Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
On previous occasions the Foreign Secretary has told us that the Attorney-General is giving advice to the Cabinet. Can he assure us that if there is an increase in the scope and range of the targets that we will hit, that advice will be made available to the House?
Mr Hague
I cannot give an assurance that we will provide a running commentary on legal advice, but I can give the assurance that the Attorney-General is always included in such discussions. He is always included in the decisions about targeting, and indeed in our general discussions about policies. The National Security Council on Libya met earlier today to discuss the increased tempo of the military campaign, and the Attorney-General took part in that discussion. Retaining what we have had from the beginning—a clear legal authority to do what we are doing—is very important. However, although the Government can give it consideration, I cannot undertake to give a running commentary on legal advice.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley). He and I have served together on the Committees on Arms Export Controls and on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs for many years, and he speaks a great deal of sense on arms exports issues.
Somebody once said, in the context of British politics, “You can be in office and not in power.” That situation clearly applies in a number of countries around the world, but I wish to focus my remarks, as others have done, on what is happening in Pakistan. The fact that Osama Bin Laden apparently lived in Abbottabad with food and access to information, although not to the internet, and was somehow protected, is a matter of deep concern, but I have no doubt that the Government of President Zardari had no knowledge that that was the case. The question for us, which is highlighted in a very good book that came out this week, “Pakistan: A Hard Country” by Anatol Lieven, is about the relationship between the civil society and the political society in Pakistan and the military and intelligence elite that has run that state.
Anatol Lieven says that:
“the Pakistani national security state…was born chiefly out of fear of, and hostility to, India. This is felt most strongly in the military and, in the ISI, it is a raging monomania.”
That sums up the problem. According to an opinion poll of about two years ago, 85% of the Pakistani population want better relations with India. We find the same thing when we speak to people in the British-Pakistani and British-Indian community—many of whom, including many of my constituents, have roots in the divided Punjab—and when we go, as I did with the Foreign Affairs Committee five years ago, by road from Amritsar to Lahore, through the Wagah crossing. If we leave aside the symbolism of the soldiers on both sides at the ceremony, we also find the interesting sight of the bearers, who, on the one side, carry sacks of onions on their heads for about a mile and half and, on the other side, carry boxes of dried fruit. This is an international border where people cannot trade by means of vehicles passing through; everything has to be unloaded and then loaded again.
Economic co-operation between India and Pakistan would be of great benefit to both countries, especially in dealing with Pakistan’s problems arising from its rapidly growing population: it has 180 million people, and that is on the way to becoming 300 million or 350 million. Massive difficulties are also caused by the fact that a disproportionate amount of money in Pakistan is taken up by the national security structure, and because the obsession with India means that it is a state that has in the past, through its Inter-Services Intelligence, sponsored terrorist organisations and insurgent groups in both Afghanistan and India. The democratic and secular forces—the people, including the late Shahbaz Bhatti, to whom reference has been made, who believe in women’s rights and in protecting minorities, and who stand up for ethical values and global values of human rights—are besieged now in Pakistan because of the international context.
The Pakistani Government and Pakistani politicians can rightly point out that many of the problems they face arise because of the misguided interventions of 25 and 30 years ago, which led to the situation in Afghanistan, where the groups that evolved into the Taliban were developed. However, there was also a Pakistani hand in some of that; they got the money from the United States—from the CIA—it was pushed through the ISI and it went through to people such as Mr Hekmatyar, to what is now the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, and to the Taliban.
That worm has turned, and the Pakistani state faces enormous threats from those organisations, but it also has its own resilience and ability to fight back. In my opinion, it is good news that Osama Bin Laden was killed and is dead, and however critical we might be of the fact that he was in Pakistan, we need to make an assessment and take a clear view. The Government of Pakistan were not shielding that man, nor were the Pakistani people. That was done by certain rogue elements within their society, and it would be completely wrong to do what some in the United States Congress are calling for and punish Pakistan by cutting off economic assistance and ending co-operation.
What Pakistan needs today is our solidarity against the terrorist threat it faces. Its secular politicians need our support and encouragement to rebuild the dialogue with India, to resolve the difficulties over Kashmir and to co-operate against the common threats of terrorism which both those countries are facing. That is not going to be easy—the history and the fact that the pain is so deep on both sides means that it will be very difficult—but the alternative is to play into the hands of the extremist groups that wish to foster a failed state, further conflict and terrorism. That will not only be destructive to all the values of Pakistan and India, but it will blow back into this country because people here have family roots in that part of the world. We owe it to them, as well as to ourselves, to work in co-operation with Pakistan at this time of great difficulty.
