Middle East

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I have not been able to sit through all of this debate, but it has been a pleasure none the less to hear so many Members speak up so strongly on both sides of the Chamber. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). We all take his warnings about the dangers of being glib in our historical references, and about how we must go easier on some of the clichés. He also warned us against allowing a false dichotomy into this debate, by saying that there is only either a military intervention or no intervention at all. Some of us on the Opposition Benches feel that the argument increasingly coming from the Government is that, unless we are prepared to endorse the course that they seem to be on, we are somehow insensitive to the need to fight Daesh and all the evil that it represents and does, and that we are unsympathetic to the suffering of the people in Paris, Beirut, Ankara and elsewhere. But we are not; we know that terrorism must be confronted in all its evils, all its arguments and all its rationales, and that we have to do that in a way that is sustainable and credible.

Before I touch more deeply on the issue of Syria, I wish to welcome the fact that this wide-ranging debate, which was initiated by the Backbench Business Committee, has also allowed us, rightly, to touch on other situations as well, including that in Yemen. Last week, I, along with other hon. Members, heard from CAFOD about how it is treating that as one of the most serious humanitarian situations in the world. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) touched on some of the graphic statistics, but we need to understand what all that means.

We cannot go on talking about humanitarian crises—there is a queue of humanitarian crises not just in the greater middle east, but more widely as well—just as though they were some new statistical phenomenon. We need to remember the real pressures that they are causing and the real demands. When we respond to a situation, people will want to know why we are not responding meaningfully at all levels in other situations as well. If we send the level of aid that needs to go to Syria and surrounding countries to help in that humanitarian crisis, people suffering other humanitarian pressures will want to know why there is not the same urgency there. They will wonder whether there is more urgency when there is military intervention. If no military intervention is contemplated, does that crisis go down the league table for consideration and humanitarian concern?

It has also been important to hear about what many would regard as the most enduring middle east conflict—the situation in Israel and Palestine. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) and the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) spoke compellingly about why that situation should not be losing attention as it appears to be relative to what is going on in Syria and elsewhere. Let us remember that that situation is one of the factors that is used in the wider radicalisation agenda that too many people seek to promote. If we are to confront the evil logic and the cynical rationale that are used by Daesh and others who come up with a perverted extremist Islamist view of the world, we need to remember that they cite the west’s ineffectual position on Palestine as one of their main bits of evidence for our unsuited interest in the region. Let us remember that that conflict, which is being pursued with yet more demolitions and more settlements, has had a pretty ineffectual diplomatic response from the west—the same west that is talking about marshalling our best diplomatic efforts, military action and humanitarian aid into a comprehensive strategy in Syria.

Then people will ask, “What quality will this huge diplomatic effort have? Where do we see this huge diplomatic effort elsewhere? Do we see it in the middle east and Palestine?” Frankly, people do not see it there. People see the EU and its member states adopting essentially a screensaver approach to what is happening to the Palestinians. Shapes are thrown, images are projected and impressions are created, but nothing real is going on. When was the last time that the Israeli Government took seriously any strong diplomatic message from EU Governments or the UK Government about any of those ongoing violations?

On Syria itself, I listened to the Prime Minister’s statement last week and to all of the other arguments since, and I know that he thinks that he has covered the basis of a comprehensive strategy, and has touched on a number of issues. Some of us do not believe that the elements are complete, or that they add up to the coherent, comprehensive strategy that will succeed in the way the Prime Minister claims they will. We do not pretend that the situation and the choice are exactly the same as those faced by this Parliament over Iraq, but that does not mean that there are no similarities and no questions that we have to ask of ourselves again. The Prime Minister has said that we should not outsource our defence to others, but nor should we outsource our judgment. Just because other people are engaging in military intervention does not mean that we should sign up to support it as well. We should not be doing something just because others are doing it.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys talked about history being fickle. We should remember that we have a fairly fickle proposed alliance arrangement for this intervention. We have a somewhat shifting alliance, which includes some fairly shifty allies, and that is just when it comes to the other states. When we then look at forces, such as the Free Syrian Army, which are meant to be the ground forces, we have to recognise that the question of how many of them are truly reliably and sustainably moderate into the future could come to haunt some Members given the glib way in which they have talked about 70,000 forces being available.

[Several hon. Members rose—]