Yemen

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from ‘crisis;’ to the end of the Question and add:

“and calls on the Government to continue to support the UN Special Envoy in his ongoing efforts to achieve a political solution to bring sustainable peace to Yemen.”.

I am grateful to the Opposition for selecting this vital subject for debate. The war in Yemen has reached a critical moment, and I welcome this opportunity to set out what Britain and our allies are doing to help restore the peace and stability that Yemen’s people so desperately need.

First I should remind the House how this tragic conflict began and, in particular, how Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Gulf states came to intervene, because, contrary to the impression given in some quarters, they did not act out of some spontaneous desire to invade Yemen and attack its civilian population. Saudi Arabia and its allies were responding to a crisis that was forced on them and that posed a grave threat to international peace and security. This round of the conflict began in September 2014, when Houthi rebels overran Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in collusion with Ali Abdullah Saleh, the previous President, and with the reported backing of Iran. Their aim was to overthrow Yemen’s legitimate Government. In January 2015, President Hadi, the serving leader, was forced to flee his own capital for the safety of Aden, a move that availed him of nothing, because two months later the Houthis attacked the south, striking as far as the outskirts of Aden and forcing President Hadi to flee his country altogether.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

Is the Foreign Secretary aware that ex-President Saleh has also been asking for backing from the Russians?

[Boris Johnson]

The situation in Yemen is potentially disastrous, and it is vital that we stand by the people of Yemen and by the coalition that is trying to sort it out. The position when President Hadi was forced to flee was potentially disastrous. Yemen is a country of 26 million people, more than half of whom are under the age of 18. There is a long-standing presence of al-Qaeda in that country, which has a history of fratricidal bloodshed and chronic instability. At that moment, there was a clear risk that the country would fall into the hands of forces avowedly hostile to Saudi Arabia, which shares an 800-mile border with Yemen, one that is vulnerable and porous. It was against that background that the Saudis and their allies took a decision to intervene in Yemen in March 2015—a decision that was not only justified, but legally sound.