Britain in the World

Gerald Kaufman Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The policy of Her Majesty’s Opposition is that we need the right deal to address the threat and to offer the opportunity of a way forward. We should support those talks as they continue. One reason for that is the situation in the middle east where, as the whole House would acknowledge, the only way forward is a comprehensive two-state solution: a secure Israel alongside a viable and independent state of Palestine. There can be no military solution to that conflict, and all sides must avoid taking action that would make peace harder to achieve, including firing rockets and building illegal settlements, but we should also be straight about where things are. There is no peace process to speak of at the moment, and the fear is that, with each passing day, the window on that two-state solution is closing. That is why every effort must be made to press for an immediate return to negotiations, but the blunt truth is that nobody can want that, or an agreement, more than the parties to the conflict themselves. That is going to require compromise and courageous political leadership on the part of both Israel and the Palestinians, which sadly is not currently evident.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he, as shadow Foreign Secretary, stands by the official Labour party vote last October to recognise the Palestinian state?

[Hilary Benn]

I am happy to give my right hon. Friend that assurance.

Each of these conflicts has its own causes but, as well as being about who has power in a country, one of the threads that runs through many of the conflicts is the uneasy relationship between the secular and the religious. We should understand that all too well in this country, given our history of power struggles, religious intolerance and persecution, but we have now reached a state in which we have shown that it is possible both to uphold universal human rights and to enable people to be absolutely free to practise their religion. That is one of the reasons why Britain is admired by many countries across the world for its genuine freedom, but we cannot be complacent here and we have to be on our guard against the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as we stand up against religious and other persecution across the world, whether it be of Christians, of those who are lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual, or of the Rohingya who have been affected by the recent crisis in Burma.

I welcome the work that Ministers have done to highlight the terrible effects of sexual violence on girls and women in armed conflict. Anyone who has visited the Panzi hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as I had the privilege of doing when I was International Development Secretary, will have been deeply moved by the stories told of rape, sometimes by children too young to understand what had really happened to them, and inspired by the work of Dr Denis Mukwege and his team as they provide care and treatment with the utmost compassion.

The most important human right is the right to life, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the suspension of capital punishment in Britain, which was followed by its abolition four years later. I hope that, as we oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, as do the Government, the number of people on death row should lead us further to strengthen our efforts around the world to abolish the death penalty.

No debate about Britain and the world can ignore the threat of climate change. As the impact of floods in Britain has shown, climate change is now an issue of national, as well as global, security. We have seen drought in California, floods in Texas and typhoons in the Philippines—these are things the world thought would be experienced only by our children and our grandchildren. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that, if we are to hold global warming below 2°, emissions need to peak in 2020 and then rapidly decline. That is why we need a strong agreement at the United Nations framework convention on climate change conference in Paris in December that sets ambitious targets; has a goal of net zero global emissions in the second half of this century; has common rules for measuring and verifying; and has a fair deal in which richer countries help to support poorer nations to combat climate change. Britain’s development and climate change assistance will help.

Britain’s record on development assistance and the passing into law of the 0.7% target are shining examples of the power of political movements to change things, just as those who advocate slashing our aid budget are narrow-minded, selfish and wrong. The work we do as a nation to help to send children to school and to vaccinate kids against diseases that our children do not die of, and the help we give to fragile and conflict-affected states, are powerful examples of what being a good neighbour means in this century. The sustainable development goals summit later this year will be a chance, after seven years in which the world has faced inwards because of the global economic crash, to turn our face back outwards and renew our commitment to our fellow citizens.

Ultimately, this is about political will. Progress will depend on our ability as a world to come together and co-operate in tackling poverty and conflict—the two great engines of the movement of people around the globe. We know that civil wars result, on average, in 20 years of lost development. It is no accident that Afghanistan has the highest rate of infant mortality in the world and that many of the Earth’s poorest people live in countries at risk of, or recovering from, war. In the years to come, we may well see people fighting each other not about their politics and their religion, but about water, energy and land. Whatever their character, what these conflicts have in common is that the countries in which they are happening have been unable or unwilling to secure the lives of their citizens. The way forward is clear: replace violence with good politics—its your choice; compromise; build good governance, security and the rule of law; promote economic opportunity, land rights, and trade; improve transport and telecommunications; and encourage openness to the world.

Those are the characteristics of successful states, and the responsibility of the rest of the world is to help this happen. That does not mean the United Kingdom has to do everything—we should not and we cannot—but we should seek to build the world’s capacity to do so. Nor does it mean that, if we propose to act somewhere, we should feel reticent for fear of being accused of inconsistency. Not doing the right thing somewhere because you cannot do the right thing everywhere has never struck me as a compelling reason for inaction.

Martin Luther King put it like this:

“On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.”

That is why we should stand by the United Nations, despite the fact that it too often lacks the will of its member states and the means to act, because it remains the best hope of a new world order. We face a very simple choice as a world. We cannot shut the door, close the curtains and hope that the rest of the world will go away, because it will not and we will feel the consequences anyway. What we should do is seize the opportunities that our increasingly interdependent and interconnected world offers Britain: new export markets, investment, jobs and a voice. That is why an outward-facing country is what we must continue to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House for the courtesy they have shown me since the start of this Parliament. May I also make it clear that I owe my role here to my constituents, who gave me the biggest majority since the Gorton constituency was founded in 1885? I never forget that I am only here because of them.

