Jeremy Corbyn
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National Security and Russia
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
We must start with the events in Salisbury. What happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4 March was an outrageous act committed with callous indifference towards the wider community in Salisbury, including those brave police officers who had to respond to and investigate the incident. Our first thoughts must remain with Mr Skripal and his daughter as they continue to fight for their lives in an NHS hospital, and with Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey as he continues his recovery.
Based on the analysis conducted by Government scientists, there can be little doubt that the nerve agent used in this attack was military-grade Novichok of a type manufactured by Russia. Since that analysis was revealed by the Prime Minister two weeks ago, the Russian state has had every opportunity to offer a plausible explanation as to how a nerve agent stock of this type came to be used in this attack. It has offered nothing concrete in response except denials and diversion. Indeed, the only solid assertion that it has offered so far in its defence was that all stocks of nerve agents were destroyed many years ago—an assertion that has been contradicted by intelligence reports. That suggests that just over a decade ago Russia invested in the use of nerve agents and developed new stockpiles of Novichok to that end. There is clear evidence that the Russian state has a case to answer, and it has failed to do so. We can therefore draw no other conclusion than that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this.
We have supported actions taken. We have also condemned the Russian Government for including in their tit-for-tat retaliation a totally unnecessary and counterproductive decision to close the British Council offices in Russia which have done so much to promote better understanding and closer relationships between our two countries. It is a matter of deep regret to all of us that on issue after issue, and not of our making, UK-Russian relations now stand at such a low ebb.
Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
The Leader of the Opposition has condemned Russia’s retaliation, but he has not yet clearly and unequivocally condemned the attempted murders themselves. Will he now take this opportunity, without further caveat, to absolutely condemn the Russian Government’s involvement in these attempted murders?
Jeremy Corbyn
I have very clearly condemned what happened and those who perpetrated this attack.
On 14 March, the Prime Minister said:
“there are other measures we stand ready to deploy at any time should we face further Russian provocation.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 857.]
Does she consider the expulsion of 23 British diplomats and the closure of the British Council a further provocation?
In the light of the poisoning of the Skripals and the murder of Nikolai Glushkov, what advice and support are the police and security services giving to high-profile Russians living in Britain, or indeed any other Russian national living and working in this country?
What plans does the Prime Minister have to publish and table the Government’s version of Labour’s Magnitsky amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill which was blocked in February? We have been assured that that will deliver all the powers that we were demanding—including by my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor in his response to the Budget and the Finance Bill—even before the Salisbury attack, to punish Russian abusers of human rights, but we are still waiting to see it published.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
The people of the United Kingdom will want to know: does the right hon. Gentleman hold the Russian Government responsible for this—yes or no?
Jeremy Corbyn
I have already made that very clear.
I am asking for a clear commitment from the Government that the Magnitsky powers will be introduced and will be supported by Conservative Members. In that spirit, I also urge the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal to target the laundering of money through secret tax havens and undisclosed assets, as practised by many of the London-based Russian oligarchs, on whom so much of Putin’s power depends.
Vicky Ford
I am trying to listen very hard to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Can he confirm that he agrees that there is no other plausible explanation than the Russian state being responsible for the chemical attack on British soil?
Jeremy Corbyn
I made it very clear earlier in my speech what my position was, and I hope it is not the case that the hon. Lady—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. We cannot have both sides of the House shouting at the Leader of the Opposition. He must be heard.
Jeremy Corbyn
I hope the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) is not trying to divert us away from a discussion about oligarchs’ money in London and the need for a Magnitsky amendment.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Before more Conservative MPs stand up and ask their pre-prepared questions, they should listen again to what my right hon. Friend said in his opening remarks. He said that given the failure of the Russian state for the past two weeks to provide any evidence to the contrary, he accepts that the Russian state was responsible for the Salisbury chemical weapons attack—end of story.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention and for the serious and close interest he takes in all these matters.
