Zimbabwe Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Lord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Boris Johnson
Clearly, there is a great opportunity here for the international community to come together, perhaps under United Nations auspices, to ensure there are free and fair elections. We will be making sure the UK Government are in the lead, as we would expect, in ensuring that the people of Zimbabwe have that opportunity.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this could be the beginning of the end of one of the most flawed regimes the world has ever seen? Does he also agree that the key priority, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) has just pointed out, is having a pathway to free and fair elections? Also, what is going to be done to try to recover the many billions of dollars stolen by Mugabe and his cronies?
Boris Johnson
The first priority is free and fair elections, and then to get the Zimbabwean economy back on its feet so that the great natural potential of that country can be unleashed. That should, I am afraid, come before any attempt to take back huge sums from a country that is already in the throes of bankruptcy.