ISIL in Syria

Johnny Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I speak as someone who was a member of the military but has left. It seems to us that the Leader of the Opposition is making a fundamental point, namely that this is about national security. It is extremely difficult to deal with all the conflicting arguments and complex situations, but this comes down to national security, and the need to inhibit what these people are trying to do on the streets of this country.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Yes, of course security on the streets of this country, in all our communities, is very important. That is why we have supported the Government’s action in no longer pursuing the strategy of cutting the police, and also increasing security in this country. Clearly, none of us wants an atrocity on the streets of this country. My borough was deeply affected by 7/7 in 2005—

--- Later in debate ---

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

We have heard a lot about the complexities around this very difficult question, so I stand with humility not to add any particularly clever intellectual insight into the debate, but to lay out very briefly my view—and I hope, by extension, the views of most of those whom we ask to conduct these operations—of what this means for our country and the choice we face tonight.

I feel very strongly about national security. I have seen the threats that we face with my own eyes and I have felt them with my own hands. We have a privileged way of life in this country, with a free democracy, a free-speech society, and a healthy economy. We are privileged for reasons too numerous to enter into now, but chiefly blessed because throughout our generations we have had men and women who believe so much in this nation that they have taken difficult political decisions, and some have even taken up arms and sacrificed everything, to protect this way of life. I have become worried of late that we have lost some of that spirit—something that makes us recognise the dangerous threat to this precious way of life and resolve to deal with it appropriately. We must always remember how privileged we are in the sea of humanity of which we are a part. We earned this privilege through the years, from generation to generation. We protected this gift, and it is time to protect it again.

We are under threat from a group of individuals who seek to destroy our very way of life in this country. They hate everything about us and work night and day to disrupt and kill us whenever the opportunity presents itself. This is not the Iraq problem of 2003.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that at the heart of this matter is that only last month one of our closest allies suffered the most horrific terrorist attack, that that same ally is asking us for military help, and that therefore quite the wrong message for us to send out would be simply to turn our back on one of our closest allies at this time?

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I completely agree. This is a hugely complex issue and there are no easy answers, but I do think we are in danger of almost over-complicating what it is—a threat to our national security, the capability of individuals to project force into this country, and the duty we have to defend it. These individuals have demonstrated that they have strategic reach. They can reach into our homelands, into our communities and into our families, and destroy all that we hold dear.

I understand the avalanche of questions from colleagues, and I think that in the history of this House it would be impossible to find a Prime Minister who has done more to answer them. We will add to the mission in that part of the world militarily. We will operate in a way that will—not might, but will—accelerate—

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Johnny Mercer]

In a moment.

We will add to that mission because we operate in a way that will—not might, but will—accelerate the process of destroying the networks and individuals who operate against us. We have been doing that in Iraq; we must also do it in Syria, where they regenerate themselves. We will use weapons—I have used them myself—that are specifically designed to limit collateral damage while retaining pinpoint accuracy and lethality. They are better at this than anything else currently being used. We have been asked by our international partners to step up, and we must deliver on that.

Overlaying these technical arguments must surely be a greater calling that, in the relative comfort of the United Kingdom in 2015, we cannot neglect. We have a duty in this House to keep our nation safe. That involves a multi-faceted approach. We must do all we can to stabilise the instability through aid. We must ensure that our security and intelligence services have the resources and powers to act here at home to retain an effective goal line defence. We must train and mentor indigenous forces. We must do everything possible to stop the source of funds for terrorist organisations, however uncomfortable the conversations with those in the region may be. I have personally interrogated the Government’s response to the threat, and I am satisfied that we are doing all those things.

In our comfortable existence in this country of ours, we must also accept some uncomfortable truths. There are some—thankfully few, but a significant few—in this world who trade on man’s inhumanity to man. They use fear, religion and violence to promote nothing more and nothing less than their own self-interest and power. The so-called religion they proclaim is as far removed from Islam, a religion of peace, and from any Muslims I have ever known and lived among as it is possible to get.

In 2008, I wrote a reconciliation strategy towards tier 1 al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The truth then is as valid as it is today: this group of people will never be reconciled to the peaceful, democratic, equal society that they hate so much. They want to die. They want to kill all those who do not conform. Until they are killed they will not deviate from their path. Military action is therefore part of national security. As a society, we must get used to that in the barbaric world in which we now live. We cannot honestly say that we are doing all we can to our constituents at home if our full-spectrum response does not include military action.

Finally, I respect and to an extent understand those who disagree with me. We have made catastrophic mistakes of late, which have damaged our standing on the world stage, but they are done. They are history, and they cannot be changed. We must wear them and carry them as our burden. That is the least we owe to the families of the men and women we have lost in pursuit of such actions. Similarly, I understand those who think that some of us are too quick to call for action and seem to take every opportunity to engage militarily abroad. All I would say to them is that conducting such operations makes you less, not more, likely to want to do so again or to ask anybody else to do it for you unless it was absolutely necessary.

Today, I say to the House that this action is absolutely necessary: we must do all we can to keep our people safe. A part of that involves surgical foreign military engagement, and if we neglect that part, we cannot honestly say we are doing everything we can to keep our families safe. I am not prepared to go back to Plymouth tomorrow night and say to my constituents that I was fully aware of the threat that we face from this particular angle, but was not prepared to do everything possible to protect them from this threat.