I was talking about Russian oligarchs and their power. As the Prime Minister will know, it is not just the Labour party pressing for action. Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition party leader who was barred from standing for the Russian presidency and has faced down intimidation of him, his family and his supporters at the hands of the Russian state, has made clear that the most important thing the UK could do to curb the power and punish the actions of Vladimir Putin is to hit his billionaire allies in their pockets. I hope the Prime Minister will listen to that advice.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
There are a lot of people out there who are very grateful that my right hon. Friend has called on the Government to follow due diligence and the guidelines set out by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Has he noticed that the Government have quietly heeded his advice?
Jeremy Corbyn
Indeed. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will discuss that organisation further on in my speech.
In welcoming the expressions of co-operation and solidarity from our international allies, including the withdrawal of the EU ambassador to Moscow and the co-ordinated expulsion of Russian diplomats, we must continue to build further, concrete multilateral actions to send a clear message that the Russians’ actions are not acceptable. As I said previously, it is by building alliances that we strengthen our approach and the action we take.
Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jeremy Corbyn
To that end, we applaud the Government’s decision to ask the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to conduct its own independent analysis of the nerve agent used in the attack, to verify the tests conducted here in Britain, as we proposed two weeks ago. We are certain that those results—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman will give way when he decides to do so.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We hope that that will make it easier for the Government to strengthen the resolve of our allies around the world to strengthen the co-ordinated response. To that end, I wonder if the Prime Minister could tell us later when she expects—[Interruption.] Well, then the Foreign Secretary will be in a position to reply to us, with his normal due diligence and care, about the results of the OPCW tests being undertaken at the moment. If he could give us the answer later on this evening, after my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) has spoken, I would be very grateful. Does he agree that this attack serves as a stark reminder of how important it is to properly enforce the chemical weapons convention and to ensure that the OPCW has all the resources it needs, both political and financial, to do its job effectively?
Chris Bryant
I commend the Leader of the Opposition for what he said earlier today. One of the horrible ironies of the way that the Russians have done their business over recent years is that they have sought the soft underbelly of British society—the strengths of fair play, the rule of law and all the rest—to try to target the way we do our business in this country. I met Marina Litvinenko last week, and she said, “One of the most sensible things you could do if you can’t get a proper trial,” which is what we would all want, “is some kind of judicial inquiry into the events in Salisbury.” Does my right hon. Friend support that?
Jeremy Corbyn
That is a very helpful suggestion. Again, my hon. Friend has taken a long-term and serious interest in human rights issues in Russia and the large sums of Russian money that have turned up, particularly in London.
My question to the Foreign Secretary is: what are the Government doing through the United Nations to make sure that the OPCW has the resources and support that it needs?
Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share the concern of my constituents about the fact that significant sums of Russian money are donated to the Conservative party in exchange for political influence—including, we understand, a lot of money for a game of tennis with one Conservative Member?
Jeremy Corbyn
I understand that it was an incredibly expensive game of tennis with the Foreign Secretary. All I can say is that I am not going to bid for a game of tennis with him.
It seems a matter of fact that, as well as violating international law on the use of chemical weapons, the Salisbury attack represented an extraterritorial violation of human rights. Have the Government considered initiating or supporting a case in the European Court of Human Rights to examine that, which a number of Members have called for?
Let me turn from the Salisbury attack to the wider security issues raised by these actions. It is striking how far we have come in the past two years, not just in understanding the threat of cyber-warfare but in experiencing its reality. In the last two years, we have seen those dangers proven. We have seen Russia, among others, using social media to disseminate fake news in this country and disrupt the democratic process. We have also seen the attempt to interfere in our elections—thankfully, according to the Foreign Secretary, without any success. In the WannaCry attack on the NHS computer network last May, we saw the ability of overseas attackers—in that case, it was blamed on North Korea—to paralyse critical UK public services and infrastructure, so such organisations need the resources required to be able to defend their systems and services.
These developments fundamentally challenge the traditional definitions and norms of conflict. Whether we can adequately respond to these challenges is likely to be the crucial test of our defence policies in this country. On that note, while I know the Prime Minister will not want to go into details, will she at least reassure us not just that preventive measures and contingency plans are in place across our critical national infrastructure, but that simulation exercises have been conducted across all key sectors to test their state of readiness and identify any required improvements? The NHS and many other services depend on computer systems that can be hacked into, with all the obvious dangers that brings to everyone’s daily lives.
