

If we are in any doubt about the lethal intent of the Israeli snipers working on the border, we need only look at the wounds suffered by their victims. American hunting websites regularly debate the merits of 7.6 mm bullets versus 5.5 mm bullets. The latter, they say, are effective when wanting to wound multiple internal organs, while the former are preferred by some because they are “designed to mushroom and fragment, to do maximum internal damage to the animal.” It is alleged that this was the ammunition used in Gaza yesterday against men, women and children.

On the very first day of violence, the UN Secretary-General called for an independent investigation into the incidents, and last night the Kuwaiti Government asked the UN Security Council to agree a statement doing the same, only to be vetoed by the United States. Although I agree with every word of that Kuwaiti statement, it is easy to see why the US vetoed it, because the statement was critical of its Jerusalem embassy move.

Will the Minister of State take the initiative, not just in supporting a new Security Council statement but in helping to draft a new statement making no criticism of any party and no link to any other issue, but simply calling for an urgent, independent investigation into the violence in Gaza to assess whether international law has been broken and to hold those responsible to account—a statement to which no country could reasonably object, not even the United States, unless it is prepared to make the case that there is one rule for the Government of Israel and another rule for everyone else

I believe the investigation must be the start of an effort at the UN and elsewhere to bring urgent and concerted international pressure on the Netanyahu Government to lift the illegal blockade of Gaza and to comply with all the UN resolutions ordering them to remove their illegal settlements and end their illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

If yesterday’s deaths can act as a catalyst for that action, at least they will not have been in vain. In the interim, especially as the protests resume today, will the Minister of State join me in urging the Israeli forces serving on the Gaza border to show some long-overdue responsibility to their fellow human beings and stop this vicious slaughter?

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for both the question and her response, and I join her in what she says about the victims. We have no side here except with the victims, and all our concerns should be how to prevent there being more victims. She made a series of allegations about the use of live rounds and the like. It is precisely because of such allegations that of course there should be an investigation into this. The UK has been clear in urgently calling for the facts of what happened to be established, including why such a volume of live fire was used; we are supportive of that independent, transparent investigation. Our team at the United Nations is working with others on what we can do on that. Different forms of inquiry are possible through the UN and we have to find the right formula, but it is important to find out more of the facts and we will work on that.

As I indicated earlier, I spoke just this morning to Nikolay Mladenov, the UN special envoy dealing with the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza, about looking forward in relation to Gaza. As the right hon. Lady rightly indicates, and as we all know, the years of pressure in Gaza, which come from a variety of different sources, not just the blockade—this also involves the governorship and leadership in Gaza—have contributed to the most desperate of situations. I am sure she has been there recently, as I was a few months ago. As I said some months ago, compared with when I was last there, in 2014, the situation in Gaza was more hopeless and more desperate, and the need to address that urgently is clear.

May I say in conclusion to the right hon. Lady that an element was missing in her response? She did not mention any possible complicit Hamas involvement in the events. In all fairness, if we are to look at the circumstances of this, we need to take that into account. It is easy and tempting to take one side or the other, and if any of us have made statements about this in the past 24 hours, we see it is clear that the views out there are completely binary. There is no acceptance by those who support the state of Israel of an understanding of the circumstances of Gaza, and there is no understanding by those who have supported the Palestinian cause of any circumstances that might affect Israel and of what the impact would be should the border be breached and there be attacks on the Israeli side of it. The UK will not get into that. As I have indicated, we are clear that we need a political solution to this. At some stage, we need to hear from the sort of people who in the past understood both sides and were prepared to work together. Their voices were stilled not by their opponents, but by extremists on their own side who killed those working for peace in the past. Unless we hear those voices for peace again, we will not resolve this and we will be back again. I am sure the right hon. Lady will help us, with her colleagues, in taking that view, because we have to think of the victims first and see how we can prevent there being more victims in the future.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement.

