Government Strategy Against IS

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. and learned Friend knows better than most that, as with any client in receipt of legal advice, it is important for the Government to preserve the confidentiality of advice from legal advisers. However, when this Government have taken action previously during their time in office, we have set out the legal grounds for that action and why we think a particular course of action—a recent example is Libya—was justified in international law.

My hon. and learned Friend is right, too, to point to the shock felt throughout the country at ISIL’s action, and I ought to say that I strongly welcome the unreserved condemnation from so many British Muslims and mosque leaderships throughout the United Kingdom.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Odious as ISIL is, it did not come from nowhere. Is it not a product of our past policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and of the vast number of arms that we have supplied to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region? That gives it highly sophisticated weaponry. Do we not need a slightly more nuanced view of the world that does not automatically lead to intervention everywhere and create the problems of tomorrow?

[Mr Lidington]

I think the answer is considerably more complex than the hon. Gentleman allows. This kind of perverted Islamist ideology has been around for a considerable time and is found not just in Iraq but in parts of the world where there has not been the kind of intervention that the previous Government undertook in 2003. It is also the case that in Iraq ISIL seized the opportunity presented by the loss of support for the Baghdad Government among the Sunni population in central Iraq. One of the key tasks for the new Government in Baghdad will be to win back mainstream Sunnis to support the democratic Government.