Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me answer that very directly: this mission will take not just months, but years, and I believe we have to be prepared for that commitment. The reason for that is that America, Britain and others are not—I think quite rightly—contemplating putting combat troops on the ground. There will be troops on the ground, but they will be Iraqi and Kurdish troops, and we should be supporting them in all the ways that I will describe.

In terms of mission creep, I will address very directly, later in my speech, why we are discussing what is happening in Iraq today and only that. That is the motion on the Order Paper.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions in this House that we face a long-term generational struggle and the priority is to fight this poisonous ideology. Will he commit now to working with the mainstream, moderate Muslim community in this country—who see these atrocities carried out in the name of their religion and utterly reject them—and to having a practical programme to make that happen?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely commit to doing that and we have to do it not just in Britain, but right around the world. We should be very clear that the cause of this problem is the poisonous narrative of Islamic extremism. Wherever there are broken states, conflict and civil wars, we see this problem arise, whether it is Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Qaeda in Yemen or ISIL in Iraq and Syria. We need Muslims to reclaim their religion from these extremists. That is happening in our country and around the world. It was notable that President Obama, in his speech to the United Nations, singled out Muslims in Britain who are saying, “This is not being done in my name,” and we should praise those people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Before I make my contribution today, I want us all to take a moment to think about and to pray for the hostages who are being held by IS and the hostages who have been murdered in the most horrific circumstances, and I want us particularly to think today about Alan Henning. Alan is a taxi driver from Eccles in Salford. He is not a constituent of mine, but he lives very close to my home. Alan and his wife and family are in the thoughts and prayers of everybody in my city, everybody across the country and, I hope, everybody in this House. Alan went out to Syria on a humanitarian mission to give aid to the men, women, children and babies who were being slaughtered. He was there as an ambassador from our country and today I make a personal plea to the people of IS—whether it falls on stony ground or not—to release him. He should come home to be with his wife and family and the people who love him.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I associate myself entirely, as I am sure the House does, with my right hon. Friend’s remarks about hostages, but we need to be very careful about language. When we talk about humanitarian intervention but mean military intervention, that puts at risk those people who are doing purely humanitarian work.

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a good point. There can be absolutely no doubt that Alan was there on a mission of mercy and support.

A lot will be said today about military power, air strikes and troops on the ground, and I make it clear from the outset that I support the terms of the motion. Personally, I think it is minimalist motion and have no doubt that we will have to return to the issue and debate it again in the future. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) that if we take action only in Iraq, IS will, no doubt, go back into Syria and we will face very serious problems.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Like lots of other people, I think we may well end up having to go into Syria as well, but if that happens how will we ensure that bombing in Syria will not have the perverse effect of strengthening Assad, who the Prime Minister has said is one of the begetters of ISIL in the first place? Are we going to have a much more sophisticated strategy than just bombing in Syria?

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely relevant point. I think that most of us who have been involved in these issues for some years have sometimes seen the unintended consequences of action we have taken. That is why a far-sighted strategy about what we do, what the impact will be and how we build resilience and coalitions will be essential.

I thank the Prime Minister for the work he has done in building the alliances and the coalition, because it means we are in a significantly different place today than we have been in years past. I think that the idea of the west on its own—America and Britain—taking a war to the middle east is completely wrong, and that the idea that the states on the ground, which have a personal responsibility for the safety of their own region, should take this action, with our support and backing, is absolutely right. I know how difficult it is to build those alliances, so I am thankful for that.

I want to talk not about the military action, but the causes of terrorism, which I have mentioned many times in this House. Unless we deal with the root cause and the poisonous ideology being promulgated by the extremists who seek to groom vulnerable young people into extremism, we will find ourselves back here time and time again. Now is the moment at which we need to be really serious about this agenda. The latest estimate is that 3,000 people from the European Union alone have gone out to fight in Iraq and Syria. They are young, vulnerable men and women.

People can be radicalised in all kinds of environments, including at home by their family, in a youth centre, increasingly on the internet and social media and, indeed, sometimes in religious institutions. It is very interesting that the Home Office’s current estimate is that less than 2% of radicalisation is being carried out in religious institutions; actually it is happening in ungoverned spaces in parts of every single community.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend put on record her interest in the work of the Active Change Foundation in Walthamstow? It not only set up the “Not in My Name” campaign, which both the Prime Minister and the President of the United States have talked about, but is doing exactly the kind of work my right hon. Friend is talking about and which we should be doing more of.

[Hazel Blears]

I am delighted to place on record my appreciation for that organisation and my hon. Friend’s commitment.

We have debated the Prevent strategy many times in this Chamber. In his statement on 1 September, I was delighted that the Prime Minister said:

“We should be clear about the root cause of this threat: a poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism…a warped world view…And we should be clear that this has nothing to do with Islam”.—[Official Report, 1 September 2014; Vol. 585, c. 24.]

I am grateful for that and for the many statements that religious people in this country, including imams, have made in response to atrocities. We are now beginning to move from condemnation to a proper narrative about the fact that such atrocities are not justified by the religion, but we have a long way to go. I urge the Prime Minister to be more courageous and to say that we need to support credible scholars to develop a view of Islam in a modern day, 21st-century democracy, where Muslims are in a minority, that is more relevant to everyday life and that will protect and build the resilience of young people. That is difficult work and we will be accused of trying to tell people what to believe in their religion, which is not the place of a Government in a democracy, but the work is urgent and needs to be done.

I ask the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to come back to this House with a proper plan for how we are going to conduct the counter-narrative to the ideology. The Home Office has the research, information and communications unit, but it is small and is not doing the kind of effective work it could do. It needs to be bolstered and to take in the best ideas from all of our partners around the world in order to build a narrative, and that must be done in a practical way so that we can show people that this is not the future for our country.

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Mr Khalid Mahmood]

rose—

[Hazel Blears]

I usually give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), but I am afraid I do not have time now.

I want to give two examples of why this work is so important. Members will probably have seen in today’s newspapers the case of Samira Salih al-Nuaimi, who was a human rights lawyer in Mosul. She was taken and brought before a sharia law court and tortured for five days. She was sentenced to public execution and murdered on Monday. She was a brave human rights lawyer. That is what a caliphate does and that is what this ideology is: it is mediaeval and it is about human trafficking and exploitation.

Secondly, there are people in this country like the young man from Brighton whose mum said he was brainwashed. She had no idea and does not want other people to follow him. Those are the reasons I want to see the Prime Minister back here with a proper counter-narrative ideology plan, and I will support him in that.