Let me turn from the threat to Britain to the threat posed to allies in NATO, eastern Europe and the security of the world as a result of rising tensions in recent years. Now more than ever, it is vital that we stress to our European counterparts that their support is important in the wake of the Salisbury attack, that we wish to work with them to maximise the power of collective sanctions against violations of international law—whether from Russia or any other state—and that our commitment to such collective action will not be diminished by Brexit. Similarly, now more than ever, it is vital that the UK and all other NATO members make it clear to all our allies in the Baltic states and elsewhere that we want to protect peace and security on the borders, without ramping up tensions unnecessarily, and that such a commitment is not conditional on their levels of defence spending.
At the same time, we would all do well to listen to the words of the outgoing chair of the NATO military committee, General Petr Pavel. Although he is a fierce critic of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, he made it clear earlier this month that, during the tensions of recent years, the only incursions of Russian planes into NATO airspace or vice versa had occurred because of human error. That makes it all the more vital—[Interruption.] I am citing the outgoing chair of the NATO military committee. That makes it all the more vital that channels of communication remain open to avoid tensions rising unnecessarily as a result of misunderstandings. More broadly, General Pavel stressed how vital it was to maintain a “constructive dialogue” between NATO and Russia.
Two weeks ago, I said I favoured a “robust dialogue”. I have been a robust critic of the actions of the Russian Government for more than 20 years. I opposed the abuse going on in Chechnya by Russian forces, the manipulation of elections, the oppression of LGBT rights, and the dodgy laundering of money through London by Russian oligarchs.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I was not intending to intervene, but I cannot let that remark go by. I have been sitting here reading my right hon. Friend’s article in the Morning Star after Russia annexed part of Ukraine. The strongest criticism he makes is:
“On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked”,
and then he goes into the usual criticism of the US and NATO, and of UK policy. It is just not true.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for his usual helpful intervention—thank you very much. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The Leader of the Opposition must be heard. Questions have been asked of him, and he will now answer them.
Jeremy Corbyn
Abuses of human rights anywhere in the world are wrong. On a delegation of all-party human rights group members to Moscow at the time of the end of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Russia, a whole group of us made it very clear, across party lines, what we thought about attacks on LGBT people, what was going on in Chechnya, and the denial of the right of civil assembly by people in Russia. I have continued to support such calls.
Where dialogue must take place for the protection of global security and the sake of the world is on the question of nuclear proliferation. Just three days before the attack in Salisbury, President Vladimir Putin gave an update boasting of his ability to strike at any part of the planet. We should not be about to mark the 50th anniversary of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty this June while its two key signatories, Russia and the United States, are behaving as though it no longer applies to them. It was a Labour Government who, in 1968, promoted the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We urgently need the other signatories to that treaty, including the United Kingdom, to take a lead in insisting that Russia, the US and all other nuclear powers return to the negotiating table and to the principles that underpinned that very important treaty in 1968.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jeremy Corbyn
I hope the Prime Minister will take a lead on such a global initiative, which must happen—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman can choose from whom he wishes to take interventions; it is his business and no one else’s. However, it is my business to make sure he is heard—and he will be heard.
Jeremy Corbyn
In case Conservative Members did not hear, let me repeat that I hope the Prime Minister will take a lead on the global initiative to get everyone back around the table, to give teeth and powers to the non-proliferation treaty, and to see what can be developed for the rest of the world. It is equally essential, however unpalatable it is in the current climate, that we maintain a robust dialogue with Russia on three other issues of crucial geopolitical importance.
Mr Francois
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way so that we can have a robust dialogue on that point?
Jeremy Corbyn
No.
The first issue is climate change. The Russian Government have clearly taken the view that if the United States no longer needs to abide by its commitments under the Paris agreement, Russia need not do so either.
Mr Francois
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are of course quite right that the Leader of the Opposition can decide to whom he will or will not give way, but how can he become the Prime Minister of this country if he is too frightened to take a single intervention from Conservative Members?
