Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programme
Debate between Julian Lewis and Philip Hollobone(11 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hollobone
Yes, I agree that Israel should be a signatory, but there would be no question of Israel giving up its nuclear weapons. Enough bad things have been done to the Jewish people over two millennia that they simply will not give them up.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am keen to get the focus back on Iran. One way to do so might be to point out that if Israel were led by undemocratic, tyrannical religious fundamentalists and Iran was led by a democratically elected Parliament and Government who were constitutionally capable of being removed without strife, we might be having this debate about Israel’s nuclear weapons rather than Iran’s. The key lies in democratisation, or the lack of it, in the respective countries.
Mr Hollobone
As always, my hon. Friend is on top of matters. He makes an extremely pertinent point, and he is quite right to bring us back to Iran.
Yes, this is about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Would we be having this debate if the state of Israel did not exist? Perhaps, but the threat of Iran deploying a nuclear weapon would not be nearly as great. The mad and bad people in Iran have said often enough how much they despise the state of Israel. There has been argument about whether they have said that Israel should be wiped off the map, but that is clearly the intention of some people in positions of authority in Iran.
Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, not just in the middle east but in Europe and further afield, and it has an appalling human rights record. It is a very unpleasant country led by a very unpleasant regime. The idea that it should have at its disposal the ability to deploy a nuclear warhead or warheads should fill the world with absolute horror. Ever since 1945, with a brief interruption for the Cuban missile crisis, the assumption has been that nuclear weapons are so horrible that they will never be used, but I think that we could envisage a situation in which Iran, if it had a nuclear warhead, might well use it. If a future regime had the ability to manufacture a warhead and the ballistic capability to deliver it on Israel, it might well decide to take the chance to wipe out 7 million Israelis.
Ministerial Statements
Debate between Julian Lewis and Philip Hollobone(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hollobone
My right hon. Friend, whose reputation precedes him in so many ways, sums it up neatly in a pithy turn of phrase, which I was unable to do myself.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is particularly important for this Government to abide by the conventions that he has described, given that both he and I, having served in previous Parliaments, can remember countless occasions when we and our fellow Members of the parliamentary Conservative party stood to make points of order to remonstrate about the fact that Labour Ministers had continually broken these conventions?
Mr Hollobone
I do agree, although I am desperately trying to make my speech as non-partisan as possible because I believe that both major parties are to blame: when they have been in government, they have not behaved as they should.