Situation in the Red Sea

Debate between Ian Blackford and Alicia Kearns

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Lady is outlining the scale of the challenge and the threats we face, and not just in parts of the middle east but in Africa and, as we know, Europe as well. Does that not bring home the responsibility we have to ensure that we have a strategic assessment of how we react to all of those threats, not just for those of us on these islands but for our partners as well? The threat we face today is perhaps greater than at any time since the second world war.

[Alicia Kearns]

I thank the right hon. Member—my friend—who is always generous in his thoughts and contributions to such debates. I agree entirely.

That takes me to my fundamental point: this may be a debate on the Red sea, but we are really talking about Iran. My assessment—colleagues may differ—is that Iran is willing to do everything but reach outright warfare. It will industrialise sub-threshold conflict and seek chaos wherever it can. My worry is that its current appetite—where it has set its threshold just below outright warfare—is too high. The message that we need to hear going out from our allies to the Iranians—I was pleased to see the Foreign Secretary meeting the Iranians to deliver this message—is that that threshold is too high and they must pull back. That must be our strategic priority.

I hope that the Government will bring people together. I am looking at putting together a half-day workshop for all MPs, at which we can look at what the policy solutions might be for tackling Iran, because all roads lead to Iran. My worry is that we are compartmentalising our response to Iran. It has nuclear ambitions and proxies, and it has given Russia the drones it needs. I believe that the relationship between Iran and Russia has become strategic; it has fully reversed from what we saw over the past two decades. We are seeing hostage-taking, assassinations, transnational repression and femicide at home.

We must stop treating those individual issues as if they can somehow be drawn away from each other and recognise that we need a strategic approach, working with our allies for all of them. At the moment, we see individual escalations in each of those areas and do not respond comprehensively. We see Iran massively increasing its drone production and giving them all to Russia, but we do not see a significant response. We see Iran taking more and more hostages, but we do not see a significant response. In isolation, all these things look like a small gradual ratcheting, but when we put them together, the situation is utterly untenable.

I hesitate to talk too much about IRGC proscription—I feel I would be stealing other colleagues’ sandwiches, so I will leave it with them—but I think the record is well known in this House as to the position. I acknowledge that it is not a straightforward decision. Yes, Iran will see it as an act of war. Yes, we will likely have to close our embassy on the ground. However, we need to take action against the IRGC. Only this week we saw on the BBC a video of sanctioned IRGC generals holding recruitment Zooms with British national student organisations. This is the same organisation that MI5 had to warn was conducting assassinations on our soil. And while I am here, I repeat my call for the creation of a special envoy or special Prime Minister’s lead for those who are arbitrarily detained, because we need someone who can focus on that throughout the piece.

I want to touch briefly on Iran at home, because I believe we are dealing with the most brittle Iran that we have had for a long time. The way Iran rules is essentially a protection racket and people have started to see through that. It is splintering, but it is too early to see the actors for change who will escalate the situation. Looking briefly to the diplomatic effort, there has been too much focus on the E3 plus US. We need an Arab-led solution. We need to bring our Arab partners into the fold far more. There is an anxiety that the west is not a long-term strategic partner; that we will conduct this isolated activity, which is absolutely right, but not stay and be committed long term. So, how do we demonstrate a commitment to build a broader coalition that can meaningfully push back against Iranian influence in the region to protect us not just there, but at home?

That leads me to the threat to the UK from Iran. I am gravely concerned that we are not yet taking it seriously enough. Yes, we have now seen the Islamic centre closed, under a review by the Charity Commission. Yes, I managed to get its education centre in west London to no longer be accredited, but we are not doing enough to tackle transnational repression in the UK.

These strikes are both legal and proportionate, and a response to hugely damaging attacks by Houthi rebels on the rule of law and global commerce. A failure to act would result in global economic hardship, huge damage to the British economy, a resurgence in inflation and the risk of a successful Houthi attack on a Royal Navy or British maritime vessel. This is about re-establishing deterrence, but it is also about sending a message to Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. If we think that what we have seen over the past few weeks is concerning for global trade, it is absolutely nothing compared to what we could see.

I reiterate that these attacks have absolutely nothing to do with Gaza. We must reject that false narrative, which is designed solely to further the Houthis along their blood-soaked road to power in Yemen, and the Ayatollah’s dreams of regional domination. What unites the Houthis and the Iranian regime is their willingness to sacrifice innocent people in their pursuit of power and their readiness to inflict unthinkable violence on anyone who opposes them.

I ask the Government to avoid the mistakes of the past and to think long term and strategically about how we go from here. We all want to see a two-state solution and a Palestinian state. What we need now is an international Palestine contact group and to launch track 2 negotiations, bringing together civil society, women and academics. I also urge all colleagues—those of us who would quickly condemn anyone who denied Israel the right to statehood—to also condemn those who deny the Palestinians the right to their own state.

