Libya

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Crispin Blunt

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on securing the debate, which has given us time to think. I heard a remark of Henry Kissinger’s about a month ago; he said that the problem these days was that when politicians came to see him they asked what they should say, not what they should think. My hon. Friend has provided us with an opportunity to think, and in the time available to me I want to deal with just one issue. I want to take on the slightly concerning chorus of voices saying that General Haftar—or Field Marshal Haftar, as he has now been styled by the House of Representatives—might somehow be the solution.

Given the enthusiasm for strong men in the middle east, my colleagues might do well to reflect that such men both create and perpetuate the conditions that make them necessary. I was slightly surprised at the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who was, of course, with us on the Select Committee visit to Tunis, when we sat down with Imhemed Shaib, the first vice-president of the House of Representatives, and a number of his colleagues. At that time, in March, they were trying to put together a House of Representatives vote to support the Government of National Accord. Our brilliant ambassador, Peter Millett, and the team of other international diplomats there have worked hard on that, to try to create what the Committee concluded was the only show in town to avoid the descent into civil war.

It was clear from the discussion that the Members of the House of Representatives had been intimidated and practically prevented from gathering together to vote so that they could support the new Government of National Accord. The House of Representatives had no votes between January and August this year, and indeed by May or June the United States had decided to sanction the Speaker, Aguila Saleh, as an obstacle to putting together support for the Government of National Accord, which all nations are formally signing up to as the best vehicle to take things forward.

It is undoubtedly true that Field Marshal Haftar commands the most substantial military force in Libya, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne mentioned, he is getting aid of one sort or another, covertly from the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, and almost overtly from Egypt, where a degree of air power of course gives him military superiority. In the end, the solution is in the hands of Khalifa Haftar: will he place himself under the civilian authority of a Defence Minister appointed within the Government of National Accord? If that were to happen, we would begin to see the possibility of Libya finding its way through the appalling crisis that it has been in since our intervention in 2011.

The international community should be making sure that all our allies are not playing a double game in their own interest. They should instead be playing a game in the interest of the whole international community and the people of Libya, to find the best way of getting a Government who will bring all the people of Libya together. To my hon. Friends who are contemplating what I might describe as a Haftar shortcut, I would say that it would be a shortcut to civil war. The people of Libya have suffered enough. We should do everything in our power to try to prevent such an outcome.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It is all very well to say that things will descend into civil war, but in a country with 1,700 militias at the latest count, and two Governments, there is effectively civil war now.

[Crispin Blunt]

My hon. Friend is correct, but if there is to be a unification of the forces of the west against the military forces under Field Marshal Haftar, we shall see civil war on an even greater scale, with a greater scale of human misery, than we have now.

The issue for us and our interest is the collapse of central authority in Libya. That is why there is no control of the littoral, and why there is now uncontrolled emigration out of Libya and the appalling trafficking of people from the south up to the north. I add my voice to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on what is happening on the Libyan southern border. Some of the migration trails need to be interdicted at that point, but that will be immensely more difficult if we cannot establish a decent central authority in Libya. It was the conclusion of the Foreign Affairs Committee that the Government of National Accord was the only game in town. In my judgment, we should all be focused—including through our leverage over other members of the international community—on supporting its efforts. All the alternatives are far, far worse.