North Africa and the Middle East

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

As so often, not only in recent days, but over many years in this House, the right hon. and learned Gentleman speaks with great authority and wisdom. I was coming on to a passage in my speech where I was keen to suggest to the House that it is illuminating at times to take, momentarily, that longer view and to appreciate the full extent of the failure that we have seen over recent weeks.

In different times and, admittedly, in different circumstances, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen said of the Kosovo conflict:

“We ran a military campaign and in parallel we ran an information campaign. Both were professional and focused but it was, to my mind, the information campaign which won it.”

He went on to say:

“Publics across the world got the message that we meant business and that we were absolutely committed to achieving our objectives summed up succinctly as ‘NATO in, Serbs out, refugees home’. The Kosovars watched and were reassured by our resolution and in Belgrade the generals and the Serbs generally began to understand that once NATO had taken on a mission, it was simply not going to fail. And as they got that message their resolution crumbled and even though their immediate military advantage remained, they gave up.”

Sadly, the clarity, coherence and effectiveness of that communication have not been matched in recent weeks by the international messaging to the Gaddafi regime.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Alexander]

I am keen to make just a little progress.

The Foreign Secretary said on 27 February that

“it is time for Colonel Gaddafi to go, that is the best hope for Libya.”

A few days later, on 3 March, President Obama stated that “he must leave”. But since those categorical statements the urgency of the diplomatic efforts have, alas, not matched the urgency of the situation.

The Foreign Secretary has already told the House that the Prime Minister and the US President speak “extremely regularly”, so may I ask the Foreign Secretary to take this opportunity genuinely to confirm to the House what is more than of passing interest: whether or not the Prime Minister has spoken to President Obama regularly in the wake of this crisis, over the past seven days? I ask that question because Downing street briefings suggest that there has been only one telephone call, and I would be happy to afford the Foreign Secretary the opportunity to intervene on me today to clarify the facts. Calling for action is not the same as acting to ensure that the action takes place. Public statements at a time of crisis need to be matched by the important work of private diplomacy. I suggest that if ever there was a time when such dialogue, leader to leader, was needed, it is a time like now. Indeed, not only has uncertainty about the international community’s position delayed action, but it will have been closely observed in Libya itself.

As United States Senator John Kerry commented yesterday, the time lost by the international community has

“compacted the choices, diminished the options. And it’s changed the state of play somewhat.

The calculation that many people in Libya might have made a week…10 days ago, if we’d started to announce and move certain things, might have been considerably different than the calculation that they might make today. And those calculations are critical in these kinds of events.”

Senator Kerry’s analysis is as accurate as it is devastating, for as we debate today the opportunity for meaningful action is simply slipping away.

[Mr Offord]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about a lack of action, but it is the Prime Minister who has provided that action, calling for a no-fly zone. When the right hon. Gentleman talks about the lack of a voice across the international community, I believe that he is referring to the Obama Administration. When the call of “Democracy!” was shouted, where was the leader of the free world?

[Mr Alexander]

My point is that public declarations of support for a policy need to be matched by private diplomacy. It appears that there is a fashion in the Government to take a different view and a different approach from the previous Government on many aspects of policy. There might be a view in the present Government that the action the previous Prime Minister took ahead of the G20 meeting—getting on a plane, travelling to Brazil and travelling around the world making the case for concerted international action in circumstances of economic crisis—was somewhat overplayed. I personally think that there is a genuine need for action to be taken at this stage but that public words need to be matched by private conduct. In that sense, there must be concerted efforts to try to bring the international community together. That challenge is not unique to the United Kingdom—it is a responsibility that falls on all those in positions of leadership—and I would be the first to concede that this is a challenging and difficult set of circumstances in which, to date, the international community has not been united. That is why, however, I think it demands effort, skill, application and judgment to ensure that we do what we can to cohere the international community rather than further to divide it at a point at which judgments are being made not only in Tripoli but in Benghazi about the commitment of the international community to supporting these changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

We have certainly heard some interesting contributions in the debate today. Unfortunately, the previous speaker was not one of them.

Following the collapse of the Berlin wall, many political commentators were left considering what the implications would be, beyond that of a reunified Germany. Since then, we have seen changes in immigration across Europe, as well as different forms of terrorism being promoted and the economic markets being subjected to different problems from those that they had experienced before the fall of the wall.

I urge Members to consider what the implications of the recent unrest and demonstrations in the middle east will be. The collapse of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt as a result of the region-wide uprising provides a unique opportunity for the development of genuine democracy in the middle east. The Government must not, however, make the same mistake as occurred in Iraq, by introducing a political vacuum that extremism will fill.

