Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Graham Allen Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). He made such a powerful contribution—it is always right to make those points. The entire House should congratulate him on his speech and remember the people who went to war on our behalf.

I was here on the day the House voted to go to war, and the Chilcot report offers a bit of closure for some of us. There is a real sense of vindication for people such as me who resolutely opposed the conflict all the way through. I remember that day. It was a horrible, brutal, ugly day. It was a day that should be indelibly imprinted on this House’s collective consciousness. I had a look at the proceedings of that day to refresh my memory of the atmosphere and culture. It sounds a bit masochistic to watch YouTube recordings of Tony Blair and others making their speeches, but it was important to get a sense of what that day was like because it was such a long time ago. We had to listen to Tony Blair lay out that exaggerated, fabricated case and listen to those flights of fancy. Of course, we now know, because of the Chilcot report, that it was mainly nonsense and invention.

I was the Chief Whip of what was a small group of SNP MPs in 2003, and I remember observing the Government Whips rounding up the recalcitrant, the doubters and those who were trying to make up their minds. Let us never forget that that Labour Government imposed a harsh three-line Whip on their Members that day. Really good women and men were dragooned into the Aye Lobby to support that fabricated case and their flawed Prime Minister. The House passed the motion by 412 to 149. I was among the 149 and it is the proudest vote of my 15 years in this House.

It was a vote that more or less defined and characterised the previous Labour Government—just as the vote to leave Europe will characterise this Conservative Government. There are parallels if we look underneath what happened. Both were a reckless gamble. There was no planning for what transpired when it comes to Brexit and there was no planning, as we have learned from Chilcot, by the Labour Government and the rest of our allies for what transpired once they embarked upon that campaign. It is curious when big events characterise particular Governments and the previous Labour Government will forever be characterised by Iraq.

However, the war was all about one man. My apologies to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, but it is about Tony Blair. There is no escaping the personal association of the former Prime Minister with what transpired in Iraq. It will follow him to the grave and will be on his headstone. Such is his association with the Iraq conflict that he might as well have it tattooed on his forehead. It was about that man and about how he approached the war.

I have listened carefully to many of the speeches from honourable colleagues who were Members of this House on that day in 2003. I think we can group them into three categories, and I will try to help the House by defining what those are. I am in the first category, which is those who voted against the war, took a consistent line and did not accept for a minute the nonsensical case presented to us. Today, we feel in a pretty good place. I am looking around at some of my honourable colleagues who were in the House that day, particularly the Liberal Democrats. I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats, who had our place back in 2003, for the way they led the case against the war. [Interruption.] I also pay tribute to the Labour Members—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) can take it easy, as I acknowledge the Labour Members who opposed their Whip. As he said, it was the biggest rebellion during that Government. I pay tribute to those Members, too, because they saw through this and were prepared to reject the fabricated, nonsensical case from the Prime Minister. They did the right thing, and I congratulate them, too.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

On a brief point of information, I should say that historically this was British political history’s biggest rebellion within a governing party. Some 122 Back-Bench colleagues in the Labour party voted on the motion that the case was not proven; only 119 voted with the Government—under immense pressure from the Whips and others, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding us of that, and he is right. This is why it is important to set out the context of what that day was like. It was a horrible, ugly, dreadful day, and we can never get around some of the things that went on.

Let me get on to the Conservatives, as the second category is mainly comprised of them. I have listened to several Conservative Members. I cannot recall which one made this case earlier, but there is a sense among Conservative Members that they were misled. They range from those who are angry and upset about the way they were duped by the former Prime Minister, to those like the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), who resigned as Prime Minister yesterday, who are a bit more morose and philosophical about it. They say, “A Prime Minister was giving us information. We had to go along with it because it was a Prime Minister and of course he will know all this.” What the Conservative party failed to do—it absolutely failed to do this on that day—was hold that Labour Government to account; it did not question and it was not inquisitive. It did not look at the case presented to it and say, “Hold on a minute, this is a lot of nonsense.” It should have known—the rest of the country knew this was wrong.