I am sure that there will come a time to debate whether the Government’s approach to Donald Trump since his election in 2016 has been the right one, but today is not the time, because instead I believe that the whole House, and indeed the whole world, should stand united in condemning Donald Trump for the reckless, senseless and immoral act of diplomatic sabotage that he has committed. Every independent inspection has confirmed—even the US Defence Secretary James Mattis admitted this last month—that the nuclear deal is working and Iran is complying with it in full.

Yes, there are other important matters that must be addressed with Iran—its regional activities, its ballistic missile programme, and its record on human rights—but the platform for that dialogue, and the foundation on which future arrangements could be reached, was the nuclear deal. Instead, by seeking to scupper the nuclear deal, Donald Trump has destroyed the platform for future progress and risked triggering a nuclear arms race in the middle east, handing power to the hard-line theocrats in Tehran and pushing Iran back into isolation. Donald Trump is taking all those risks without a single care, without the slightest justification and without the simplest rational thought about what will come next; and in doing so he is sending a message to North Korea that any agreement it reaches with the US will be worthless.

While we could talk all day about the recklessness and idiocy of what Donald Trump has done, the key question is this: how should the world react? And here I believe there are three challenges. First, there is the challenge for the other signatories of how to best preserve the deal. For Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia that means providing urgent legal and financial protection for companies and banks in our countries engaged in trade and financial transactions with Iran so they can continue doing so. As for Iran, it must have the patience and resolve not to respond in kind to this act of belligerence, but to continue working with the other signatories to try to keep the deal alive.

The second challenge is equally serious: how to stop a descent into conflict. Iran is a country nine times the size of Syria with a population as big as Germany’s. The idea of Iran racing to develop a nuclear weapon and the US Administration seeking to stop it through military means does not bear thinking about. Yet we know that that is exactly what the Trump Administration are thinking about. In February, The New York Times published an important comment piece accusing the Trump Administration of employing exactly the same playbook used before the Iraq war to manufacture a pretext for war with Iran. The article was written by Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he warned simply:

“I helped sell the false choice of war once. It’s happening again.”

And that was before the appointment of John Bolton. So while we rightly focus our efforts now on trying to salvage the nuclear deal, we must also be alert to stop any further steps the US may take to escalate its confrontation with Iran.

The third and final challenge I want to mention today is equally profound: if we did not know it beforehand, what yesterday’s announcement confirmed is that as long as Donald Trump remains President we must get used to a world without American leadership—a world where efforts to secure peace and progress on the great challenges facing the planet must be made not just without American co-operation but often in the face of the Administration’s active opposition. That is the challenge we now face in relation to Iran, as it has been on climate change, the refugee crisis and the Israel-Palestine peace process. But starting with the consensus in this House today, I hope we can all play our part in ensuring Britain rises to that challenge.

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s point that there is no merit in any reckless and counterproductive attacks on the United States today, and I am sure that she will continue that spirit when the President makes his visit in July and trust, too, that she will communicate that to the rest of those on the Labour Benches and, indeed, to the Labour party in London. She made a good point when she said that the Iranian Government and the Iranian people have not walked away from the deal. They remain in compliance, and it is our duty, as the UK Government with our European partners, to help them to remain in compliance and to assist in the survival of the JCPOA.

To be fair to the US Administration, they have decided that there is another way forward. They have decided that the limitations that they see in the deal—the sunset clauses, Iran’s malign behaviour in the region and the problem of the intended Iranian acquisition of intercontinental ballistic missiles—can be met by bringing all the problems together and having a big negotiation. The UK Government have long taken a different view that the essence of the JCPOA was to compartmentalise—to take the nuclear deal and solve that—but the President has taken another view. It is now up to Washington to come forward with concrete proposals on how exactly it intends to bring the problems together and address them collectively. Our posture should be one of support in that endeavour, although, as I say, we have been sceptical about how that is to be done.

As for North Korea, the whole House will want to wish the President of the United States every possible success in his endeavours and convey to him our admiration for the vigour with which he has tackled the matter.