A true friend seeks to end the cycles of war, not add more fuel to the fire. Iran and the Houthis are no friends of the Palestinian people. I asked Baraa Shiban, the Yemeni democracy activist, to summarise what the Houthis have done to his country. This is what he said:

“The Houthis run a network of militias that terrorised the Yemeni people for more than a decade and their atrocities were ignored by the international community. The Houthis film themselves blowing up our houses and those of their opponents, and their top leaders have been sanctioned by the UK, rightly, for using sexual violence against women activists. The House of Commons should call for them to be held accountable, and recognise the plight of the Yemeni people.”

I hope we will not have to see many more strikes in the region, but I suspect that this is not the end of them. The Defence Secretary will continue to have my full support, because this is right and this is about bringing back deterrence.

Srebrenica Memorial Week

Debate between Ian Blackford and Alicia Kearns

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alicia Kearns]

My hon. Friend’s point stands for itself. He has my wholehearted support.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I am delighted that so many people across the House are making the case for appropriately funding Remembering Srebrenica, but it is slightly worse than has been indicated: the funding was not just cut but did not materialise for a long time. I want to thank the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who, in the brief period in which he was a Secretary of State, intervened to make the payment this time last year. The charity was relying on its reserves at that point. On a cross-party basis, we need to keep this story alive, support the charity and make sure its funding is not cut again. We need to be able to tell the stories, so the funding has to be increased to the previous level, and it needs to be provided in a timely manner.

[Alicia Kearns]

I agree entirely. Remembering Srebrenica does not just commemorate; as the right hon. Gentleman said, it tells stories to educate, and there has never been a more important time to educate people about what happened to the Balkans. I will come on to that point shortly.

We cannot discuss Srebrenica without discussing the Mothers of Srebrenica, who went through the most unimaginable loss. Their dignity and humanity are frankly astonishing, and their bravery and forgiveness are an example to us all, although when I meet them I struggle to understand the forgiveness they embrace in their daily lives. I wish I could take with me some of the power that they have in the way they express themselves.

After the Srebrenica genocide, two words were spoken around the world: never again. That was a sacred promise never again to allow innocent civilians to be displaced, raped, tortured and murdered, yet that is what we see in Xinjiang and Ukraine, and that is what I fear for the Balkans again. We secured international peace through the Dayton agreement, which was not easy or perfect—it locked in many of the ethnic divisions that we wish we could have eradicated—but it was preferable to war. For the past 28 years, it has represented peace.

Now Dayton and, by extension, peace are once again at risk in the Balkans. We once again see the cynical ambitions of Milošević’s cronies, dreams of greater Serbia and hatred in the hearts of leaders in that region. If we allow Dayton to be broken, we risk breaking that sacred promise. When we say, “Never again”, we mean it. That is what we need to see, but I fear the Government are repeating some of the mistakes of the 1990s, when our foreign policy was centred on Belgrade. A Belgrade-centric foreign policy will not work in the Balkans. An obsession with keeping Serbia on side, no matter what it does and regardless of its actions, intentions and words, does not work.

Regardless of our failure, we must stand strong. Not only did Serbia recently not stand with us on Ukraine, but it signed a foreign policy agreement with Putin in September. Why are we desperately running around behind somebody who embraces autocracy day after day? It is our democratic partners living up to the commitments we set that are vulnerable. We asked Bosnia and Kosovo to be democratic, follow EU accession and move towards NATO accession. They are doing that, yet we punish them with no punishment for Serbia. I will come on to that shortly, but we are currently being found wanting in deterrence diplomacy.

Milorad Dodik—I hesitate to call him the President of Republika Srpska—has made clear his intention to break the Dayton agreement and threaten the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although he has always been prone to exaggeration and theatre, his recent actions have unfortunately demonstrated meaningful intent. In the last two weeks, he has rejected the Office of the High Representative and the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that their judgments do not apply to all of Bosnia. Dodik is issuing the first direct challenge to almost 30 years of peace, and he plans to test the Dayton agreement over the coming year. We must make sure that he is not able to do that and that we stand firm.

Part of the reason why Dodik is lashing out is because he is desperate. The sanctions placed on him by the UK and the United States are biting, and I thank the Government for listening and putting in place a sanctions regime when we asked for it. Public servants and Republika Srpska will soon be protesting outside his office, because he promised pay rises five months ago that have not come. The fact that he can no longer raise money on the London stock exchange—another important UK diplomatic effort—means that he is getting desperate, but now I want the EU to withhold funds from Dodik. I want the EU to join us in sanctioning Dodik and fellow secessionists. France and Germany have taken some moderate, unilateral steps, but we need to take action together.

Dodik has shouted to anyone who would listen over the last few years about his relationships with Putin and Xi Jinping, which is why it is important that the Prime Minister meets the President of Bosnia today to show that we stand with democratic allies. What has happened in Ukraine, combined with Russia’s weakness and clear lack of strategy and foreign ability, has made Dodik more dangerous. Russia may seek to open a separate front in Europe, and the reality is that Dodik acts as a stooge to give Putin a chance of distraction. A war in Bosnia and Herzegovina would serve no one but Putin, and Dodik should know that if he dances to Putin’s tune, he is likely to end up in The Hague, just as Radovan Karadžić and others did.