AUKUS Defence Partnership

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

It is important to note that we are looking to have an interoperable presence with our allies in the Indo-Pacific as a whole. Although my hon. Friend is right and proper in identifying China, which the Prime Minister said presented an “epoch-defining systemic challenge”, it is also correct to say that the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States want to ensure that all of the Indo-Pacific remains free for those who believe in the international rules-based order and the rule of law. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that when it comes to China, we have grave concerns about human rights violations and other aggressive actions. That is why we want to ensure the capability to allow our values and what we stand for to be properly represented and upheld in that vital part of the world.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Many in the world are concerned that this agreement undermines, if not breaches, the non-proliferation treaty. Will the Minister assure us that it will be constantly under review and will be reported to the NPT review conference when it comes along? Will he also explain the longer-term implications of this in stoking up a cold war with China? That is likely to increase defence expenditure by the UK, the US, Australia and China in future, leading to greater danger in the South China sea. What is his aspiration for a more peaceful relationship in the long term that will not cost such vast amounts of money for all the countries concerned?

[Alex Chalk]

May I reject in the strongest possible terms what the right hon. Gentleman says? I do find it troubling that he is so ready to take the side of any country that stands potentially in opposition to the United Kingdom.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Chalk]

The right hon. Gentleman is the self-same man, I am sorry to say, who in 2014 blamed NATO for Russian aggression. Now, again, he wants to take the side of others. This is the country, together with its allies, that believes in what he should believe in: the international rules-based order and the assertion of those rights in a contested world. We will continue to do that, and we will not be knocked off course by those who try to do our country down.

Mali: UN Peacekeeping Mission

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I certainly will.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I was very interested to hear the Minister make reference in his statement to the Chilcot report. In the light of the horrors of Mali and the terrible loss of life there, I understand the withdrawal of French and British troops, but I would like the Minister to be clear about how many British troops are now going to be deployed in that region of Africa. Crucially, what is the long-term aim of this—what exactly are we getting ourselves into? That is clearly why the Minister made reference to Chilcot, which said that there had to be clear aims and objectives before British troops were deployed overseas.

[James Heappey]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to ask that question. I do not think that the situation is as binary as every soldier, sailor and aviator currently in Mali finding themselves redeployed around western Africa. My suspicion is that the Accra initiative countries will be asking for slightly different capabilities from the long-range reconnaissance group that is currently in Mali. Very obviously, however, everything that we do to increase the capacity of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Niger to guard against further contagion, get after the insurgency in Burkina and get after it again in Mali needs to be joined up with a wider regional economic and political plan, probably delivered by ECOWAS.

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman heard this, but on Monday and Tuesday next week I will be in Accra, where representatives of the EU, the UN, France, the UK, ECOWAS and all the member states of the Accra initiative will be discussing exactly this issue, because we need a cohesive strategy that brings together the military, the political and the economic.

British Special Forces in Afghanistan: New Allegations

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

This will not go away, we do not want it to go away, and the Secretary of State has told me that he does not want anything to be ruled out at the Dispatch Box today. I am certain that the House will hear from him in the near future about what he thinks is the right way to do exactly as the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The sad fact is that it seems that a large number of people died, and the allegations made against the special services are very serious indeed. Does the Minister think it appropriate that the Royal Military Police should be conducting these investigations at all? Should it not be done by an outside body? In response to the question from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), does the Minister think it is time for special forces to be brought under the same democratic accountability as the rest of the armed services?

[James Heappey]

I have every confidence in the independence of the Royal Military Police as an independent police force, free of political influence or influence from the chain of command, just as I have confidence that all other police forces are proudly operational and independent. No, I do not think that the special forces should be moved into a position of more overt democratic oversight. The reason for that is that the work that they do is right at the extreme end of the threat envelope. The risk to life and limb is profound, and what they do in defence of our nation’s interest is extraordinary. If we were to compromise that even in the slightest, our nation would be at a disadvantage, and brave people would be in severe peril.