Some 100,000 people marched through Glasgow—I was at the front of that procession with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond)—and 1 million people in London marched against that war. More than that, there was an atmosphere in the nation among the public, who just knew profoundly that something was wrong with this case. They knew instinctively that what they were hearing night after night from Tony Blair and all his cronies was uncomfortable—there was something wrong. The Conservatives should have picked that up. Had they done their job, we would not have been presented with this utter failure and disaster.

Let me now deal with those in the third and last category, and I have listened to some of them today. They seem almost still to be making the case for war, as if that was somehow justified and right. They point to all sorts of things, saying, “The world’s a better place without Saddam.” Well, of course it is, but what a price we have paid. What world do these people live on? We have seen half a million people dead; a region destabilised; a generation radicalised; foreign policy discredited like never before—and it is unlikely that we will ever restore that faith in foreign policy again; and distrust in politics. That was a key point when the public fell out of trust with what we did in this House. And what about the place where Saddam was removed? Of course, we all welcome that, but no one, least of all the Iraqis who have to live with the consequences, would start to suggest that Iraq is a better place now than in 2002.

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[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

The decision to commit to the US neo-con agenda of an invasion of Iraq was, and remains, the biggest political misjudgement in foreign policy in my political lifetime. I gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. The inquiry was an opportunity that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair could have seized to say, “I made a serious misjudgement. I was wrong, but at the time I thought I was doing the right thing.” Instead, we had equivocal apologies that were really about the circumstances: “Sorry that people got injured and that some people died.” That was not enough. Had the former Prime Minister taken that opportunity, he would have healed not only himself, but a fault line in his party and the hurt that has been suffered, to some extent, by the nation and by people across the globe. I am sorry that he missed the opportunity to say that because these things will remain with us for as long as he fails to do so.

The two biggest rebellions within a governing party in British political history took place in February and March 2003. It will not surprise you, Mr Speaker, to hear that I want to talk about the parliamentary aspect. Parliament could have done better, even in those circumstances. It was used and abused by Executive power in the most blatant way, and I will mention some examples of that later.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

I recall the hon. Gentleman’s role in formulating a cross-party amendment that was put to the House, and I expect to agree with most of what he will say about the role of Parliament. Before he continues, will he reflect on the fact that Parliament did one thing perfectly at that time? It is to the eternal credit of Michael Martin, the then Speaker, that he selected the hon. Gentleman’s amendment over that tabled by the official Opposition, which would have resulted in no material difference.

[Mr Allen]

I have some things to say about the then Speaker—I will get on to that fairly quickly—but first I will set the context. There was growing unease, certainly from the time of the Crawford talks between Prime Minister Blair and the US President George W. Bush, that we were being set on an inevitable path. It was thought that this was not something that anyone was going to change; it was something that had been agreed and was going to happen, to coin a phrase, “whatever”. That was the thing that frustrated and annoyed parliamentarians. This was a preordained decision, and it was going to happen. That was why I and many, many others felt that, as Chilcot said, this was not hindsight; it was foresight. Anyone who had read in the history books about the religious and tribal composition of Iraq realised that action could set off an incendiary device in the middle east, which was already, even then, in some difficulties.

People talk about the debates and what a wonderful thing they were for Parliament, but we had to drag the Government kicking and screaming to a debate. I wrote to Speaker Martin and suggested the recall of the House. He said that of course we could put our suggestion to the House, when it returned. We therefore would have had to wait for the House to return in order to get the House recalled at an earlier point, and I felt that that was probably not the then Chair’s finest moment.

As there was such clarity among many of the parties in the House about the fact that the House had a role to play, we petitioned, we signed early-day motions and we wrote letters—we did everything humanly possible. In the end, because all that failed, we decided collectively to set up our own alternative Parliament. I hired Church House so that Back-Bench Members of Parliament could speak on the matter. I met the former Speaker, “Jack” Bernard Weatherill, who kindly agreed, putting his own reputation on the line, to be the Speaker of that Parliament. One of the things we agreed was that people would not be left out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) and I had been previously. Jack Weatherill said that he would call every single person who wanted to speak, for 10 minutes at least, even if it meant that his House—we were based at Church House, over the road, because we were not permitted to use our own Chamber—sat until 3 am.

