Arms to Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on initiating this debate. I am opposed to arms being sent to the rebels in Syria, but let me make this absolutely clear: if I had a different viewpoint, I would still be of the opinion that it is Parliament that should decide whether or not such a decision should be taken. A great deal is said about reforms and changes for Parliament, but one of the most important aspects of the House of Commons is that major decisions such as whether arms should be sent in such circumstances should not be taken without the express and direct consent of the House of Commons.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman but, in furtherance of his argument, would he also accept that even if it were not generally the case that Parliament should have its say before such a step is taken, when it is widely known that there is very substantial opposition to what is proposed, and that it is very likely that there would be a heavy majority of opposition in Parliament, it would be particularly unwise for the Government to go ahead without letting Parliament have its say and have a vote first?

[Mr Winnick]

I could not have put that better myself. It is very rare for the hon. Gentleman and I to agree. I hope that does not mean that we are in the wrong on this issue. My concern is that we are going into two long recesses and the Government could make a decision arguing that, given all the circumstances, it was necessary to arm the rebels in Syria, and although the House would almost certainly be recalled, the decision would have already been taken. The Government would be asking for support from their own Members on a three-line Whip. That is why is there is a good deal of anxiety—all the more so as we start our recess next week.

During the statement yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that it is “possible to anticipate” the supply of arms and that therefore there is no reason why it should not be debated “in advance”. Let me say to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) that those words have been carefully noted and the Foreign Secretary will be held to account on them by all of us if any other decision is taken when the House is not sitting.

During that statement the Foreign Secretary also spoke about the amount of support already going to the Syrian rebels—those we support. We are talking about armoured vehicles, body armour and communications equipment. Moreover, as was stated, another £20 million of supplies will be sent in the coming months. Might not the argument then be, “With all these supplies already sent, why not lethal weapons?” These things escalate, although I am not altogether certain that what has been sent has been justified.

Let us be clear about the background to this debate. Nearly 100,000 people have died in Syria since the conflict started. So many of the people who have been killed have been civilians going about their normal lives—or trying to do so; these are the men, women and children who have been killed, on both sides. The bloodshed and the suffering continues now. The argument for the supply of arms is that the stronger the rebels—at least those rebels the British Government support—the more likely it is that the Assad regime will be brought to the negotiating table. That is the basic argument, and no doubt we will hear further arguments along those lines from the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the former Foreign Secretary.

I would not dismiss that view out of hand; it is possible that there is some logic in that argument. Is it not, however, much more likely that arms supplies from the west, including from this country, would simply lead, as other hon. Members have said, to even more arms for the regime from its current backers? We would have an escalating arms race. Why do we believe that if the west started to supply arms to the rebels, the countries supporting Assad’s brutal, murderous regime—Russia, foremost, but also Iran—which, without question, has no legitimacy, would not increase the arms supply likewise? As I say, an escalating arms race can lead only to further death and destruction. As has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), neither should we overlook the sectarian aspect to the conflict, with support being given to both sides in accordance with a religious divide between Sunni and Shi’a. Again, we should not intervene in that.

I want to make it clear that there are circumstances where armed intervention from this country is justified. Nobody could have been more in favour of the support given in Bosnia and Kosovo than me. I believed that we had a duty in those places to provide support, and I was pleased to be among those who did so when Muslims were facing outright massacre. In the mid-1990s, at the time of the Bosnian conflict, I said that such support should be given—unfortunately, it was often not to be given until too late—but in Bosnia and Kosovo we were not faced with extremist elements; we were not faced with elements such as those in Syria, who obviously want to bring about a form of state run along more or less the same lines as the Taliban. Syria is a different situation altogether and that should be very much borne in mind.

What should we do in the circumstances? I could not agree more with the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) that we should, first and foremost, maximise humanitarian relief in every possible way, bearing in mind the suffering that has already occurred. More relief should be given. Every help should be given to innocent people who have been caught up in the conflict.

Finally, we must redouble our efforts to try to bring the conflict to an end, not by sending arms, but by trying to persuade Russia and other such countries to come to the negotiating table to end the suffering, to end the war and to bring about a situation where people in Syria can once again go about their everyday lives, however much there was a dictatorship there. That is a far better way of trying to deal with this terrifying problem than sending arms to those in Syria whom we believe are on the right side. Of course, we have no guarantee that if we were to do so, those arms would go to the people we believe should be supported.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Democracy was born in Greece some 2,000 years ago and has come to these islands in stages. In most sophisticated democratic states, they would regard it as astonishing that we are discussing whether the elected Parliament has the right to declare war. That is taken as obvious in most states. We have begun to debate whether we should go to war rather than who should take the decision, but that is what we should be talking about today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even those people who believe that we should arm the rebels ought to vote aye for this motion, given what the Foreign Secretary and others have said from the Government Front Bench?