NATO and International Security

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Check the record.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Would my right hon. Friend agree that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, originally conceived in 1968 under the Government of Harold Wilson, was an enormous step forward and is universally supported by most non-nuclear powers around the world, and that Britain could make a very positive contribution to the NPT review conference in August this year? Would he also agree that it would be helpful if the Government did that, so that we could start down the road of ridding the world of nuclear weapons and signing up to a ban on nuclear weapons?

[John Healey]

My right hon. Friend is right in many respects. Some of the most significant arms reduction and arms control treaties have been negotiated and signed by this country under Labour Governments. That was true under Wilson, whom he cites, and it was also true under Blair. He is also right to remind the House that part of our unshakeable commitment to NATO and to the deterrent has been a commitment to leading multinational arms control, reduction and disarmament talks. We may have lost sight of those in recent years—they have certainly commanded little attention over the last decade from the Conservatives—but they are part and parcel of pursuing the fundamental values of NATO, of this country and certainly of the party on this side of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the remark he just made about future diplomacy. Does he not think that this moment, when defence expenditure is rising so rapidly all around the world, presents a big problem, and that we should also look at the role that the United Nations could and should play and regret the long delay between the start of the awful Russian invasion of Ukraine and any kind of diplomatic initiative by the UN? There has to be a world of peace and basically that has to come through agreements via the United Nations.

[John Healey]

I see it not as a big problem but as a necessary response. The right hon. Gentleman is right about the paralysis of the United Nations; that is because Russia is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Any UN action to try to deal with the conflict in and Russian invasion of Ukraine is therefore stymied before it starts.

I want the UK to have a unified commitment to NATO. I want our commitment to be bipartisan. I do not want it to be a conversation simply for current Ministers behind closed doors. Let me use NATO’s reflection group to underline the point. It said that political cohesion is the basis of effective deterrence and that political consultation remains the most important means by which NATO can reinforce political cohesion. Bipartisan support has strengthened Britain’s action to help Ukraine and confront Russia; it will also strengthen Britain as the leading European nation in NATO.

Support for Ukraine and Countering Threats from Russia

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the action he and his Council of Europe colleagues from all parties and all nations took last week.

Russia must feel that Putin is leading it in the wrong direction, towards increasing isolation, increasing cost, increasing damage and increasing uncertainty. We must ensure the people of Russia see that, whatever success he may secure in the short term in Ukraine, he fails in the longer run. As I said earlier, this must be the beginning of the end for President Putin.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The right hon. Member probably has not had time to see it, because it has only just appeared on the wires, but there is a manifesto from socialists across Russia who absolutely condemn this war and absolutely condemn Putin and the oligarchs. They say the war is actually being fought on behalf of the very wealthy, and they look for a different Russia, one of peace that is not at war with Ukraine. We should send a message of support from this House to people in Russia who are opposed to the war, as well as supporting the people of Ukraine in the horror they are going through at the present time.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey]

The right hon. Gentleman, who is a skilled parliamentarian, asks his question in a way that makes it uncomfortable to hear. However, the reality is that the criminalisation of those illegal routes—as they will be—is an important deterrent against the illegal criminal gangs who so viciously and exploitatively bring people across the channel at huge expense and in huge danger. Actually, legislation that might change that situation, provided that it is accompanied with safe and legal routes, and I have every confidence that it will be—[Interruption.] Well, I beg to differ. I do not share his analysis of the Bill or its effect and the need for it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Heappey]

I really want to make progress. Madam Deputy Speaker has already been generous with Front-Bench speakers, and many Back-Bench colleagues want to speak.

This is an important point, because the humanitarian crisis will get worse.

Ukraine

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

At this incredibly dangerous time, I notice that the Defence Secretary did not say much about the Minsk agreement. Does he think that is a way by which we can get back to talks? If the Russians pulled back, would he be prepared to countenance any reduction in the NATO presence on the border, to bring about longer-term, secure peace in the region?