Mike Gapes
Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that one of the important consequences of this agreement is that it allows a programme to go forward for democratic elections, hopefully at the end of this year or the beginning of next, that will then allow the Palestinian people as a whole to elect a new Parliament and a new President? That is vital if we are to get serious negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr Arbuthnot
I agree that that is very important. I asked the Prime Minister a month or so ago whether he was concerned that when the President of the Palestinian Authority called for elections, Hamas immediately rejected that—Hamas having been a democratically elected organisation that renounced democracy once its mandate had expired. I agree, however, that the notion of bringing democracy back to Hamas would be a welcome change.
Unfortunately, I think there is a risk that in the British Foreign Office the view is that this is a matter of shades of grey as opposed to black and white. For Israel it is not a matter of shades of grey. Israel has been struggling to secure itself and just to exist. When it comes to murdering schoolchildren, which Hamas went in for, that cannot be regarded as shades of grey.
Future Diplomatic Network
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
The new strategy of UKTI, which Lord Green has taken the leading role in putting together, places the greatest emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises. Only one in five of the SMEs in this country are exporters on any significant scale. If we could raise that to one in four, which is the European average, the extra exports from Britain would more than cancel out the trade deficits that we have experienced in recent years. This is a central goal, and UKTI’s work in the United Kingdom will reach out to those businesses in particular over the coming months and years. I will write to my hon. Friend with the details of what we announced last night.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Foreign Secretary has already referred to the reports produced by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last Parliament and in this one. He will be aware that just before the general election the Committee made a number of serious recommendations. I congratulate him on announcing the implementation of several of them in the statement today, particularly those relating to the embassy in Kyrgyzstan and to the scrapping of the overseas price mechanism to bring back some form of stability. Will he take a similar attitude to the Select Committee reports produced during this Parliament, and particularly to our recommendation that he reverse the cuts in the BBC World Service?
Mr Hague
As the hon. Gentleman can see from the statement, I always attach great importance to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s reports and to its work. I thank him for his support for some of the decisions that I have announced today. We have discussed the World Service on other occasions, and we will be able to discuss it further. I will just point out that the reduction in the World Service’s funding over the period from 2007 to 2014 is roughly the same as the reduction that will have taken place in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a whole, yet the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, through administrative savings and the changes that I have set out, is able to expand its network. That is not to make a direct analogy with what can be done with the World Service, but it is necessary for all public sector organisations to work out how to do more with less funding.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I did not see the reports to which my hon. Friend refers. Clearly, he has seen reports that he found very disturbing and I hope that he will take those up directly with al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera now broadcasts a very wide variety of material, but I hope that it will in no way encourage hate or the commissioning of crimes; we must be vigilant against that.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Further to an earlier answer, what assessment has the Foreign Secretary made of the internal politics of Hamas and of whether there are conflicting voices—on the one hand about building a technocratic Government and conducting elections on a unity basis and, on the other hand, supporting and praising bin Laden?
Mr Hague
It would be surprising if there were not differing voices and internal tensions on these subjects. Clearly, many issues are moving in the middle east, with the changed situation in Egypt and pressure on the Syrian Government. Hamas has been encouraged by the new Government in Egypt to enter into the political reconciliation with Fatah, as discussed earlier. I believe that it might also feel less secure in its position in Syria. These are forces now at work on Hamas, and it is important in the light of the changes in the middle east that, as the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) has been saying, it makes concrete movement towards acceptance of Quartet principles, which the whole world looks to it to respect.
Middle East and North Africa
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
Yes, there are many such reports. My right hon. Friend mentions reports concerning Algeria, and there are also reports of fighters for the Gaddafi regime coming from other countries in north Africa. We are taking these reports up; we have taken them up at the diplomatic level with some of the countries concerned. We need more specific evidence than usual in these situations, in order to be able to say squarely to the countries involved that they are in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, but whenever we have that evidence we will act on it, and at the ministerial level as well.
