Foreign Affairs and Defence

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right: the scale of the conflict and, in particular, the deaths that we see in Gaza are not just intolerable, but agonising. When we think back, the terrorist attack launched on Israel in October was deeply shocking as well. I am proud that it was the Labour party that led the debate in Parliament in February, when this House agreed to push for an immediate ceasefire. I am proud of the way that we have led arguments for that ceasefire, but also of the way we worked in private in opposition—work that we are now picking up in government. My hon. Friend may not have heard me say this, but the Foreign Secretary has already been to the middle east to pursue what the Prime Minister, when he was Leader of the Opposition, declared at the end of October in a speech at Chatham House: that if we got into government, we would help lead a new push for peace. In the first fortnight, that is exactly what we have been doing.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on the appointment he has received; I know it is a position he has sought, and I wish him well. The conflict that is going on and the bombing in Gaza have already resulted in 40,000 deaths. Are the Government serious in pushing Israel to take part in an immediate ceasefire? Are they also prepared to suspend or stop all arms sales to Israel in order to save further lives?

The Secretary of State also made a point in his speech about the need to adhere to international law. There are international court judgments at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court; are the Government going to support those judgments and ensure that they are carried out, whatever the political consequences? They require action to be taken internationally to bring a halt to this appalling conflict. Forty thousand are already dead, and the occupation continues. Surely there must be a way forward that stops the loss of life.

[John Healey]

The right hon. Member is no longer a member of the Labour party, but I know that he watches what we do and say very closely. He will know that from the outset, we have argued that international humanitarian law must apply in this conflict, and must apply equally to both sides. The answer to his first question is yes: this Government are serious about pursuing an immediate ceasefire, which is why the Foreign Secretary has already been out to Israel to press that case.

On the question of arms sales to Israel, on the Foreign Secretary’s first day in post, through the established system that we use, he commissioned the British Government’s most up-to-date assessment of the degree to which any of our UK arms export licences may be facilitating a serious risk of a breach of international law. He has said clearly that he wants that process to be as swift and transparent as possible, and he is looking hard at exactly that issue. I hope that underlines the simple answer to the right hon. Member’s first question: yes, this Government are serious about a ceasefire, and about the application of international humanitarian law without fear or favour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

May I start by warmly congratulating the new the hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan)? For a time I lived in Acton, close to her constituency, and when she spoke about the diversity and warmth of the area, I certainly recognised that. I have no doubt that she will be an enormous asset to this place. Many congratulations, and welcome.

I also welcome the Secretary of State for Defence and his team to their places, and the Foreign Secretary and his team to theirs. They include my fellow Oxford MP, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds); it is wonderful to see her there. I also welcome the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), and, in particular, the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), whose promotion I hope we can all agree is long overdue.

Under boundary changes, Oxford West and Abingdon has taken in Dalton barracks and Shippon, so I am now also the MP for a number of armed forces families. I pay tribute to them, and to all our armed forces and their families who so willingly give their lives over to service to this country.

I am very pleased that foreign affairs and defence has been chosen as the theme for the second day of the debate. We are living in a world that feels so much less stable and less secure than it has ever felt, certainly in my lifetime. Only a few days ago, we saw the horrific attempted assassination of an American presidential candidate; Putin continues to wage war in Ukraine; Xi Jinping continues his muscular foreign policy aims, threatening Taiwan and continuing to oppress people in Hong Kong and Xinjiang; and as has been mentioned, a rising tide of populism is sweeping across Europe.

The Liberal Democrats support many of the priorities set out in the King’s Speech. Support for NATO, support for Ukraine and resetting our relationship with the European Union are all vital to achieving security and stability. We aim to work constructively with anyone in government who seeks to return Britain to its position as a leading light on the international stage, in particular in the area of development, on which I associate my remarks with those of the shadow Foreign Secretary. We agree that there is a huge opportunity. We want a return to spending 0.7% on development, and we think that a new Department is the way to ensure the muscle that is needed to give that oomph. Nevertheless, we wish all the Ministers well in their endeavour to find a place for development in the Foreign Office.

I was especially pleased to hear mention of the middle east and the two-state solution. For reasons that I am sure are obvious, that is what I will focus my remarks on. It has been nearly 300 days since the horrific Hamas attack on 7 October. Since then, hostages have still not returned home. The death toll in Gaza has reached 38,000. The vast majority of the dead are women and children. There are, of course, thousands more under the rubble who are left out of the statistics. Scientists fear that the death toll will soar. A letter in the medical journal The Lancet predicted that if we take into account indirect casualties of war—people who die of malnutrition, a lack of medication and unsanitary living conditions—the total number of deaths could climb as high as 186,000.

The children of Gaza have suffered the unimaginable. Alexandra Saieh, the head of humanitarian policy and advocacy at Save the Children International, said:

“They are being dismembered. They have been burnt alive in tents. They have been killed due to crashing apartment building blocks. They have been also killed by preventable diseases and illnesses and denied medical assistance. Children in Gaza are just suffering horrifically.”

In the first three months of this conflict alone, 1,000 children had one or both legs amputated; that meant more than 10 children lost one or both legs every single day. We need that immediate ceasefire. We needed it six months ago.

There is only one way to end the killing, to get those hostages safely home and to get that humanitarian aid in. None of that can happen until the ceasefire is achieved, but we must also understand that a ceasefire is not enough for peace. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is hope that is shared—hope for a future in which Palestinians and Israelis live in security and dignity. That is what we mean by a two-state solution. That is the real prize.

