Iran Nuclear Deal

Debate between Michael Fallon and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

No. On the contrary, what this shows to the meanest intelligence is that we do not have to be a member of the European Union in order to co-operate in the most productive way with our European friends and partners.

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

But is not the President right in his analysis of this rather flimsy agreement, which should never have been called comprehensive, in that it does not include missiles and that, far from constraining Iranian behaviour, it has enabled the regime to use its new financial freedom to interfere in Syria, in Iraq, and above all in Yemen, and to sponsor further Houthi attacks on our friends in Saudi Arabia?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I do not recall him making those points when he was serving so well as Secretary of State for Defence when the deal was done, and I disagree with him. Of course the JCPOA has its limitations, as I have readily conceded, but its advantage is that it has at its heart the idea of preventing the Iranians from acquiring a nuclear weapon in exchange for limited economic benefits. I still think that that idea has validity, and the Iranians are still in compliance with that agreement, limited though it is.