Having got a critical mass of willing Back Benchers, I asked the BBC whether it would cover the debate. The BBC ummed and ahhed, and it finally said that, since the actual Parliament would not be allowed to meet, it would cover the alternative Parliament from the opening to the end of its proceedings. Amazingly, within a day, I received a phone call from Robin Cook, saying, “You lot have won; we are going to recall the proper Parliament.” As he recalls in his diary, my reply was, “My God, that leaves me with a thousand vol-au-vents and 200 bottles of wine on my slate.” I had ordered them to refresh the members of the alternative Parliament, and I am still working my way through the vol-au-vents from my deep freeze.

This was the House at its best, in the sense that Back Benchers came together. Some are still here today, and some are not. They included Charles Kennedy, Chris Smith, Douglas Hogg, Peter Kilfoyle, Tony Lloyd, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the right hon. Members for Gordon (Alex Salmond), for Moray (Angus Robertson) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and the hon. Members for Arfon (Hywel Williams), for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Angus (Mike Weir). I think about a quarter remain. We decided collectively how the resolutions, the amendments and our external relations should be framed. That was an example of Members of Parliament working together in an excellent way. On 24 September, Parliament was recalled and the debate was held. It was on a motion for the Adjournment, so not many people voted at that point.

We raised collectively a series of issues about how the House works, one of which was the question of legal advice to Members of Parliament. We were in a position where some of us could have been arraigned before the International Court of Justice, so we needed to know what the truth was. The then Clerk of the House said, “Yes, Mr Allen, I will get you some legal advice.” I thought, “Wonderful,” and I was sent off to the lawyer that the House employs to deal with health and safety matters, who assumed that some sort of accident had happened in the office and I was being taken to court. That was not of great help, although that was not the lawyer’s fault. The House and Members should have had legal advice, just as the Government had legal advice, which would, in itself, prove to be relatively controversial.

Another issue that arose was the question of war-making powers. We in this House should define how we are involved. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee worked hard to come up with a sensible set of words that would allow a response in the event of immediate threat of attack, but with the House being consulted where appropriate. In a proper democracy, the Executive and the legislature work together.

Another issue is the recall of the House. Instead of having a farcical arrangement, we should allow the Speaker to say, “On the balance of what I have heard from people on this issue, there is a very strong feeling that the House should be recalled.” That would be better than a dozen people doing it, or 550 people not being allowed to do it. The Speaker should be given that power to recall, rather than the Government having the power to ask the Speaker to do that.

A further issue—this could not be dealt with in the Standing Orders—is a free vote on war. In the first vote on Wednesday 26 February, 122 Labour Back Benchers voted against the proposal, while 119 Labour Back Benchers voted with the Government. I am absolutely confident that if those Back Benchers had been allowed to make their own decision rather than being pressured by Whips, being asked to see the Prime Minister—even being asked to see the Prime Minister’s wife, on certain occasions—and being got at relentlessly, the number of Labour Members would have been much more than 122. I would guess that a rump of about 20 or 30 Members would have voted with the Government, and that would have put them in a very difficult position.

Some of the Conservative Members who stood with us on that day deserve a mention at this point, after Chilcot. I have not spoken about this issue at any length since the decision for war because I thought my job was to support the young men and women of my constituency who went to war. I put it on record that the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) gave up a potential ministerial career. The hon. Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who are all still with us, also did so, as did good colleagues such as Peter Ainsworth, John Gummer and others who are no longer with us in this House. They all put their necks out very extensively.

Finally, on 18 March, we came to the vote on the amendment stating that the case for war was not established. Some 139 Labour colleagues supported that out of the total number of 217 MPs in favour. The number therefore went up, despite the immense pressure that was being put on people.

We went to war; we won the war. We lost the peace and we are now reaping the whirlwind. Let Parliament be strong “whatever”.

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[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I was a Member of this House when the decision to invade Iraq was taken. Plaid Cymru was against the war from the start, along with our friends in the Scottish National party and other parties; I acknowledge their part. Elfyn Llwyd, Adam Price, Simon Thomas and I were unanimous in our opposition to the war. As with others, we were subject to vilification way beyond that expected in the usual argy-bargy between politicians with opposing views, or even from a critical press. I made no complaints then and I make no complaints now, for we did not really pay an onerous price. That was paid by those who lost their life, by those who were injured physically and psychologically, by the women and children who were killed “collaterally”, by those who still grieve, and by those whose lives have been blighted forever. It is right to say that now, when opposition to the war is a common-sense accepted view. It was not the case then.