On the question of denying Gaddafi the ability to pay for such fighters, we have done two sets of things. One of them is the asset freeze, to which my right hon. Friend referred. Tens of billions of dollars of the regime’s assets have been frozen, particularly in the United States and our country, although that measure is also widely observed across the world. Secondly, the sanctions that we are implementing also deny a great deal of income to the regime. That is why I say that there is no future for this regime. Time is not on the side of Gaddafi. It will be very difficult for the regime to amass the resources required for it to be able to continue with this effort for the longer term. We will seek the rigorous implementation of those measures, and, of course, if any nation appears to have sanctioned the employment of people from its own country as mercenaries in Libya, we will pursue that matter with it.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
This morning, the BBC was reporting that four European Union countries were working up a new resolution for the Security Council. The Foreign Secretary did not refer to that in his statement. Is that because of the reluctance on this issue of the Arab League, to which he previously alluded? Is there not also a danger, however, that many people in the Arab world will perceive double standards if the UN Security Council does not at least adopt a strong resolution condemning the Ba’athist repression in Syria?
Mr Hague
I think the report in question was about the possibility of a presidential statement, rather than a resolution of the UN Security Council. Certainly, France, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom are working together at the Security Council to raise the issue of the situation in Syria. The hon. Gentleman asks about double standards. Different countries will have their own opinions on this subject, and I sounded a note of caution about the attitude of some of the other permanent members of the Security Council. Particularly on Syria, they will be very cautious about adopting statements, and especially about adopting resolutions. The position of the Arab League is a matter for its members. It is, of course, up to them to decide whether to be consistent in their statements or to regard the situation in different countries as requiring different responses. We have certainly had no call or clear message from the Arab League on the situation in Syria in the way that developed in respect of Libya.
Libya (London Conference)
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I disagree with some of my hon. Friend’s assumptions. This is not a western intervention but the enforcement of a United Nations resolution for which African and Arab nations voted, and Arab nations are participating in the enforcement of that resolution. The no-fly zone applies to the whole of Libya, and it is in force over a very wide area of Libya. Of course that includes Tripoli, and will continue to include Tripoli whatever the circumstances on the ground. As I keep stressing, air strikes against ground forces of the regime have been and will continue to be used—in accordance with the UN resolution—on forces that are attacking, or can be used to threaten to attack, or pose a threat of attack, to civilian and populated areas.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier this week the Prime Minister told us that the African Union would be represented at the London conference, although he did not know the individual concerned. The Foreign Secretary has referred to some internal difficulties in the African Union, but has said in earlier answers that it has a potential role in providing for a ceasefire or a peaceful solution. Can he tell us more about why the African Union did not attend, and when the British Government were informed that it would not do so?
North Africa and the Middle East
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We are continuing to review the position and I do not have a new announcement to make to the House or to my hon. Friend about that. There are a variety of legal opinions about the relevant paragraph of the UN resolution. Whatever we do, on this and all the issues involved, must be in strict accordance with the UN resolution and we must maintain the legal, moral and international authority that comes from that. We will not do anything that we think would transgress that resolution. We are looking at it in that light and I will update the House when we have come to any conclusions about it.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the meeting to be held in London and said that the African Union will be involved in it. The African Union is specifically mentioned in Security Council resolution 1973 as having a mission that is engaged in the area. Will he update us as to whether there is potential for the African Union to play a positive role in getting a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the near future?
Mr Hague
Yes, there is a role, but a peaceful resolution would require the Gaddafi regime to observe resolution 1973. If that happened, all concerned could be in discussions with the African Union, but that requires a ceasefire, an end to violence and an end to attacks on civilians. There is certainly a role for the African Union and I hope we will be able to discuss that with it. I do not yet have confirmation of who will attend the conference in London, but it has been invited to attend and this is exactly the sort of thing we want to discuss with it.
North Africa and the Middle East
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is quite right that democracy is not just the holding of elections. We are all familiar with countries where elections of a kind are held, but we would not call them democracies. Indeed, some of the countries concerned used to hold elections. Democracy does indeed require all those things—an independent judiciary, strong civil institutions, free media, and so on. I have already outlined what we are doing in Tunisia to support their development, and I want to put the argument about what the European Union as a whole can do to encourage them.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Foreign Secretary mentioned the position of the Iranian Government. Does he share my absolute disgust at the nauseating, hypocritical remarks of President Ahmadinejad, who has protested about what is happening in Bahrain, but at the same time is suppressing people in his own country? Can the Foreign Secretary say something about the role that Iran might be playing in fomenting difficulties between Shi’a and Sunni communities in the Arab world?
