Yemen

Debate between George Kerevan and Graham P Jones

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Kerevan]

I am well aware of that. Politics is politics in the western world, so while the US was banning the guidance systems, it was simultaneously agreeing a major contract to supply battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, but that just makes my point. If we presume, as HM Government do, that Saudi Arabia is an ally, the way we should deal with it is not to give it a blank cheque but to give it a choice. It is carrot and stick. The British Government have not done that. They spent a long time pretending or arguing that British cluster weapons had not been used. Once that was definitively proved, they moved back to saying that Saudi should conduct its own inquiries.

We have been training the Saudi air force. For the past 40 years, we have been helping to set up the command and control system for the Saudi air force. If it is not getting it right now, it is for political reasons, not because of any defectiveness in its command and control system. Waiting on the Saudis to investigate is a subterfuge. We have to put political pressure on the Saudis to come to the negotiating table to reduce the scale of the bombing and move towards some kind of ceasefire, and to do it properly. If we do not do that, we let them off the hook. As long as the British Government are being so soft—I use the word advisedly—on the Saudis in this context, we will never to get the international inquiry, which is the start of the process.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) crystallised the debate right at the very beginning by asking at what point do the British Government move on from demanding the Saudis investigate the failures in the bombing war to having an independent inquiry. That is the simplest thing. It is an even more modest request of HM Government than suspending arms sales temporarily, yet they will not even do that. That is the issue.

My final point is that as long as the British Government continue to underwrite the excessive Saudi bombing offensive, it becomes more and more likely that British personnel, in the military and in the Government, could be culpable legally.

[Graham Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Saudis can purchase arms from abroad from whoever by selling petrol to nations like the United Kingdom? Perhaps he has been to a local petrol station near him and filled his car up with Saudi Arabian petrol. Did he ask at the petrol station whether it was ethical petrol or whether it was funding arms purchased by Saudi Arabia?

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing this debate and pay tribute, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), each and every minute of whose speech was a valuable contribution to this debate.

The primary purpose of this debate is to end the killing and suffering, to secure a ceasefire and to stop the humanitarian crisis. It is not just the primary purpose; it is pretty much the sole purpose. There are some other ancillary issues, but that is what we are here to do. This is a humanitarian crisis and a forgotten war—it has been under-reported and under-considered. I therefore welcome this debate. We must elevate it not only for those living in Yemen but for others in the region who will suffer and perhaps also for the people of western Europe, given some of the extreme Islamist elements within Yemen.

The country has a history of problems. To the members of the Labour club in Accrington, I say, “The problem is we have this despotic leader, Saleh, who has now returned. He was once fought by the Houthis, but now he’s joined them. He milked the nation, and after robbing it and leaving impoverished, he is now involved in a war.” This is a very simple view, but it is the view that the United Nations takes in UN Security Council resolution 2216: that there has been—dare I use the word?—a coup. A coup has been carried out by some very terrible people, including Houthis and the Saleh alliance, and the resistance on the other side has become involved in committing some atrocious acts. A vacuum has been created by the former President, who is now causing trouble again.

If we do not stop the conflict in 2017—if we do not resolve the situation and bring about a ceasefire—there is a risk that the situation will become intractable. It will not be in the interests of Iran or Saudi Arabia to achieve a peaceful settlement, and they will continue the middle east proxy war. We must not allow the conflict to reach that stage, which is one of the reasons why resolution 2216 refers to an arms embargo, a blockade, and the need to stop the transfer of assets that is bringing illegal weapons such as guns and munitions into Yemen and exacerbating the situation.

Let us consider the scale of what is happening. The United Nations has reported that children aged between six and eight are carrying Kalashnikovs, and are being killed. This is the war that we face.

[George Kerevan]

I fully accept what my hon. Friend is saying about the use of child soldiers by the Houthis. Does he not recall, however, that the United Nations found Saudi Arabia to be culpable of being the biggest killer of children in the war in Yemen through its bombing, and that the Saudi regime forced the UN to take Saudi Arabia off its list of states with the worst records of dealing badly with children?

[Graham Jones]

That is a valid point. The United Nations has had trouble, and no one the in Chamber thinks that either side of the conflict is right. Both sides are killing people. That is what needs to end, and that is we need to focus on rather than blaming individual nations.

Let me set the record straight. I come to this debate frustrated, because 2016 was the year of false truth, false fact and fake news. It was a terrible year for Britain and for the world, in which moderate people in a democracy lost arguments to extremists—Breitbart on one side and The Canary on the other, or the alt-right versus the hard left of the Labour party. Yemen is being used as the next vehicle for the advocating of some lunacy, rather than the principled position of those who ask, “How can we help these people?” It is about time that moderate Britain fought back against some of those who pursue such extremist views.

We must not allow this to become an Iran versus Saudi conflict, because if we do, the situation will indeed become intractable. I accept, however, that all the reports show that there is a mass of complications on the ground. It is not simply Iran versus Saudi, because we have not reached that stage yet, but we ought to be exceedingly mindful of the possibility. We have Saleh, the guy who robbed Yemen. According to the UN, when he was President and also an arms dealer, he was buying bullets for 50 cents as an arms dealer and selling them to himself as President at a dollar a time. He was buying Kalashnikovs and other guns for $150 as an arms dealer, and selling them to himself as President for $600. The UN describes this man as creaming off the whole Yemeni state. At one depot, there were 1,500 troops; he had an invoice for 80,000. There are nine teachers for every child in Yemen, if we believe ex-President Saleh. Of course, he wants his old position back, and he wants to use all the money and assets that the United Nations is trying to freeze to fund a war in which ordinary people are being mercilessly killed.

Let us face some truths. The biggest donors to Yemen over the years, which have, in the past, prevented the humanitarian crisis from being what it is today, have been the Gulf Co-operation Council and Saudi Arabia. Because of the Houthis, the aid tap has been turned off. Worse than that, however, because the Houthis want to fight Saudi Arabia on the border, foreign workers from Yemen can no longer work in Saudi Arabia, which is logical, so all the remittances have dried up. No wonder the country is in poverty—and we are allowing these people to get away with it. It is obvious why Security Council resolution 2216 pins it all on the Houthis, the people who started this in an alliance with the person whom they were formerly fighting, President Saleh. Therein lies the problem, and the reason for resolution 2216.

We must try to deal with the situation, but that will mean building bridges. According to the UN reports, the GCC has tried—twice in Geneva, and also through the Muscat principles—to bring the two parties together for a peaceful settlement. Which party is resisting the peace talks? It is the Houthis, who will not allow a peace delegation to fly to Geneva, and will not allow the UN panel of experts to go in and observe the situation on the ground. This is a group of people who to my mind—I say this to the people in the Labour club in Accrington—are just trying to rob the state. They are not interested in a peaceful settlement, and that makes things very difficult, but we should never abandon the principle of trying to build bridges, and that includes trying not to upset or destabilise the GCC or the Arab League.