Oral Answers to Questions

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My right hon. Friend is completely right to raise the disgraceful behaviour of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the missiles that are fired from Syria at Israel and elsewhere. The JCPOA was not designed to constrain that activity; it was specifically designed to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon and it has succeeded in that effort so far. That is why we propose to keep the core of that deal alive, but to work with our friends and partners to constrain the malign activity that my right hon. Friend describes.

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

Last July, at a conference of the Iranian resistance movement in Paris attended by a number of Conservative Members, John Bolton announced that the Iranian regime is

“not going to change…the only solution is to change the regime…And that’s why, before 2019, we…will celebrate in Tehran!”

Now that Mr Bolton is President Trump’s national security adviser, does the Foreign Secretary believe that regime change is still his objective?

[Boris Johnson]

I have a very high regard for John Bolton and his intelligence and vision, but I have to say that I do not believe that regime change in Tehran is the objective that we should be seeking. I must be very clear with the hon. Gentleman that I think that we might conceivably achieve regime change at some stage in the near future, but I cannot with any confidence say that that would be a change for the better, because it seems equally plausible to me to imagine that Qasem Soleimani of the IRGC could put himself in a very good position to take over from Ayatollah Khamenei, for instance.