Mr Hague
The hon. Gentleman does not overstate his case. The words that he uses are wholly appropriate to the words and behaviour of the President of Iran. I do not have direct evidence of Iranian interference in, for instance, the affairs of Bahrain—although many would suspect such interference and influence—but with Iran’s links to Hezbollah and Hamas, I do not think that it is currently playing a positive role in bringing about peace in the middle east.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
As we look at these events around the world, we must reflect on whether there are historical parallels and past occasions when similar things have happened. At the moment, everyone is talking about the events in central and eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, in the late 1980s, but there are other parallels, such as what happened in the revolutions of 1848. We could also draw parallels with the student protests of 1968.
The important thing about this revolutionary process is that it has been widely broadcast through new technologies that did not exist in those eras. As a result, as we have clearly seen, the regimes have tried to stop such technology, close down the internet and prevent people inside and outside from accessing messages on Facebook, on Twitter and online. That is another argument for retaining BBC World Service shortwave radio broadcasts at key times, and the Foreign Affairs Committee is engaged in that debate with Ministers.
The other difference from 1989 is that while these events are happening in a multitude of Arab Muslim countries, there is no Gorbachev figure. There is no restraining hand on Erich Honecker. There is no one to persuade and to deal with the situation faced by Jaruzelski in Poland. Of course, we had Ceausescu in 1989, and perhaps the closest parallel with Saif Gaddafi is Nicu Ceausescu. I do not know whether the Ceausescu family’s fate will befall the Gaddafi family, but there is nevertheless a clear parallel: a family regime that uses the state as its own private bank. Unfortunately, the Libyan regime is not the only one for which that is the case. We have heard reports from Tunisia, and there have been accusations about the Mubarak family in Egypt. I read on the web just a few hours ago that there is a “kleptocracy” in Bahrain.
The public can now access information in ways that they could not in the past. The United Nations Arab human development report that was published about a decade ago highlighted the lack of publications and limited number of books per head of population in the Arab world compared with other parts of the world. However, such availability is not as necessary when a generation of young people can access new technologies. There has therefore been an acceleration of change, especially among the young populations of north Africa and Arabia who, in huge numbers, are unemployed. This social and global phenomenon will continue for decades.
The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) said that not everything that happens in such revolutionary situations is pleasant. Some very unpleasant things came out from underneath the stones in 1989 and 1990: growing anti-Semitism, racism and nationalism. We may well find that one of the consequences of the removal of military authoritarian regimes will be that people lose not only their fear, but their inhibition about saying things that are difficult and unpleasant.
We have already heard comments about what the Iranian Government might be up to. I worry that those people who want to gain political power by attacking other minorities will do so in ways that lead to tensions and conflicts between Sunni and Shi’a. We have seen the terrible carnage caused by that conflict in Iraq. We were right—I stand by my opinion—about the removal of the Saddam regime, but none of us estimated quite what terrible crimes would be carried out as a consequence of lifting that repression. That problem is still not resolved in Iraq.
Egypt is at the beginning of the process, so what will happen there? There will be a presidential election and a new constitution, and then, as in central and eastern Europe, we will probably see a multitude of small political parties—or individuals and groups calling themselves political parties.
Some 22 years ago, I was working in the Labour party’s international department. My job was to go to central and eastern Europe, where I met people who said, “We are the true new social democratic party.” I met groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia as was, Russia and elsewhere who all said that they were the true inheritors of the social democratic tradition. People from the Conservative party were also involved in a similar way, because the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) was in Prague just a few weeks after me in late 1989. We all discovered that most of the people who claimed to represent the new political forces did not do so at all.
The process will take time, and we will need dedicated and well-funded democracy-building exercises throughout the Arab world. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has been mentioned. I chaired its board until 2005. At that time, its total budget from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was £4.1 million, which was peanuts, but since then it has been cut. I understand that it will receive an additional £500,000, which is welcome, but that will still leave its budget below what it was a few years ago.
International democracy foundations need to work together. Our Government, our European partners, the National Democratic Institute in the US, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Germany, for example, need to work in a co-ordinated way because governance, democracy and institution building will take time. It would be useful if people from central and eastern Europe could make a contribution because many of them went through such a process 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
Finally, if, potentially, Gaddafi regains control of Libya, we will face the most immediate, appalling crisis. It will be perceived as a major setback. It will send a clear signal, which may already have been picked up in Bahrain, that regimes can keep power if they are repressive and brutal because the international community will either make grandiose statements, as many Europeans have done—I am not critical of our Government on these matters, as we are doing the right thing and are on the right side—or prevaricate, as unfortunately the Americans have done. Let us hope that the Security Council adopts a robust resolution today and then does the right thing.
