Middle East

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

That is the central question. What I have found is inflexibility, as well as a failure to face the seriousness with which the international community are looking at this question and to accept both that we have moved on from the joint comprehensive plan of action, which the Iranians pulled out of back in 2019, and that the focus now is on zero enrichment. Maybe they can have a civil nuclear capability, but it would have to be heavily monitored and would need some sort of international regime in locus with it. They have to face that seriousness now at this point.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement. He said that the whole House will have in their thoughts the many civilians impacted by this fighting. I have in my thoughts the many protesters who took to the streets after the brutal and tragic killing of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. We saw protesters come forward and stand up against the brutal regime, and we saw people being mutilated. The last 20 years of intervention have shown that war and wider escalation will not help these people; it will not help the ordinary Iranians who are suffering under this regime. I have received many emails from my constituents, one of which said:

“The priority should be to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict, not supply weapons to either side of the conflict, and further, to support the facilitation of aid to civilians impacted by the war”.

Can the Foreign Secretary assure me that the UK will not act immediately to follow any military action and that we will urge the US and Israel to de-escalate and avoid targeting innocent civilians?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Mahsa Amini—a young woman who was imprisoned in Iran because of her appearance and then killed in police custody. Some 20,000 people, many of them protesters, were thrown into jail as a result, and 500 lost their lives—effectively murdered. That is the regime we are talking about, and my hon. Friend is quite right to remind the House of that. On diplomacy, I refer her to the statements I have previously made about our position on it.