In this Parliament, as in previous Parliaments, I will continue to concentrate on the basic issues—the national health service, jobs, schools, pensions, law and order and housing—that mean so much to my constituents. They made it clear during the election that they support my being involved in overseas issues as well, especially Kashmir and Palestine. Those two issues are the oldest unsolved problems on the planet. They date back to 1947 and 1948 respectively, and Britain has a particular role in both because of the consequences of the partition of India in 1947 and the consequences of the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948. On both of them, as well as on many other issues that have been discussed in this debate, there is unfinished business from the last Parliament. We cannot afford to waste another five years, as those two vital issues are issues of life and death for millions.

The adherence of Jammu and Kashmir to India was not decided by the head of state until two months after India and Pakistan became independent, in October 1947. It was an illogical decision, in view of the preponderance of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. However, it was India and Pandit Nehru who took that to the United Nations. The Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten, had been Viceroy of India and was very close to the Indian Government, but he believed that the consequence should be a referendum of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Sixty-eight years later, we are still waiting for that referendum, but in those 68 years there have been three wars between India and Pakistan. Both countries are nuclear powers and the head of the CIA told the US Senate that the confrontation between India and Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir was the most dangerous flashpoint in the world.

India has 500,000 or more troops in Jammu and Kashmir, despite the enormous poverty suffered by huge numbers of Indian citizens. Since the partition, which was a result of fighting between the two countries, there has been torture—a Channel 4 documentary showed the torture of Kashmiris by the Indians—as well as rape, killing and destruction. When I went to Srinagar, people lined up for seven hours to tell me about what they had suffered. Yet the international community stands aside from this horror and from this flashpoint. It has to be said that this Government specifically have stood aside from it, with the Minister responsible saying that the Government do not intend to get involved in the Kashmir issue.

The Government cannot and must not stand aside for another five years. Only a few days ago, India’s Internal Affairs Minister refused to negotiate. It is essential that we make our presence and our policies felt and that those are the right policies. We should not take sides between India and Pakistan. We should take the side of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have the right to decide their own future.

The problem of Palestine has existed since May 1948. It began with the creation of Israel and what the people of Palestine call the Nakba—the catastrophe. After the six day war in 1967, there was a huge upheaval. Refugees fled across the Jordan. There are refugee camps in Jordan, on the west bank, in Lebanon—dreadful, appalling conditions there—and in Syria, too, where people are going through incredible traumas.

Having created the refugee problem, the Israelis have followed up by building hundreds of settlements—every one of them illegal—in the occupied territories; by fighting a war that is also illegal; and by setting up checkpoints that make it almost impossible for Palestinians to travel freely around what is supposed to be their own country. In addition, there have been two intifadas—uprisings—and three fruitless Israeli military attacks on the Gaza strip resulting in thousands of casualties, including huge numbers of civilians, and the intolerable destruction of homes, schools and the Palestinian Parliament in Gaza itself, none of which can be properly reconstructed because of the Israeli blockade of what the Prime Minister himself called the “prison camp” in Gaza.

Efforts have been made, but they are being abandoned. Tony Blair has resigned as the envoy of the Quartet and John Kerry, who has just suffered a dreadful accident, made an enormous effort, as United States Secretary of State, but was not given the backing of President Obama. The situation is now more immobile than it has been for decades. One reason is that Israel now has the most extremist Government in its entire existence. On election day in Israel a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu referred, in a racist statement, to the “hordes” of Palestinians going by bus to vote. He refused and threw himself back from any notion of a two-state solution, yet the UK Government support Israel proactively.

The Foreign Secretary talked about what he called the Government’s work for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, yet last month, at the nuclear non-proliferation review conference, an attempt to hold a conference next year to review the situation of non-proliferation in the middle east was blocked by three countries—it was blocked by the United States, by Canada and by the British Foreign Office, whose Foreign Secretary today claimed to be working for non-proliferation.

As the Foreign Secretary mentioned, this country makes a huge commotion about wanting to stop Iran gaining nuclear weapons. Well, I am against Iran gaining nuclear weapons, and I am against the Iranian Government, which are one of the most odious in the world. Yet there is no evidence—a book was written about this by a journalist from The Daily Telegraph not long ago—to show that Iran is preparing to obtain nuclear weapons. It is nevertheless right to try to prevent it from doing so, but Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel has hundreds of nuclear warheads and hundreds of missiles in the Negev, in what used to be called the Dimona textile factory, yet no action is being taken. Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but Israel refuses to sign it. Yet this Government support that nuclear power’s refusal to participate in talks. The non-proliferation treaty is the most widely subscribed to disarmament treaty in world history, yet Israel refuses to sign it.

I therefore say that this Parliament must see a new United Kingdom policy on Palestine and Israel. This House voted last October by an overwhelming majority to recognise the Palestinian state. The Government have shuffled aside a position on that, so I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has today reaffirmed that recognition continues to be the official policy of the Labour party.

A solution is in Israel’s interests just as much as it is in the interests of the Palestinians, because the Israelis will never know peace and security until there is a settlement. The only alternative to the two-state solution is a one-state solution. With the number of Palestinians set to outnumber the number of Israeli Jews, a one-state solution would not necessarily be an Israel. It is essential for the Israelis to get a negotiated settlement. For the Israelis, for the Palestinians and for peace, this House must make itself felt during this Parliament. This House must make a difference.