Richard Ottaway
In that case it has great force. Joking aside, my hon. Friend makes an important point, but we cannot ignore a resolution of the Arab League. It is indicative of the way things are shifting.
My concern is that we might get a legal basis that is not clear. If we do not get a chapter VII resolution, the fallback situation would be what is known in the UN as a responsibility to protect. It is not clear whether that is a part of international law. It suggests
“collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII”.
It sets as high a hurdle as a chapter VII resolution. We are yet to see how things will develop, but I would be rather surprised if we were to get that through. We would then be left with a legal basis that was not clear. If there is another doctrine, I would very much like to hear it.
Yesterday, the Government added a fourth condition: the national interest. In the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday I asked the Foreign Secretary how he would reply to a request from a country such as Ivory Coast, where genocide was going on, or Burma or Somalia—there are plenty of places with internal conflict. He replied that that has to be judged on a case-by-case basis, and that is under the national interest. If we intervene in Libya, will that set a precedent that will be relied on by those countries?
That means, in effect, that we are picking our countries. Let us be clear exactly what that means. It is a reincarnation of the Chicago doctrine introduced by Tony Blair 12 years ago. It is worth reading the speech that he made in April 2009 in Chicago, 10 years after his original speech in Chicago. He said that it
“argued strongly for an active and engaged foreign policy, not a reactive or isolationist one: better to intervene than to leave well alone. Be bold, adventurous even in what we can achieve.”
That is a pretty gung-ho approach. I am not saying that the current Government are being gung-ho, but it is a warning about how we could get carried away unless we sit back, are rational and address the need for a clear legal basis.
We then have the problem of what will happen if another Arab state behaves in the same way as Libya does. We have seen what is going on in Bahrain, with the state of emergency. We all heard reports on the radio this morning of protesters being killed. We cannot intervene in every case. We could end up with a very awkward situation where one Arab country provides aircraft to help police the no-fly zone and then ends up attacking its own people. Then what is our national interest?
I would add a fifth condition. If this does not succeed, we must have a strategy. There has to be a plan B. Where exactly is this leading? My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has great experience of the no-fly zone in Bosnia, and there was a no-fly zone in Iraq. In both cases, we had to put in ground troops to seal the deal and finish the job. A no-fly zone in Libya is most likely to end up with a stalemate in which the rebels cannot lose and Gaddafi cannot win.
Mike Gapes
Does the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that the ground troops did not go into Iraq in 1991 and 1992 and that for 11 or 12 years the no-fly zones, which protected the Shi’a marsh Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north, were very effective in stopping Saddam using his air force to bomb them?
Richard Ottaway
I have heard the hon. Gentleman make that point before, and the answer to it is that Saddam Hussein remained in Baghdad. My point is that the policy under discussion would end in stalemate, too, with Colonel Gaddafi still in Tripoli, the rebels in Benghazi, a no-fly zone and a completely static situation.
If we want to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi, we will have to use ground troops, so I would like the Minister to answer the question, what is our commitment on ground troops? Would we be prepared to use them to finish the job? What is the Government’s attitude to the use of warships? The war is being conducted along a coastal strip. At the end of the day, if we commit to a no-fly zone, we have to be prepared to finish the job and to put troops in on the ground, otherwise we should not start. That is why I am concerned about where this is all leading. I do not think that we have the troops to put in on the ground, and that is why I come to the difficult conclusion that, without a UN resolution, we should not consider a no-fly zone.
The Prime Minister posed a question to people such as myself, who have their reservations about a no-fly zone, when he said on Monday:
“‘Do we want a situation where a failed pariah state festers on Europe’s southern border, potentially threatening our security, pushing people across the Mediterranean and creating a more dangerous and uncertain world for Britain and for all our allies as well as for the people of Libya?’”—[Official Report, 14 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 27.]
That is a very good question, and it deserves an answer. My answer is, we have had this pariah state for 42 years, and we have lived with it: we have put up with it; we had to bomb it once; we had Lockerbie; and we are still here and it is still there.
I do not want to see us get sucked into a war—a dispute—in the middle east. We need to tighten the noose as hard as we can, with the toughest sanctions possible, and if necessary we need to give all support, short of intervention, to the rebels. But we should not go down the road of arguing, campaigning or pushing for a no-fly zone without a UN resolution on either chapter VII or the responsibility to protect. There are huge risks politically and militarily without one, and I urge the Government to proceed with caution.
Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), with my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), adverted to what took place with regard to the liberation of Kuwait. Kuwait was liberated because Margaret Thatcher, together with the President of the United States, decided that the situation could not be allowed to continue.
Sir Gerald Kaufman
John Major, but Margaret Thatcher was also involved.
In the same way, action not words dealt with the situation in the former Yugoslavia. My hon. Friend is right in his conclusion that, if the situation in north Africa is to be solved in any way acceptably, it will be by action, not by continued talk. The world community should hang its head in shame at the prolonged delay to take practical action on behalf of the people of Libya.
Time is very short, indeed, before it becomes too late, but complacent indifference has long dominated the west’s approach towards Gaddafi’s brutality. Even in recent months, the Home Office has insisted deplorably on sending a Libyan asylum seeker back into Gaddafi’s clutches, just as it insists on sending asylum seekers back to Iran. As usual, the United States, under its present Administration, has been vocal about Libya, but words are easy; action is what counts.
In the case of Israel’s transgressions and brutalities, the Americans have been even more shameful. As is his wont, Obama has been long on self-indulgent, vacuous rhetoric, but absent when it comes to meaningful action. Let us witness the illegal Guantanamo Bay torture camp, remaining open two years after he promised that it would close. “Absent”, though, understates Obama’s pernicious policies. When he sought to wheedle the Israelis into a moratorium on settlement building, he promised that if they paused such building he would veto any Security Council resolutions regarded as critical of Israel. The Israelis ignored him, and still he vetoed the recent, otherwise unanimous, Security Council resolution on settlements.
Yet that United States Administration, if they wished, could bring the Israelis to heel, simply by cutting off the supply of arms and economic aid to that rogue country. Economic sanctions on Israel work, as was demonstrated when President Bush senior forced Yitzhak Shamir to talks in Madrid by suspending loan guarantees.
Certainly, when it comes to rogue regimes, the world is long on denunciations but short on action, and it is important to place on the record those transgressions against international law by a country that has one of the most aggressively right-wing regimes in the world. The Israelis have built an illegal wall through occupied Palestinian territory, in many, many cases cutting Palestinians off from their livelihoods, as I have seen for myself recently. The Israelis’ settlements are, again, a violation of international law, yet they expand them. Again, I recently saw for myself how, in Jerusalem and elsewhere, settlers, with the connivance of the Israeli police, throw Palestinians out of their homes and force them to live in tents. Israel’s hundreds of checkpoints on the west bank make it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for Palestinians to get to workplaces, schools, universities and hospitals. The Jordanian Foreign Minister told me recently how, when he was travelling with the Palestinian President on the west bank in separate cars, he felt obliged to invite the President to travel in his car, because the President’s own car was continually being stopped at checkpoints.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
We were all reassured when one of the first statements made by Egypt’s military council was that it accepted and will adhere to its international agreements. I think everyone understood that it was referring specifically to the peace agreement with Israel, and I hope that that will provide people with confidence. When I was in Egypt last week, I saw the relationship between the military and the politicians, and it is to be hoped that there will be a process towards democratic elections and government, and that that peace treaty will be adhered to by a future Government.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give us the Government’s security assessment of the situation in Bahrain and the potential for a Shi’a-Sunni conflict both there and in Saudi Arabia?
Alistair Burt
Obviously, we watch events in Bahrain with mounting concern. The sense is that the Bahraini Government should continue to give an opportunity for legitimate protest and that the dialogue should continue with opposition parties. It is incumbent on both the opposition and the Government to keep that process of reform going. On intervention from the GCC at the request of Bahrain, it is essential that that is consistent with the spirit of reform, and not repression.
Inter-Parliamentary Scrutiny (EU Foreign, Defence and Security Policy)
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Richard Ottaway
The European Parliament is free to pass all the motions it likes. The truth of the matter is that the Lisbon treaty invites national Parliaments to exercise a scrutiny function over European foreign, defence and security policy. What we are doing is putting forward a proposal. If we cannot agree on it, we cannot influence the debate—going on in Belgium, not in Brussels—and we will not have a seat at the table. What I hope will happen today is that the UK Parliament will come up with a proposal to lead the charge in providing a counterweight to the European Parliament.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is aware that these discussions have gone on for quite a long time. In fact, they pre-date the re-establishment of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the last election. I was involved in discussions in late 2009 and early 2010. I would like to stress that this is a very important statement of intent by our national Parliament to say to certain people in the European Parliament who have certain aspirations, “Get your tanks off our lawn; national Parliaments are in the lead on this matter, and we are going to remain in the lead on it. We are working with you, but you are not going to get away with the claim that the European Parliament is the sole democratic institution.”