[Mr Wallace]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a point about Minsk. I was clear in my press conference in Moscow and elsewhere that both Russia and Ukraine signed Minsk. As he will know, and as we have found with the Good Friday agreement, treaties are one thing, but the big challenge is in rolling up our sleeves and delivering the sequences in the right way. We all remember that from decommissioning in Northern Ireland, which was easy to write into the Good Friday agreement but hard to deliver, and it is the same for the Minsk agreement. However, we all recognise that the Minsk agreement is one of the ways out, and we should do our best to support its implementation.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about pulling back NATO, we did not put 165,000 combat troops on the edge of a sovereign country and hold a gun to the head of a democratically elected Government; Russia did. We have nothing to de-escalate from; Russia does. I hope that he will condemn the Stop the War Coalition, which always seems to paint us as the aggressor. Perhaps he would like to ask the people of Ukraine who they think the aggressor is.

Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

In all the awful answers the Minister has given, he has not shown one iota of empathy for desperate people putting their own lives at risk to try to get to a place of safety, many of them coming from war zones around the world that Britain has been involved in. Can he not show some humanity and sympathy to these people and come to a European-wide agreement on support for asylum seekers and refugees? Can he not also look at the sources and at why people come, as well as the awful conditions that many face when they arrive in this country? These are human beings trying to survive in a very difficult world, and history will judge very harshly those Governments who use military means to repel refugees at the time of a refugee crisis around the world. Let us have some humanity, not just reach out to the military all the time.

[James Heappey]

I know that it was very much the right hon. Gentleman’s policy as Leader of the Opposition not to use the military at all, and probably to defund it as a consequence. I reject, however, the suggestion that we are not guided by a deep sense of compassion. The right hon. Gentleman is correct in observing that these people are desperate—so desperate, in fact, that they are putting themselves in the hands of exploitative criminal gangs that put them to sea in dinghies, increasingly in sea states that those dinghies are woefully ill-equipped to deal with. The responsible, compassionate response to this threat is to provide a robust deterrent so that people no longer put themselves in the hands of the criminal gangs, and that is exactly what we are doing.

If you will indulge me on a final point, Mr Speaker, the idea that conflicts in which I proudly served, as did hundreds of thousands of other British service personnel, are somehow the cause of why people are coming here now is utterly for the birds. Our nation’s armed forces are engaged around the world trying to provide stabilisation and security in some of the countries that need it most precisely so that people do not feel they need to take on the perilous journey across continents to the United Kingdom.

Ukraine

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I hope that it does what it does for all nations in Europe. Britain will always be interested in the security of Europe, whether we are in the EU or not. The security of Europe is important for our security as much as it is for that of others. Britain will mean what it says. Britain will not just say, “Please don’t do this” on behalf of those people; we will help people defend themselves. That is why this announcement today is just one of those steps. That is sometimes the difference between us and others.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

When the Minister meets his Russian counterpart in a few weeks’ time, will he use that opportunity to widen the debate into nuclear disarmament and security measures in general, to build up a dialogue with Russia so that we can deal with all the issues and also de-escalate the dangerous tensions, which are rising? Will he assure the House that no British troops are going to be sent to or stationed in Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

First of all, I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman will accept my invitation; I have made it, and I hope he does. Of course we will start the process of establishing a dialogue on a whole range of issues, which hopefully will involve security, confidence in each other and transparency, to make sure that there is no miscalculation going forward.

British troops who are orbital have been based in Ukraine for years. They are not NATO bases, as President Putin alleges: no one is setting up NATO bases in Ukraine and no one is positioning strategic weapons in Ukraine. This is unarmed orbital: we train people in all sorts of methods. As I said, the trainers that come over on these systems will leave once the training is done. All I can say is that this is not new—we have had people there for years. But of course we are there at the invitation of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.

UK Defence Spending

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, but I have to say, with all due respect to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), that it is deeply depressing to follow him when he seems to be contemplating with equanimity the idea of further nuclear arms and a global nuclear war. Surely this debate, of all debates, ought to be concentrating on issues of peace, issues of security and issues of hope for the future, but very little that I have heard so far offers any hope to anybody for the future other than a preparedness for more conflicts and more wars.