[Paul Flynn]

I absolutely agree. The assumption is being made that Governments decide whether we go to war, but even that is not true. The decision to go to war rests with the monarch under the royal prerogative. That is a key point, particularly as we might well have a change of monarch in the foreseeable future—although it is a long way off, we all hope. The change of monarch would not strengthen the case for continuing the status quo when we know that the future likely monarch has written letters that we are not allowed to see because it might endanger his status and his future prospects as the Head of State. A decision was taken by the Government, after a freedom of information inquiry and a decision by a High Court judge that anyone who lobbies Parliament should have the contents of their lobbying letters published, to censor that correspondence. That person will be in a key position on any decision about going to war. We might say that that does not matter, but it does.

The same issue came up in a little-known practical example published by the former MP for Cambridge, Robert Rhodes James, who wrote of the fear in the Conservative party, when it decided to get rid of Mrs Thatcher, that she might call a general election. At that time, she was much more popular in the country than she was in her own party and she could well have come back. No one could have stopped her in Government, in the Cabinet or in Parliament, but one person could have stopped her calling a general election if that person had said that Mrs Thatcher was a Prime Minister who was acting in her own interests and not in the country’s. I think we all know that the present Queen had the strength of character to ensure that Mrs Thatcher did not act in her own interests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I begin with a word of appreciation to the Backbench Business Committee for selecting a debate on this motion. Without wishing to be over-pedantic, I think it is necessary to remind the House of what the motion states:

“That this House believes no lethal support should be provided to anti-government forces in Syria without the explicit prior consent of Parliament.”

This is not a debate about whether lethal force should be made available to the Syrian opposition: we will want to have that debate if and when the Government propose to supply such lethal assistance. I have to say that some Members, though not the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), have made entire speeches that made virtually no, and in some cases absolutely no, reference to the terms of the debate.

I shall indeed keep my remarks short—perhaps even shorter than the four minutes that I am now allowed—by making one specific point about the debate and one specific point about the debate after this one, which I hope we will get if ever we reach the possibility of lethal weaponry being supplied. If the assurances from the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House are worth what we wish and believe they are worth, there should be no prospect whatsoever of anybody on the Front Bench or on either side of the argument about supplying arms voting any way other than for this motion. I trust that they will do so. I also trust that there will be a vote today, even if its mechanics require a certain degree of contrivance by those of us who have sought to bring this debate to the House.

I have been making my point about the debate after this one week in, week out, month in, month out. It is a simple point about weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of mass destruction—chemical weapons—are known to exist in very substantial quantities in Syria. We went to war in Iraq precisely to keep al-Qaeda from any possibility of getting its hands on weapons of mass destruction—chemical weapons—that were thought to exist in Iraq. In this situation, people who wish to supply lethal aid can have no guarantee that, if Assad falls, the chemical weapons that he holds will not fall into the hands of the jihadists who are fighting on the side of the opposition. You do not have to believe me, Mr Speaker—you just have to look at the Intelligence and Security Committee’s annual report, which says at paragraph 67:

“The security of these chemical weapons stocks”—

that is, Assad’s stocks—

“is also of serious concern. The Chief of SIS noted the risk of ‘a highly worrying proliferation around the time of regime fall.’ There has to be a significant risk that some of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of those with links to terrorism, in Syria or elsewhere in the region—if this happens the consequences could be”—

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. There is already some evidence that certain rebels have swapped sides to the al-Nusra Front.

[Dr Lewis]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention. I am absolutely certain that there can be no guarantee—in playing with weapons with an opposition as mixed as this one—that the people who end up on top will be the moderate, secular, democrats about whom we have heard so much in this debate. I must finish the quote from the ISC report, which concluded that

“if this happens, the consequences could be catastrophic.”

There are almost as many strands in the alliance of opponents of supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition as there are in the Syrian opposition itself. I have not made some great journey from the Thatcherite right of the Conservative party to the centre left of the political spectrum—despite your excellent example, Mr Speaker, in that respect—and I do not intend to do so. I believe in the security of this country, so I will vote no in the future debate about supplying weapons to the opposition, but we should all vote yes in today’s vote on Parliament having its say first.