Plaid Cymru is instinctively for peace, but we are not a pacifist party. We are prepared to support military action as a last resort, in extreme circumstances and with international agreement. That is why we supported emergency military action in Libya, with the required support of the United Nations. In retrospect, I regret that we did not then press the case for reconstruction harder. We have seen the effect of intervention in Libya without reconstruction, as we have seen it in Iraq.

Immediately in the report we find two of the reasons why we opposed the invasion of Iraq. The required second UN resolution had not been passed; and, as Chilcot states clearly in point 20 of the executive summary,

“the diplomatic options had not at that stage been exhausted. Military action was therefore not a last resort.”

Mr Blair presented Iraq as a real and present danger with a certainty that was not justified. Yesterday, the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) made a very telling point. His colleague, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), persuaded him the night before to vote for the war, having, in turn, been misled by Mr Blair, and that on Privy Council terms. We contend that Mr Blair misled the House. For that, he must be held to account. It is clear from Chilcot, not least from Mr Blair’s memo to President Bush, that he had already agreed to go to war, while giving the House the impression that it had a part in the matter. That is the only reasonable interpretation of the infamous statement on page 72 of volume 2:

“I will be with you, whatever.”

That was Mr Blair’s choice all along. As point 364 in the summary states, the UK Government held

“that it was right or necessary to defer to its close ally and senior partner, the US.”

It was clear that President Bush had already, long before, decided to go to war. My personal experience confirms this. I was with Adam Price, then the MP for Carmarthen East, at the State Department in Washington in mid-September 2002—I think it was 10 September—on a visit with other new MPs arranged by the British-American Parliamentary Group. It was a very useful and instructive visit. It was the first anniversary of 9/11, and feelings were running very high, with myriad official ceremonies to commemorate the dead and support the forces of justice—and with the implied and explicit intention of making someone pay. One felt that it was about not just making someone pay, but making anyone pay for what had happened. That was the atmosphere then, and it is important to remember that.

In Washington, we discussed Iraq with a State Department official. He was not a high official; rather, he was one tasked with briefing rookie MPs from across the pond. It was Adam Price who put the blunt question, “Do you intend to invade Iraq?” The answer was equally forthright: “Yes,” he said, “With our friends if we can, and without them if we must.” This was the commonplace view among officials at that time, one that they could share with insignificant visitors like ourselves. It is our very insignificance that is the significant point. If we, as insignificant visitors, knew what they intended to do, then so did Mr Blair and his associates.

[Mr Graham Allen]

I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his part in the Iraq rebellions. If I may put the record straight, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) also played a significant part on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. What the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) says about America going ahead regardless of the UK is absolutely right. One week before the final vote on whether to go to Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld said in a press conference that it was not necessary for the UK to join America: there would be workarounds if the UK decided not to go ahead.

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[Roger Mullin]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a wonderfully telling point. I like his use of one word in particular: “if”. If they had been interested in finding out the truth about WMDs, these things would have been found much earlier and taken care of much earlier. The fact that there was no planning to do that tells its own tale, I fear.

Returning to my opening points about the people still alive today who suffered terrible injuries in the conflict, I would like to end, with your permission, Mr Speaker, with a quote from The BMJ only two days ago:

“No matter how good the short term care, nothing will remove the enduring effects of the deaths and the physical and psychological injuries. The true legacy of the conflict for individuals and wider society in both the UK and Iraq may not be evident for many years to come.”

That is why we need to learn all the lessons that have to be learned. We need to hold those to account who deserve to be held to account.

[Mr Graham Allen]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would it be in order to put on the record Members’ thanks for the fact that you have sat through this debate from the very beginning for the whole two days? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It has been much appreciated by Members on all sides of the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, which obviously was unsolicited. It is something for which I am very grateful and I thank colleagues for their response. As far as I am concerned, it is a matter of duty. I feel it is important and I want to hear what people have to say. It is my privilege to hear colleagues.