The Government’s White Paper on security was very interesting, and I read it with interest and care, yet I felt that it had missed the fundamental point. What is real security? Is real security the ability to kill somebody else, to destroy something else or to go to war with somebody else, or is it the ability to feed your population and to ensure that they have good healthcare and good education and breathe clean air, and that their young people can look forward to a future with some degree of hope? For many around the world, that is not a possibility and they suffer grievously. Looking at the causes of wars that have happened over recent years in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Libya, they have all been followed by non-state actors getting more and more active and thus more and more dangerous. There are consequences to every military conflict that we involve ourselves in, and we would do well to think about that.

The Government’s proposals in all this, in a post-covid world where wealth has been transferred from the poorest to the richest at an unprecedented rate over the past year to 18 months, are to spend £24 billion more on our defence budget over the next four years and to cut our overseas aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5%. What kind of message to the world is that? It says that post-covid, recognising all these issues around the world, we are increasing expenditure on arms and preparedness for war and decreasing that which we invest in clean air, clean water, education, health, housing and all the other things that are so important in many parts of the world that are significantly poorer than we are.

The White Paper also makes real a decision that the Government have been inching towards, perhaps galloping towards, for quite a while, and that is to, as they see it, restore Britain’s global role. In the 1960s, the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson, while giving political support to the Americans in Vietnam—which I profoundly disagreed with at the time, as did many others in my party—nevertheless recognised that Britain’s role of imperial grandeur around the world had to come to an end, and so ended the east of Suez policy on deployment of the Navy and of significant numbers of troops. That was a significant, important and quite seminal moment.

This Government seem to have abandoned all those ideas and now talk grandly of a global role for this country. We should just pause and think about this for a moment. We are a country of 65 million people in one part of the world. We are not a global power. We are not an imperial power. We should not be having pretensions of being an imperial or global power but play our part in the family of nations, through the United Nations, to try to improve the lot and living standards of people all around the world.

In that context, I ask myself what we are doing sending an aircraft carrier to patrol the South China seas to encourage a build-up of military hardware between India, Australia, the United States and ourselves all around the South China sea and towards China. It seems to me that this is a recreation of the whole idea of a cold war philosophy, which will not serve us well any more than building up to further conflict with Russia by the deployment of the Navy in the Black sea. Before anybody shouts at me about human rights abuses in China, Russia or anywhere else—Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or any country you care to name—I will just say this: I would challenge any country or any leader on their human rights record if I thought they should be challenged, and I do think they should be challenged, because human rights are a universal concept, based on the universal declaration of 1948. Would it not be so much better if we put our energies into engagement with all those countries to try to ensure that the ideals of the universal declaration were actually met in a proper way and if we supported the United Nations in what it is trying to achieve?

In this post-covid world, let us recognise that we need to spend a great deal of money on healthcare around the world. The World Health Organisation frequently points out that the greatest risk to the health of us all is another novel virus that will come from goodness knows where and goodness knows what source. It will not be dealt with by military means; it will only be dealt with by healthcare and health means. When Prime Minister talks of sharing our vaccine surplus, I hope it happens. I hope he is right in doing that and I hope those vaccines get to all the people and all the countries that need them.

I want to say something more on the issues of nuclear weapons. The General Assembly of the United Nations and the vast majority of nations in the United Nations have supported the idea of a global ban on nuclear weapons. They have signed up for it. A number of countries have already ratified that particular treaty. We are in a minority of countries that does not support the principle of a global ban. We are in a very small minority of countries that, contrary to what the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) says, are, in my view, in breach of the principles of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty was set up with the idea of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and it has had some successes in that through nuclear weapons-free zones in Africa, central Asia, Latin America and others that are proposed, but it has not been so successful in persuading the declared nuclear weapons states or the non-declared, but “no nuclear weapons” states such as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to take part fully in the principles of the NPT.

The NPT review conference is coming up later this year. How on earth will Britain go to the NPT review conference and say, “We support the nuclear non-proliferation treaty”, while at the same time expanding our nuclear warheads from a maximum of 180 to 225 or 250—the figure is unclear from the White Paper and statements from the Ministry of Defence? Or, will we be able to say something more positive: that we will adopt a “no first use” policy, that we will not further increase the number of nuclear warheads, that we will take steps on greater mutual verification and on reducing the number of warheads and that we will seriously engage with the idea of a global ban on nuclear weapons?