In Egypt, the cultural and political heart of the Arab world and a strategic pillar of EU policy in the region, the stakes are immense. The emergence of a democratic Egypt could serve as a moderating element throughout the region and promote a more stable, peaceful and progressive middle east.

Democracy is, however, more than mere elections. To avoid having a repressive Government freely elected, it is first necessary to introduce and firmly establish institutions of democracy such as a free press, free speech, a constitution, freedom for religion and freedom from religion, equal justice under the law, laws based on individual rights and women’s rights and an independent judiciary. The UK should not press for immediate free elections without the fundamental pillars of democracy being in place. If democracy is not nurtured and built steadily, radicals will emerge. This will not only drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab world, but deepen the divide between the west and the Islamic world.

Recent history has shown that having free elections in a country, without the entrenched safeguards of a genuine democracy, can result in the election of oppressive and undemocratic organisations. These dangers were witnessed in 2006, following the election of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which subsequently launched a violent civil war to oust the moderate opposition group, Fatah. We also saw it in1979 in Iran after the Shah was toppled. Within nine months, radical Islamists cemented their control of the country with the election of the ayatollahs.

It will take time for legitimate political movements to establish themselves in Egypt, after several decades in which the extreme Islamist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, stood as the only alternative, albeit outlawed, to President Hosni Mubarak’s monolithic national democratic party. The Muslim Brotherhood, as the only large organised opposition group, could use elections to get into power before completely abandoning democratic structures. It is one of the world’s most influential Islamist movements, guided by an expansionist and anti-Israel agenda, and its goal is to implement strict sharia law, which is the antithesis of democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood leader, Kamal al-Halbawi, issued a series of provocative statements on a trip to Iran in this month, and expressed his hope that Egypt would become a “true Islamic state”.

The political future of Egypt has implications that go far beyond that country’s borders. The UK Government must provide support for Egypt during this important transition period while making it clear to the current military leadership that it must continue to meet its regional responsibilities. Egypt has a critical role to play in promoting Israel-Arab dialogue: indeed, its peace treaty with Israel remains the cornerstone of wider peace and stability throughout the region. It is in the interest of the international community, Egypt and the wider middle east that this agreement remains firmly in place. The UK Government should also strongly urge Egypt’s military authorities to continue to confront radicalism, particularly by taking an active role in preventing the flow of weapons to Hamas in Gaza. Last week’s terror attack in Itamar, which claimed the lives of five Israeli civilians, along with the recent seizure of Iranian-supplied weapons designated for terrorists is a reminder that extremist elements pose an ever-present danger to regional peace efforts.

A truly democratic Egypt that promotes regional peace is of paramount interest for the UK. The UK Government can contribute to this by helping to foster the traditions and institutions of a democratic society and by actively encouraging the country to continue to play a positive and stabilising role in the region.

In mentioning the middle east, commentators often focus on Israel itself. Her detractors, as we have already heard this afternoon, claim human rights abuses, while her supporters speak of a beacon of democracy. I believe now is the moment when we can all unite to seek a better middle east. Now that the opportunity has arisen, the Government must ensure that the Quartet, with Tony Blair as its representative, takes a leading role in making it happen. For too long, there has been a political myopia as to what is happening in the middle east beyond the borders of Israel. Our debate today provides an opportunity to address that and reveal to the world the truth about what we can achieve in the middle east.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Winnick]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend—what he has said is very kind—but in view of what the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) said, I must say that any insult from him is a compliment indeed.

[Mr Offord]

Likewise.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am glad that I have helped to perpetuate the sense of equality that we are observing this afternoon.

Obviously, this is a vital debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North rightly drew attention to its historical connotations, and to Britain’s historical involvement in the region. We tend to delude ourselves in the House that Britain is seen as a benign liberal democracy that never operates out of self-interest but is concerned only with the greater good of mankind as a whole, and that we seek to promote the rule of law, democracy and independence throughout the world. Sadly, the history of Britain’s involvement in north Africa and the middle east hardly adds up to that. We have seen, for instance, the 1952 coup in Iran and all its subsequent ramifications, the Suez operation in 1956, the United States bombing of Libya in 1986 when the planes took off from this country, the obsessive dealing in arms in exchange for oil, and the turning of a blind eye to volumes and volumes of human rights abuses in countries that we claim are close friends of ours.

Last week I tabled what I thought was a perfectly innocuous and reasonable question to the Secretary of State, asking him to tell me on which occasions since June last year

“human rights issues have been raised with… (a) Morocco, (b) Tunisia, (c) Algeria, (d) Libya, (e) Egypt, (f) Yemen, (g) Saudi Arabia and (h) Bahrain”.

I was very disappointed to be told that the Minister would answer “shortly”. I hope that he will answer shortly—