Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts
Tuesday 11th July 2017

(7 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Boris Johnson Portrait Boris Johnson
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I thank my hon. Friend for a really excellent question. It is one thing for us to drive Daesh out of Mosul and Raqqa, but we must ensure that the reasons it sprouted in those cities do not recur and that the Sunni minority in Iraq have conditions of governance that give them confidence in the future of their country.

Mike Kane Portrait Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
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T5. Not since the Suez crisis have the United Kingdom Government been so comprehensively defeated at the United Nations as they were last week over the Chagos Islands. In this week’s spirit of bipartisan co-operation, should the Foreign Secretary not just grant the right of return?

Boris Johnson Portrait Boris Johnson
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I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman. In point of fact, we secured rather more positive votes than we expected. As it happens, the other side of the case got fewer than half the members of the UN in support of its cause. Most impartial observers would agree that that side of the case had been substantially weakened as a result—not that it was a strong case to begin with.