Nuclear weapons usage is inconceivable and unthinkable for anyone who wants to see the world survive. Any one nuclear weapon used anywhere would cause massive and intense damage. What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was a firework compared with the power of the current nuclear weapons held by China, Russia, France, the United States and ourselves, so we have to think about what that means.

There was an article yesterday in the i about some of the survivors of the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll in 1954. Many died from cancers as a result of those tests, as indeed did many British nuclear test veterans as a result of being forced to observe those particular tests. Can we not instead start looking towards a future where we play our part in trying to bring about a more peaceful world? We as a country want to live in a peaceful world. The people of this country want to live in a peaceful world. The people of this country do not want to see soldiers underpaid, badly treated, suffering mental health stress when they come out of the armed forces and getting inadequate support for it, nor do they want to see the privatisation of their facilities. They are proud when our armed forces help to deal with Ebola or save people, desperate refugees, drowning in seas around the world. They are proud of that. Can we not move in a slightly different direction and start looking not just at our own defence policy and the need to diversify so much of our defence industry while protecting jobs that are so important in different parts of the country, but also recognise that when we sell arms to others, they get used? They get used by Saudi Arabia to kill people in Yemen. They were used by Israel in the recent bombing of the Gaza strip. We need to think a bit more carefully and a bit more seriously about that.

The study of history is always important: the way in which the world went from the complacency of Edwardian England to the horrors of the first world war by a series of semi-secret mutual defence treaties all around Europe and the borders of Europe; and the way in which the rise of fascism was for a long time ignored in Germany and we ended up with the holocaust and the genocide of the second world war. Let us not go back to those days. Let us instead look to a world where we are actually making our contribution to peace around the world, and our contribution to supporting people who are going through human rights abuses and oppression. I hope that our debate will consider what I started my contribution with: real security in a very difficult and very dangerous world. That, surely, is something we could all, I hope, agree with and sign up to.

Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]]

This is an important and obviously very timely debate—timely because of the Government’s review of security needs for the future, and because of the vote in the other place last night on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill. The Government were defeated over issues of ensuring that our political system, our Ministry of Defence, are held to account when allegations of serious offences such as torture or genocide are made against any British forces. We should never put ourselves above the law and should surely support international law, which is what all Governments have said they absolutely do.

The review that has just taken place seems to miss out a number of very important things. But the headline figure was the one about nuclear weapons. Contrary to what the previous speaker has just said, there is an increase in the number of nuclear warheads, which will go up to 260. That is contrary to our obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, originally conceived by the Labour Government of the 1960s.

As one of the declared nuclear weapons states, we are required to take steps towards nuclear disarmament. The Government are proposing to move in absolutely the opposite direction—not just by increasing the capacity, the number of warheads and their firepower, but apparently by changing the strategic basis on which they may be deployed. They seem to be moving away from the “no first use” concept towards using them as a threat—or rather, when they believe there is a threat that has to be met.

Surely we ought to be joining the rest of the world in seeking a global ban of all nuclear weapons, rather than this huge expenditure on weapons that everyone obviously hopes will never be used and that, in effect, do not provide us with any credible form of defence on the real security issues that we face at present.

The coronavirus crisis has shown us how dangerous this world is when it comes to contagious diseases and when it is so divided by the poverty of the majority of the populations of the planet against the minority—and, of course, environmental disaster is coming down the line. Surely we need a strategic approach that deals with those issues—one that protects us from cyber-attacks, obviously, and ensures that we look at the causes of war and that we do not cut overseas aid expenditure but instead increase it, where appropriate, to improve developments around the world and cut down on the enormous gap between the world’s richest and poorest. Because the motor behind the conflicts of the past 30 years has often been human rights abuses, political instability and a fight for resources all around the world.

The last thing I shall say in the few seconds I have left is that instead of reducing the numbers of uniformed servicepeople, as we are, we should be looking at their pay, conditions and treatment over the past 10 years and recognising the enormous work that they have done in peacekeeping operations, as others have pointed out, as well as dealing with crises such as the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, where they performed heroically. Surely real strategic thinking is about making the world a more peaceful and safer place.