Richard Ottaway
The hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently. It is an important subject. Perhaps 10 years ago, this debate would have taken place in a packed Chamber, which illustrates how the world has moved on in considering some of these issues.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
This really is a pretty shoddy second-rate shambles. We are going to betray the Norwegians, our closest allies and friends, we are reducing the Turks, the biggest single military contributor to NATO in terms of personnel, to observer status—I suppose they can bring in the coffee—and we have not got support from one major EU country. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee rattled off a few—
Mr MacShane
France has only just rejoined NATO. It does not have quite the same weight in NATO councils as ourselves, Germany and Italy. We have a real problem.
We could have been a lot more robust about preserving the Western European Union. The idea was put to me when I was a Minister, but it was one of those topics that just get put back in the box in the hope that it dies. The last Labour Government and their Foreign and Commonwealth Office team should not be awfully proud of that. The WEU was not the greatest organisation in the world, but it did bring together serious, real-life parliamentarians from countries that were directly involved in military activities. Instead, we have now got an absolute disaster of a sequence of proposals, of which I worry most about the proposal from the presidency of the EU, which is currently held by Belgium. I do not know where that proposal comes from because Belgium does not have a Government to put a proposal forward.
We heard some interesting comments in this week’s debate on the EU referendum Bill from the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. He started animadverting on something called a non-paper and treated the concept with immense scorn, but a non-paper or aide memoire is quite a common bit of diplomatic terminology. However, this is the first time that the current House of Commons has had to deal with a very major proposal relegating its importance, and coming from a non-Government.
I hope we can be robust on this issue, because let us be quite clear: the Belgian presidency proposal sets up a new committee of which six members will come from the Westminster Parliament—both Houses—and 54 from the European Parliament, so it will have nine times more representatives on the committee. Having spent some time in the couloirs of European Union decision making, let me assure Members that a proposal put forward by the country holding the EU presidency carries a lot more weight than a resolution of any particular committee of any particular national Parliament, much as we all respect, love and admire our own Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), who obviously feels passionately about the organisation that he has been chairing, which is about to go out of existence. I can understand his frustration. I appreciate many of the points that he made, particularly his attack on those in the European Parliament whose view of their organisation is that it is somehow superior to national Parliaments and should be the body that scrutinises defence, security and foreign policy matters to the minimisation, or potential exclusion, of national Parliaments. That is something that we have to confront.
This debate is really about how we put into practice the Lisbon treaty requirement that there be a mechanism within the European Union based on national parliamentary committees coming together and co-operating to deal with matters that are dealt with on a national co-operative basis, not a communautaire basis. There is a deep philosophical difference in the views of those Members of the European Parliament. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and I were in discussion with them when we visited Brussels in September. Some of them have a view, and a model, that goes even further than the paper produced by the Belgian Council presidency—a federalist view that says that the European Parliament is the supreme democratic body on all matters to do with the European Union.
We need to be very clear about this. There will be a negotiation, and the position that our Parliament and other national Parliaments put forward will probably not be its final outcome. It is therefore important that we lay down some principles about where we are starting from. The work that the Foreign Affairs Committee has done in this Parliament began in the previous Parliament when I was discussing this with the then Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), just before the general election. We had been presented with this situation, and we were trying to find a way to secure some accountability and a mechanism, knowing that Parliament was going to be dissolved and that it would be some months before new Committees were established. We were trying at that point to get some initiatives based on the successful work over several years of the Conference of Foreign Affairs Committee Chairpersons, or COFACC, and the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union, or COSAC, which are the two bodies that bring together the representatives of Foreign Affairs Committees and European Scrutiny Committees periodically to discuss common concerns. That is not a perfect model and it probably needs some beefing up and development.
We must be aware of the danger that there are people in the European Parliament who want a permanent, well-funded secretariat based in the European Parliament, serviced by people who serve its Committee on Foreign Affairs. Those people have an ideological dispensation towards a certain approach to foreign, security and defence policy matters. We need to find a mechanism that takes account of the clear point in the Lisbon treaty that the body should be based not on the European Parliament, but on bringing together the national Parliaments. After it is established, the national Parliaments might decide to co-opt or bring in representatives who attended the meetings of the assembly of the Western European Union. They might also decide, in time, to establish a secretariat of their own to assist the rotating troika model that we have put forward in the report. Basing the mechanism on the rotation may well not be perfect. From time to time, there is a presidency country that has more resources and a greater ability to host such meetings.
