EU Council, Security and Middle East

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think we should listen very carefully to our Kurdish friends and allies, because they are in the front line against this ISIL monster. The action that they have taken has been effective and brave, and we support the air strikes that the Americans have undertaken. So far, our action has been about supplying them with weapons, support, non-lethal equipment, body armour and suchlike, and as I have said, we are prepared to go further.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister talked about learning the lessons of history. A previous Conservative Prime Minister, 23 years ago, was prepared to use British air power in a military exercise to save the Kurds. Why should we just leave it to the United States, particularly when the Kurdistan regional government have called for the whole of NATO to express solidarity and provide weaponry to them and air power to fight this genocidal caliphate?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As I have said, the question we should be asking ourselves in this House—I am interested in the reactions of colleagues today—is what we can best do to help those on the ground who are doing the vital work in combating ISIL. Up to now our approach has been some military support, some support through intelligence and weaponry and some support through humanitarian aid, but we should continually ask ourselves how we can assist them in a way that also helps to keep us safe back here in the UK.

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not have a candidate for the job, because as a political party leader I think it is wrong to elect the head of the Commission in this way—that is the whole problem. I have to say that the position Labour would have been in if Martin Schulz had ended up as the Commission President would have been even more embarrassing for you.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that a British exit from the European Union would be an economic disaster for this country, damaging our trade and employment, and reducing British influence in Europe and the world?

G7

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am certainly doing everything I can to make a series of points, including that we need reform in Europe, which means a particular programme of reform, and people who are capable of carrying it out. I also keep coming back to an important point of principle: if Britain were to give way on this issue and say that we accepted it, we would effectively be saying that we accepted a change to the whole way in which Europe worked for ever into the future. I sometimes find it frustrating that many other European leaders agree with me completely about the need for reform and for people who can carry it through; we need to make sure that everybody works together to get the right outcome, but I am absolutely clear that this is a point of principle and one on which we should not budge.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister referred to Syria. Was there any discussion with the other leaders about the terrorist threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both in Syria and in Iraq? This morning, there were reports of the imminent capture of the main oilfield, as well as of the events in Mosul. Does not that prove that the John Major and Labour Governments were right to give support to the Kurds to establish their autonomy and the protection and stability that exists in at least one part of Iraq at this time?

[The Prime Minister]

First, there was a discussion about the current state of Syria and there was also, as I have said, a discussion, including my bilateral with President Obama, about the specific ISIL threat in Syria and Iraq. The threat is being played out in terms of terrorist kidnap and terrorist training. British people are going to Syria and being trained, with the risk that they will come back here or to other parts of Europe and carry out terrorist offences, so it is one of the most serious security challenges that we face.

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the Kurds, but I also agree that there is no option for an international-facing, open-trading nation such as Britain to turn away from the world and say we will not have anything to do with these problems because they are all too difficult or complicated. Those problems will come back and bite us unless we act with allies not only to make ourselves secure here at home, but to try to help to deliver security there as well.

European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The deep country knowledge that resides in our Foreign Office and diplomatic service is an immense asset for the Untied Kingdom. As Prime Minister, I see that all the time, particularly when dealing with some of the countries mentioned by hon. Friend that suddenly have a significance far beyond what they previously had. That is why we are opening embassies and investing in the language school and why the Foreign Office is a very important part of our soft power.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

NATO is based on extended deterrence. Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and huge conventional forces. What discussions has the Prime Minister had with the United States and countries such as Poland and the Baltic states about reconsidering some of the approaches to ensure enhanced security for those countries that border Russia?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary is in the United States at the moment discussing exactly those sorts of issues. As I have said, I think the most important thing is to reaffirm our NATO commitments, reassure our NATO allies and make sure that we are providing things such as aircraft to help with air patrols, so that the Russians can see that, on Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, they are not just dealing with national forces, but international forces that are part of NATO. I do not agree with the suggestion that sending more troops to be stationed in Germany would somehow make an important statement. I think that the most important thing is the reassurance of NATO allies and a very clear message to Russia about the consequences of further action.

Commonwealth Meeting and the Philippines

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that links between Commonwealth parliamentarians are very helpful for raising these issues. His first point is absolutely spot-on: because of visiting the north and raising these issues, human rights, and questions about land reform, reconciliation, and investigations, were top of mind for the press, the media, and everyone in Sri Lanka in a way that they simply would not have been.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister says that the Government will press the issue in March next year at the United Nations Human Rights Council. In the light of that council’s woeful record—at one point, it actually praised the Government of Sri Lanka for their internal policies—how confident can he be, given the authoritarian states and friends of Rajapaksa who are on the council, that we will get anywhere on this in the UN?