I have been relieved to be a Liberal Democrat during the last few months. In all seriousness, when my family were under siege in that church in Gaza, the professional and the personal collided completely. I got the devastating news in November that I had lost a family member; my cousins texted me to tell me, and all they asked for was that ceasefire. That is what the Liberal Democrats have consistently argued for, because when it comes to foreign policy, we ground our approach in liberal principles of human rights and the international rules-based order.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I congratulate the hon. Member on a powerful speech. I agree with her call for an immediate ceasefire. Does she believe that we should also halt arms supplies to Israel, which are being used to bomb Gaza and make us and the United States complicit in the killing of so many people in Gaza?

[Layla Moran]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I will come to exactly those points and will expand on them.

An approach based on the international rules-based order and humanitarian law led to our being on the right side of the argument on apartheid in South Africa, on Hong Kong, and indeed on the war in Iraq. It guides our approach now. I am pleased—delighted, even—that the Government have included reference to the all-important two-state solution in the King’s Speech, and I am very much heartened by the their change in tone. But words are meaningless without concrete action. It is vital that we start to think about what we need to do the day after that ceasefire is secured, because at some point it will be—we all know that. Hamas are extremes in this debate, but so is Netanyahu. Neither wants peace. It is in neither of their interests. It is the framing of one versus the other that has proved to be so insidious in this debate.

There are plenty of voices in Israel, Palestine and beyond who are partners in peace and are actively calling for it. Protest in Israel is growing, with demonstrations held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, clamouring for a deal to be done to bring those hostages home. They often link that to a ceasefire, and the release of Palestinian political prisoners such as Marwan Barghouti. That wider movement for peace is growing.

I want to tell the House about two friends of mine, Maoz and Magen Inon. They lost their parents on 7 October when Hamas targeted their house with a close-range missile. I have been twice to Netiv HaAsara—once before and once since—and I saw their house and their burnt out car. It was heartbreaking. But rather than turn to hatred, they chose instead to spend their whole lives talking about peace, because they do not want this to happen to anyone else’s family. There is only one way to guarantee that: peace and a shared future. In them and in all those Israeli peace activists—a growing movement—I see that shared future.

This Chamber and this Government need to understand that people like Maoz and Magen are embers in a nascent fire. They need the oxygen of political support to survive and grow. The same is true for Palestinian peace activists Hamze and Ahmed, who I recently shared a panel with—all of us children of the Nakba, but all of us willing to devote our futures to stopping the endless taking of lives to avenge a past we no longer want to keep resurrecting over and over again. These are the voices that deserve to be amplified, and this is the kind of rhetoric that I hope we can all follow—bringing people together, not seeking to divide. I say that with some disappointment, because in the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition in response to the King’s Speech yesterday, he did not mention Palestine at all, only Israel. We cannot do that. We must understand that we cannot have security and freedom for Israel without security and freedom for Palestine. That is why the mention of the two-state solution is so vital.

Let us start with the basics: a two-state solution needs two states. That is why we must recognise the state of Palestine, along 1967 borders, immediately without preconditions. I have laid a Bill in every parliamentary Session since I was elected, and I will do so again. Some 140 countries have already taken this step, including Ireland, Spain and Norway just this May. If the UK were to join them, it would send a powerful message to the Israeli Government that we are serious about two states—something that Netanyahu has rejected. It would also send a message to the Palestinian people, who are desperate for hope that the international community—in particular the UK with our long-standing historical obligations to the region—will help them achieve that future.

Many will say—and they are right—that recognition is not enough. One of the biggest barriers to peace are the illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank. In 2024, Israel illegally seized 23.7 sq km of Palestinian land in the occupied west bank. That is more than all the land it has taken over the past 20 years combined. These settlements are illegal under international law. They exacerbate tension and they undermine the viability of that previous two-state solution. We have called for individual violent settlers who breach international law to be sanctioned. I was pleased that the then Conservative Government took some small steps and sanctioned individual settlers, but I urge the Government to go further. The Liberal Democrats have called for sanctions to include Ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and the connected entities that provide support or enable those extremist individuals. Since 2021, we have also called for the UK to ban trade with illegal settlements, because if they are illegal under international law, we should put a firm marker in the sand.

To come to the point made by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the trade of British weapons needs to be handled with great care. Our policy is not to single out Israel—that is important. Our policy is built on ensuring that no British-made arms are sold to any countries that are in potential breach of human rights law. That is why we believe that we should look at our arms export trade with Israel. Despite repeated calls, the Government never released their own legal advice on potential breaches of international law in this conflict, but given that there is a case to answer at the ICJ and the ICC, the British public deserve to know whether the Government are breaching their own arms export regime. The Foreign Secretary, when he was shadow Foreign Secretary, asked for that legal advice to be released; I am curious to see whether he will make good on that promise.

While we are on the subject of courts, it is vital that the UK Government give their full-throated support to the ICC and the ICJ in their investigations and judgments. The UK Government must support them and their processes and outcomes without fear or favour. That goes beyond this conflict, as there are international ramifications if we undermine those courts that are the bedrock of our international rules-based order. When in government, the Conservatives undermined those processes, but I had hoped for better from Labour, and I still do. In January, the now Foreign Secretary said that his party believed that if an arrest warrant were issued for Netanyahu, they would honour it. Since then, Karim Khan at the ICC has issued one for Hamas leaders and Netanyahu, but we understand from the media that the block by the UK, which should be removed, may have remained in place. It would helpful for the Foreign Secretary to come to the House and explain the position.