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is certainly not a matter for me. I intend to make sure that this House and those who are paying attention to the proceedings in this Chamber can hear the important speech by the Leader of the Opposition, and we must now have some decorum to allow him to finish.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The second issue I want to raise is the nuclear deal with Iran, of which Russia is a signatory and, indeed, a strong supporter. At a time when it is more under threat than ever from those now in charge of Donald Trump’s foreign and security policy, we will need a united front to defend that very important deal with Iran, which was promoted by President Obama and others. Whether we like it or not, Russia must be part of that process.
Jeremy Corbyn
No, I will not give way.
The third issue is, of course, the war in Syria, where Russia stands accused of supporting and committing war crimes in its backing for the Assad regime, in what is now the seventh year of that desperate war. It remains the inescapable truth that there can be no military solution in Syria, but an alternative political solution will never succeed without Russian agreement. Also included must be Iran, Turkey and the United States. All foreign forces will eventually have to be withdrawn to bring about peace in Syria. So, again, the international community does need an ongoing dialogue with the Russian Government if we are ever to achieve a political solution—a permanent peace for the Syrian people, hundreds of thousands of whom have lost their lives, so many of whom have been driven into exile, and so many of whom are living in desperate poverty and danger.
It was surprising that any democratic leader saw fit to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his election. I hope the Prime Minister will show the same consistency this week by refusing to congratulate President Sisi of Egypt on his sham re-election to office. President Putin’s re-election has been preceded in the past year not just by the abuses that we have already discussed, and that the Russian state has committed or abetted overseas, but by blatant abuses at home as well. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of individuals punished for violating Russia’s regulation on public gatherings was two and a half times bigger in the first half of 2017 than in the whole of the preceding year.
However, for all the punishment beatings meted out to student activists, for all the horrendous state-approved homophobia against the LGBT community, and for all the intimidation and banning orders against political opponents, one central, inescapable fact remains: President Putin will be the Russian President for the next six years, and we cannot afford to pretend otherwise or to wish that away. On all the issues I have discussed—diffusing tensions on Russia’s borders; avoiding accidental conflict; preserving international agreements on climate change and Iran; reaffirming the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; securing a political solution in Syria; and even demanding the protection of human rights in Russia—we will have to engage with that Government and maintain what General Pavel of NATO called for: a constructive and robust dialogue, wherever that is required.
One area where that dialogue is immediately required with the Russian Government is regarding the protection, safety and security of the thousands of English football fans who will be travelling to the World cup this summer, as well as of the thousands of Arsenal fans travelling to next month’s CSKA Moscow match. What arrangements are in place for policing the leg to be played here, and what advice is there for fans travelling to Russia? I hope that the Foreign Secretary will be able to answer those points when he speaks later this evening.
There are many in this House, including on the Benches behind me—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hesitate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I could hear something that sounded like a whistle. That will not happen in this Chamber—[Interruption.] Order. It will not happen; I do not care what it was meant to be—it will not happen in this Chamber. We will now have some decorum and allow the right hon. Gentleman to finish his speech.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
There are many in this House, including on the Benches behind me, who would prefer that the World cup did not take place at all or was relocated elsewhere. My own view at this late stage is that such a decision would be impossible, and that such a gesture from England alone would be pointless. However, may I urge the Government to do something that could ensure that these battles are not lost in future? Is it not time, as part of the international concern that the incident in Salisbury has caused for the global political community, to urge FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and other global sporting organisations to amend their criteria for awarding major sporting events and demand that bidding countries meet a much higher standard than at present in terms of the protection of human rights and compliance with international law?
I believe that we are essentially in agreement on many aspects of the approach that must be taken to Russia in the wake of the Salisbury attack. As we hold this general debate on Russia, we have strong and deeply held views, rightly expressed in this House, in terms of our collective anger at the Salisbury attack and our strong, united support for a response. However, we must also remember that we once stood as allies with the Russian people, millions of whom died in a mutual struggle for survival against the Nazis during the second world war. If we can come through this era of division and hostility, we can, I am sure, be allies again. If we want to live in a world of peace, security and respect for human rights, we must continue to hold on to that hope.
So let us send a clear message today in support of action to challenge Russia that is robust and hard-hitting, and that commands the widest possible support. But let us also resolve that we will keep working in the years ahead for a better, more peaceful future—for the safety and security of all of us on this planet.