[The Prime Minister]

I think this is going to be very hard pounding for a very long period of time, but what the Sri Lankan Government need to understand, and I think understand more today than perhaps they did a week ago, is that the issue is not going to go away, and if they do not hold an independent inquiry, the pressure for an international inquiry will grow and grow. Using the UN human rights machinery is the right way to do that.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The options in Syria have never been easy or risk free, and today all options are bad ones. The reality is that in the past two and a half years, the international community has betrayed those secular, enthusiastic people who tried to get democratic change in their country. Because of our hang-ups about our past, because President Obama was not interested, and because of Russian and Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, we have not given support, and that has led to the brutality, radicalisation and extremism that we confront today.

This debate has not made me proud. I am sad and I believe it tells me something about our country today when I hear people saying, “It’s none of our business” and “We shouldn’t get involved” when 100,000 people are dead and 4 million displaced from their homes. Today, increasing numbers of Kurds are fleeing Syria to go to the Kurdish region of Iraq where Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to kill the Kurds in the Anfal campaign in 1988, yet nobody seems to realise the significance of that.

I have reservations about both the Government motion and the Opposition amendment because I believe they are inadequate. They both talk about deterring the future use of chemical weapons, but I do not think one can deter the use of chemical weapons simply by firing missiles symbolically—a “shot across the bow”, or whatever phrase President Obama used. I think the strategy the United States is about to launch is doomed to fail in its objectives.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely knowledgeable about Syria and I am extremely concerned about the implications for the wider region if we launch military action—heaven forbid that we agree to do so. Will he outline to the House his assessment of the implications of military action for the wider region?

[Mike Gapes]

If military action is simply based on the kind of inadequate gesture politics that we seem to have coming from across the Atlantic, it will be a disaster and will inflame the people in the region. I believe, however, that non-involvement and non-intervention also has consequences, the most serious of which is that simply saying we will deter the future use of chemical weapons assumes that only the Assad regime will possess such weapons. What happens when areas of the country where chemical weapons are stored are overrun by elements of the jihadist-linked opposition who get them and pass them to al-Qaeda? What happens when, to try to secure some of those weapons and not let them get into the hands of the opposition, Assad gives them to his ally, Hezbollah, which tries to take them for potential use against Israel or elsewhere?

We must talk not only about deterrence but about the removal and ultimately the destruction of those chemical weapon stockpiles that date back to when the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia provided them to Assad’s father and his regime. I believe that these issues will be with us, however we vote today, next week and next year. In three or four years’ time we will still be confronting the issue of chemical weapons and we must get real about that. I will be supporting the Opposition amendment today, but I think we must go further.

Afghanistan and EU Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I may be a little more optimistic than my hon. Friend, but I think the most likely outcome is that both those things will happen. One of the reasons why I think a peace process can get under way is the fact that, in recent statements, the Taliban have effectively said that they do not want Afghanistan to be used to harm other countries. I believe that the decoupling of the Taliban from al-Qaeda is well under way, and I think that that is positive.

I also do not believe that America, NATO, ISAF or any of us are walking away from Afghanistan, and I think that that is positive as well. As I have said, we will maintain the officer training academy and our funding of the Afghanistan national security forces, and I think it likely that the Americans will maintain a presence in the country—to be negotiated, of course, with the Afghan Government.

Obviously we want to see a peace process succeed, but, as we have always had to explain, our security response of training the Afghan national army and police force is the key part of making sure that the country will not fall back under Taliban or al-Qaeda control, and, having observed the effectiveness of those forces, I think we can be confident that they are capable of ensuring that that happens.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to praise the skill, persistence and dedication of the European Union’s High Representative, Cathy Ashton, and her staff in securing the welcome agreement between Serbia and Kosovo on normalisation on 19 April? Will he also take this opportunity, while he is supporting further enlargement of the EU, to explain why we are in favour of other countries joining the EU, but many members of his party want us to leave?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me first pay tribute to Cathy Ashton and the very good work that she does in the European Union, which I see at first hand. We work very closely together, and I know that she works very closely with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. While some of the dossiers for which she is responsible must be immensely frustrating—I am thinking particularly of the Iranian negotiations—there is no doubt that she can take a huge amount of credit for the opening of accession negotiations with Serbia and the completion of the process of accession for Croatia. I made that very clear at the European Council meeting.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s comments about my party, let me point out that the Conservative party has always been in favour of the widening of the European Union. We have been arguing for that for decades. Indeed, we were arguing for it, and delivering it, in the 1980s, when the hon. Gentleman’s party stood on rather a different ticket.

