Aleppo/Syria: International Action

Lord Walney Excerpts

Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow a wonderful speech, but we have said “never again” so many times. We mean it when we say it, but then, a few months or years later, it comes to nothing. It is this House’s responsibility to stand up and show hope for the future, optimism and a way through the current problems, but like my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) I feel a sense of sorrow, shame and anger about where we are today.

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point. When the historians look at this situation, does he agree that it will probably represent a catastrophic failure of western policy that has significantly changed the world for the worse? It is inevitable that a distinct reckoning will come at some point for the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there will be a reckoning. The question now is about when it will come, on what grounds we will fight and whether, even at this last stage, we will be prepared to stand up for ourselves and the values that we preach in this House but are so rarely prepared to defend when push comes to shove.

Although it will in no way aid what little career I have left in my party, I want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Hatton—

[Hon. Members]

Tatton.

[Mr Speaker]

“Tat” rather than “Hat”.

[John Woodcock]

In truth, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) gave the speech that should have been made at the Opposition Dispatch Box, showing a level of understanding about the issues that makes me hope that he has a future in his party and that he will return. Although great, the problems that we face in this country pale into insignificance compared with other problems we face. There is the threat of a tyrannical regime in Russia that has effectively created a global system that has rules but no consequences. We must understand how we have enabled that to happen if we are to have any hope of being able to right this situation before it is too late.

Let us remember how moderate the 2013 proposal was. The regime had used chemical weapons and we said that there must be a red line. There was absolutely no thought-out plan, but the idea that we should—[Interruption.] I will deal with the Government side in a minute. There was the idea that we should do nothing, which is what we did, because there was no thought-through plan. Last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), showed modesty and frankness about the Government’s failure to get that vote through the Commons. The most lamentable and damning part of the former Prime Minister’s legacy is that he rushed into that. I still feel sick at the idea of the then Leader of the Opposition going from that vote into the Whips Office and congratulating himself and them on stopping a war. Look what is happening today and what has happened over the past three years—the slaughter shames us all, no matter on what side we sit and no matter what our actions were at the time. We are shamed as a nation by this.

We then saw the Russian move into the country, with no UN mandate and no request, yet we allowed it to happen. President Obama said, “Oh well, they’ll come to regret that.” The Russians are not regretting it, because they have been able to show through that and through the highly discriminate slaughter—I was going to say indiscriminate, but it is not—they are perpetrating on citizens that they are able to get away with pretty much anything at the moment, without any sense that there will be come-back. Of course we should talk about the need for justice, bringing people to account and to courts, but the Russians do not respect this. There is no way that they are going to give up their people to bring them to trial. So for all the talk now, rightly, about what extra aid we can bring and what, finally, we can salvage for the people who are left in Syria fearing for their lives, this will ultimately come down to whether we can restore a world with consequence or whether, as the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) suggested, we are now seeing the irretrievable breakdown of the United Nations, just as the League of Nations was destroyed in the 1930s.

The UN is broken over this. People can say, “Let’s have a UN-backed resolution”, but there is no way that Russia currently, when it fears no consequence, is going to bow to the will of the rest, so we have to restore a sense of consequence. Of course that will be difficult, and people will say, “Oh my goodness, you’re inflaming the situation. Oh look, you’re going to start world war three”. However, Russia is not a country that wants a war, but it will continue to push as long as it knows that it will meet no resistance.

Where will this happen next? Will it be a NATO nation? Will it be on our shores? Let us not forget that the Russians have redrawn, by force, the borders of a European country for the first time since the second world war—and what we have done? Not very much. I understand that the Prime Minister is focused on the UK’s exit from the European Union, and rightly so, but this is not a world where we can have one focus and we can leave the difficult decisions beyond the European borders to other people. With genuine respect to the Foreign Secretary, I say that I have seen his understanding on these issues and I have seen him nodding along, but at the moment we have understanding without the capacity to act. So I implore not simply him, but the Prime Minister to look up at what is happening, to understand the role of leadership that she has in this country and on the world stage, and to let us restore a sense of dignity, rules and consequence to the global order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me if I make some progress, because I have very little time left.

For airdrops to be accurate, they must be conducted at low level and low speed. Russia has deployed its most advanced jet fighters and surface-to-air missiles in Syria, which makes it impossible for us to carry out airdrops without Russian permission. Even if Russia were to give its consent, our aircraft would still have to fly over areas of Syria that are hotly contested by a multitude of armed groups, including Daesh and al-Qaeda. They would make every effort to shoot down a British plane, and a lumbering, low-flying transport aircraft would be a sitting duck. We came reluctantly to the conclusion that airdrops over Syria, under those conditions, would pose too great a risk.

When it comes to drones and other devices, we still face the problem that the Syrians and the Russians control the airspace. Of course it is possible that circumstances might change, so I will not rule out any option for delivering aid today, but nor will I give false hope. As things stand, we would be risking the lives of our aircrew if we tried to drop supplies into eastern Aleppo.

I pay tribute to those who have made brave efforts to evacuate wounded children. All those efforts depend on Russia and the Assad regime, and it is up to them to agree a truce. By far the most effective way of delivering aid would be for them to give permission to the UN to distribute the supplies that are piled high inside its warehouses. As long ago as December 2015, Russia voted in favour of UN resolution 2254, which urged all parties to

“allow humanitarian agencies rapid, safe and unhindered access throughout Syria”.

Russia must now obey the very resolution that it supported and compel Assad to allow the UN to feed his people—[Interruption.] I say to Opposition Members who are objecting to this that if we take the pressure off Russia, we are serving the purposes of the Assad regime.

[John Woodcock]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Boris Johnson]

I am afraid I will not.

There is another inescapable reality that Members must accept. On 29 August 2013, this House voted by 13 votes not to use force against Assad, even after he had poisoned hundreds of his people with sarin nerve gas. We, as a House of Commons and as a country, vacated the space into which Russia stepped, beginning its own bombing campaign on behalf of Assad in 2015. Ever since that vote, our ability to influence events in Syria, to protect civilians or to compel the delivery of aid has been severely limited. The dictator was left to do his worst—along with his allies, Russia and Iran—and the bloodiest tragedy of the 21st century has since unfolded.

I must say—the House should listen to this—that Assad’s conquest of Aleppo will not mark the end of the war. The victory will turn to ashes in his mouth, because even if he reimposes his rule over the rubble of that city, about two thirds of Syria will remain outside his control. Millions of Syrians are viscerally hostile to the rule of a tyrant who has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. Already Daesh has taken the opportunity created by Assad’s assault on Aleppo to surge forwards and capture again the ancient Roman city of Palmyra. Assad has repeatedly said that his aim is nothing less than the re-conquest of “every inch” of Syria. If he is allowed to pursue that goal, I fear that this war will continue for more years, and victory will still elude him.

My question to those who ask what we would do—let us turn the question around—is: do Russia and Iran want to stand behind Assad in this futile and indefinite struggle to subdue Syria? Do they want to be with him siege for siege, barrel bomb for barrel bomb and gas attack for gas attack, as the tyrant reduces his country to ashes? In the months or perhaps years ahead, does Russia still wish to be dispatching warplanes to bomb Syrian cities while casting votes in the Security Council on behalf of Assad, a man for whom it has no great regard?