Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Flynn

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No, my hon. Friend is just agitated because he is so appalled at the news he is hearing.

Sub-paragraph (n) refers to

“land which is not operational land”.

Again, that land needs to be kept in the public sector, so that we can then use it for development in the future.

This Bill has a huge effect on a very large number of people. I have just pointed out three stations in my area which need a great deal of attention. Some attention is being given to Finsbury Park and I am grateful for what has been done so far on that, and I am grateful to the Minister for visiting, but consideration must be given to the future needs of the area and future transport developments. I also mentioned Archway and the possibility of a big road improvement scheme which will introduce a piazza for the people of the area, and made points about Tufnell Park station.

Highbury and Islington station has been well developed and, because there was co-operation between public bodies, a post office has been closed and relocated and passed to TfL, so that it could demolish it and create a much larger circulating area for the very large numbers of people who use that station, including on Arsenal match days. That is a good example of public services working together. Had that building been sold years ago, as would be envisaged if it had been a TfL building, that possibility would have gone and the public would have had to buy their own property back at enormous cost. So I ask the Bill’s promoters to think a bit more deeply about their guardianship and stewardship of and responsibility for a massive public asset.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am listening with interest to my hon. Friend’s brief remarks, and as someone who has been a resident of London for the past 28 years, I am greatly concerned by the serious matters he is raising. Would it not be premature to advance this Bill in any way now, and would it not be a suitable matter to be debated and voted on in the general election as a major issue?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not quite sure how far it will become a major issue in the general election, but I will certainly do my best to make it a major issue in Islington North, and I will draw the attention of the people of the area to what is going on with this Bill.

Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Flynn

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

Does my hon. Friend agree that NATO is a chameleon organisation? It was belligerent and bad under Bush, but benign and peace-seeking under Obama?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I think that is an incredibly generous description of how NATO is behaving under President Obama, although it certainly was belligerent under Bush.

NATO’s endless eastward expansion has encouraged an equal and opposite reaction on the other side, in Russia. Although I am not a defender of Putin or, indeed, of Russian foreign policy, one has to say that if there was a general agreement that Ukraine should be a neutral, non-nuclear state, the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine and joint exercises with Ukrainian forces were likely to encourage the Russian military to do the same across the border. If we want to see peace in the region, as we all do, surely there has to be demilitarisation and a process that brings about a peaceful reconciliation in Ukraine, if that is at all possible. Instead, what I hear all the time is the ratcheting up of the military options on both sides, with more and more exercises and more and more overflying.

This is a very dangerous situation that could indeed lead to some dreadful conflict. I want to sound a note of caution about it and also draw attention to the fact that NATO now gives itself the right to involve itself in any part of the world, at any time, through its rapid reaction force. Indeed, the Prime Minister wanted to bring another 33 countries on board. A global military power that can go in anywhere is not necessarily a good thing; indeed, it can provoke all the opposition and all the problems that we are discussing in today’s debate.

The question I want to put to the Minister—to which I hope I will get a reply either today or in writing—is this. The mutual defence agreement between Britain and the USA on the sharing of nuclear information, originally signed in 1958, comes up for renewal this year. There is no date set for Parliament to debate it, and apparently the Government do not seem terribly keen on that, yet President Obama sent a message to Congress on 24 July saying that he approved of the renewal of the agreement and hoped that Congress would approve it. If it is good enough for Congress to debate the mutual defence agreement, surely it is good enough for us to debate it as well.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Flynn

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

I was not present on the Committee, but I saw the sitting on the Parliament channel and was profoundly unimpressed by the evidence given. However, I do not want to dwell on this issue; I want to give other people a chance to speak—I have the advantage of speaking early. I believe that at some point an investigation has to be conducted into why we went into Helmand. Of course it cannot be done now, while we are still there, but I believe that the story revealed will be one of military incompetence and political weakness. We are in the position now—the hopeful time—of talking to the Taliban. I do not know why the Prime Minister does not emphasise this more, but for the first time we are in the position of taking practical steps to build peace that would result in bringing our troops home.

The alternative is that we are currently in a period like that the Americans found themselves in in 1970 and 1971, when they knew that the war was coming to an end in Vietnam. We know that there is no happy ending in Afghanistan, and we should not build up the prospect of an Afghanistan that will somehow be like a Scandinavian democracy or anything of the sort. The ending will be messy.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for missing the first part of his speech. Does he not think that after 10 years in Afghanistan, the fact that the Prime Minister now says that there has to be negotiations, including with the Taliban—something that has been patently obvious for a long time—is an indication of just what a military and political disaster this whole thing has been?

[Paul Flynn]

I am sure that that will be the judgment of history. I am afraid that we in this House will be seen as not having taken the decisions that we should either. We have not challenged our continuing presence in Afghanistan or the continual sacrifice of the lives of our brave soldiers. This has been a bad episode in our history. Tragically, just as we saw one rotten Government in Afghanistan brought down in 2001—they were not as rotten as the one before, who included the Mujahedeen—the current Government might well be replaced in five years by another rotten Government, and we will ask ourselves, “What was the sacrifice for?” We are now in the position that General Kerry, now Senator Kerry, described in ’71 when he asked himself the agonising question, “Who will be the last soldier I will order to die for a politician’s mistake?”

Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Flynn

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The parallel is Vietnam 1963, when several thousand CIA advisers descended on that country. That eventually turned out to be 500,000 US troops, 100,000 of whom died there. A million Vietnamese also died in that conflict. We should be slightly more careful, more sanguine and less gung-ho about the process.

Turkey has tried to bring about a peace process, as has the African Union, but what hope is there for a peace process and a diplomatic settlement if the language coming from NATO and others is, “We are going to win this conflict”? That is the subtext.

[Paul Flynn]

It is an extremely rare event when I disagree with my hon. Friend on this subject, but does he understand the predicament of many of us in the House when that vote was taken on whether we should intervene? If we did not intervene, we were leaving the people of Benghazi defenceless against the bloodthirsty threats of Gaddafi.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have no doubt that the forces of the Gaddafi regime were being very brutal to people in Benghazi, just as the forces in Tunisia and Egypt were brutal to people in those countries. If the west was serious about bringing about a diplomatic solution in Libya, the Secretary-General of the UN and Heads of State would have gone there and there would have been a real effort, but the subtext the whole time, by Sarkozy particularly, was that they wanted military intervention and a no-fly zone. I voted against it because I do not believe that the intervention was as high-minded as my hon. Friend suggests it may have been, and many Members who voted for the motion on that day are having some doubts about what went on on that occasion.