G8

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister is aware that 30 years ago, a United States President and a British Conservative Prime Minister decided to arm the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with consequences that are still with us today in belated talks directly with the Taliban. The Prime Minister mentioned Mali. I was there two weeks ago and we are aware that arms that came out of Libya led to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb almost taking power in that country. What guarantee can he give the House that if he decides to arm elements of the Syrian opposition, we will not be dealing with the same problems in this country and the rest of the world in 30 years’ time?

[The Prime Minister]

We have not made that decision and let me say that on Libya, I think it was right to work with others, including the French. There was cross-party agreement to do that and get rid of Gaddafi. Of course, that work is never done, but that should not be an argument for never doing anything anywhere. If we take action, as we do in Libya, we must do everything we can to help the successor regime that is democratically elected get weapons out of Libya, and that is what we are doing. Those are all arguments for engagement and working with partners—not putting our soldiers at risk or taking steps we are not capable of, but working with others to try to get good outcomes.

Tributes to Baroness Thatcher

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thinking about what to say today, I looked at my bookcase, and I came across three publications from the 1980s: “Thatcher’s Britain: A Guide to the Ruins,” to which I contributed in 1983, “Breaking the Nation,” published in 1985, and the Fabian Society’s pamphlet “ABC of Thatcherism,” published in 1989. I do not have time, in four minutes, to quote any of them, but they are well worth reading, although they may be out of print.

I was the parliamentary candidate in 1983 in Ilford North. We had huge, enthusiastic meetings for the Labour party during that campaign, but because of the split in our party, the SDP and the divisions, we had a terrible defeat. The lessons for Oppositions to draw from that period are that it is essential to preserve party unity, and essential to recognise that enthusiasm for one’s party and hatred for the other side is not necessarily a guarantee of a victory.

In February 1990, the opinion polls in this country put the Labour party at 56%, under Neil Kinnock, and the Conservatives at 23% under Margaret Thatcher. We know what the Conservative party did in its ruthless manner, which has been mentioned by previous contributors to the debate, but there is a lesson there for all of us in opposition: you cannot count your chickens about what the position might be in two years’ time.

In the brief time remaining, I want to say a few words about foreign policy. Mrs Thatcher was absolutely right to sign the Single European Act. She was absolutely right to be in favour of enlargement of the European Union. The consequences of those policies have influenced the politics of this country ever since. That is why we have free movement of people in the European Union. That is why we have the current debate about immigration policy. A lot of that is to do with economic decisions taken at that time. It is well worth our thinking through the consequences for the future.

On other foreign policy issues Mrs Thatcher was wrong. We have heard about South Africa and her attitude to Nelson Mandela, and I am very pleased that Nelson Mandela is still with us today, in this world, and I hope he carries on living for a decent period of time, so that he is able to understand more about the changes that have taken place in this country since the days of Margaret Thatcher, because one thing she did was to cut the overseas development budget. It went down to 0.26% of GDP, yet this coalition—I praise them for it—has kept to Labour’s pledge of funding at 0.7% of GDP, which shows that what is being done in the world today is very different from what she did in government.

One other thing that Mrs Thatcher got wrong was her attitude to the unification of Germany. She was vehemently against it, but as a result of that unification, and at great cost to the Germans in the west, we have seen the peaceful transformation of central and eastern Europe, as well as the enlargement of the European Union and the end of communism in our continent. Those fantastic achievements could not have been achieved without the support of Margaret Thatcher but, above all, the man responsible was Mikhail Gorbachev, whom she recognised as a man she could do business with. As we heard, she should be praised for that, because she convinced Reagan, although she sometimes tried to rein Reagan back when she was wrong to do so, as at the Reykjavik negotiation, where he was ahead of his time and ahead of the world today in aspiring to a world without nuclear weapons.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

European Council

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. A secret ballot in a Parliament is an extraordinary concept. MPs and MEPs should vote transparently so that their constituents can hold them to account. They have to account not only to their electorates but to their countries, which will suffer if a deal is not passed through.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that his Government are still in favour of future enlargement of the EU beyond Croatia to countries in the western Balkans and, potentially, elsewhere? Given that this budget lasts until 2020, what provision is there in it for any further accessions of new states after Croatia?

[The Prime Minister]

We are in favour of further expansion of the EU to the countries of the western Balkans and others, as the hon. Gentleman says. Obviously, there is room in the budget for cohesion and other payments, but the fixed amount of payment ceiling— €908.4 billion—cannot change.