From my experience of attending COFACC meetings over five years, that is a very good model. We did not have interminable discussions over the entrails of commas and full stops in meaningless resolutions that would never go anywhere, but had a real exchange of views. People such as Mr Solana, Cathy Ashton, and the Foreign Minister or Prime Minister of the country that had the Council presidency came before us, answered questions and were accountable to the spectrum of opinion from the 27 member states.
Today, we frankly either have to agree to this report or have no position. If we have no position, we are effectively undermining our friends in like-minded countries. I had discussions with the Speaker of the Portuguese Parliament in January last year when the Foreign Affairs Committee visited Lisbon and when this idea was first developed. Concerns have been expressed in like-minded European Union countries about the aggrandisement, or even quasi-megalomania, of some in the European Parliament in relation to how these matters should go forward post the Lisbon treaty. If we have no position, we will undermine the work of our partner countries that are on the same wavelength as us, to which the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee referred. I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who is not present at the moment, to point out that France is not an insignificant country in the European Union. We have friends in a diverse group of countries, including Finland and Portugal, who hold similar views about how defence, security and foreign policy should be scrutinised and how accountability should be dealt with.
We have not reached the final position, because there will have to be negotiation and there will probably be an almighty row. People in the European Parliament who do not like the suggested model will clearly resist it. Some countries, such as Belgium, will do so—I could make a joke about chocolate soldiers, but I will not, because it is an old joke from a previous decade. The Belgians are not alone—there are people in Germany, Italy and other European countries who have a similar attitude to the European Parliament and its aspirations. We need to come to a view today that helps the debate and clarifies it for the future.
Mr Chope
We do not need to come to a view today in adopting the Committee’s report. At the beginning of April, Mr Deputy Speaker, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), will represent Mr Speaker at the conference. I am sure that he will faithfully reflect the balance of opinion in today’s debate when he represents this Parliament at that conference. It will not be suggested that we are not doing anything, because we are achieving a lot through today’s debate.
Mike Gapes
I would rather we had a clear position to guide our representatives when they take part in those negotiations. Of course, a negotiation ultimately leads to some movement and compromise. From the thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for North Dorset, I believe that although he is not entirely happy with the report, he is more happy with it than the approach that came from the Belgian Council presidency.
We have a choice today. I have to declare an interest as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who was involved in the discussions on the matter in the early days, before the report was agreed. Nevertheless, I am very pleased that the Committee’s members from three parties have reached a consensus view, which also reflects the view expressed by the Committee in the last Parliament.
We have had experience of attending seminars organised by the European Parliament from time to time. National parliamentarians are sat at the end of the row, then some man who has been elected with about 3% of the popular vote in his country proceeds to denounce the views of a whole delegation of national parliamentarians, who collectively might represent 95% of the popular vote in their country. That is the nature of the debates in the European Parliament on these matters.
We, as national parliamentarians, have to take the political heat on the doorstep when matters of life and death are involved. We have to debate issues such as Afghanistan, whether we should establish no-fly zones, humanitarian interventions and the responsibility to protect people in north Africa. The people who have to be held democratically accountable for those matters are not the Members of the European Parliament but the members of the national Parliaments.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has rejoined us. One thing I agree with him about—he will be able to read what I said earlier about where I disagree with him—is that we in this House do not scrutinise European matters adequately. We need to get our act together rapidly, because those issues become more and more important. The report is at least an attempt, with co-ordination between different Select Committees and our colleagues in the other place, to get a common British view to put into the important international process. I therefore hope that the House will endorse the report today.
Egypt
Mike Gapes Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
In the present context, time lines are genuinely difficult to estimate. Nobody knows quite what will happen with those who are gathered in the square or how long protests will continue. Whatever the time line is, I think that the international community would agree that it should naturally be as short as possible. The expression of the people has been clear. There is a process to be gone through, but it must be quick and effective, and it must lead to a reformed Egypt, as far as political change and democracy are concerned.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister referred to developments in different parts of Egypt. Does he have any information about what is happening with the Rafah crossings and the tunnels into Gaza? There is potential for people to take advantage of the current instability and send rockets or other materials into Gaza, with wider destabilising consequences in the region.
Alistair Burt
I understand the concern with which the hon. Gentleman speaks. We have no information at present to suggest that that is happening, but his strictures are well noted and will, I am sure, be taken into account.