Turkey: Human Rights and the Political Situation

Mike Weir Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) has just reminded us of the foundation of modern Turkey by Kemal Atatürk, who sought to create a secular republic. It is sad to see what is now happening in Turkey, which is drifting toward dictatorship.

In introducing the debate, the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) rightly discussed the ties between this country and Turkey. Others have mentioned that Turkey has taken 3 million refugees from other parts of the middle east. She also made the very good point that the main thing to come out of the Prime Minister’s recent trip to Turkey was a fighter jet deal worth £100 million. The right hon. Member for Enfield North said that human rights issues should never play second fiddle to trade deals, and we wholeheartedly support that position. Human rights should always be up there when we discuss such deals.

In considering that, the Minister should perhaps reflect on what has happened with sales to Saudi Arabia, the position in Yemen and the reputational damage to this Government and this country caused by the failure to take strong early action on how those weapons were used. I think that that will haunt the Government for some time to come.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I generally agree with all the comments in this debate, but I was in Diyarbakir. It is absolutely dreadful what has gone on there, but that was done by munitions and weapons previously held by the Turkish, and they are also procuring equipment now from Putin in Moscow. The situation is a bit more complex than blaming the UK Government for arms sales; the Turkish Government should be held to account for what they have done in Diyarbakir.

[Mike Weir]

Nobody is arguing with that—the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right—but it is part of how we should approach human rights worldwide. We should not be part of supplying arms to regimes that may use them in such a way. It is about considering human rights under the regimes that we are dealing with.

The present situation in the country probably goes back well before the attempted coup in July, but the state of emergency imposed then and most recently renewed in January means that many of the normal functions of the constitution are suspended, resulting in derogations from the European convention on human rights. Since the coup, the Government have conducted a widespread campaign of media clampdowns, arrests and dismissals. More than 40,000 people have been imprisoned; more than 120,000 police, prosecutors, judges, civil servants and academics have been dismissed. It is an attack on civil society by a Government almost unprecedented in modern times, despite the fact that most in Turkey were probably opposed to the attempted military coup, as the right hon. Lady pointed out in her introduction to this debate.

Ten MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party, including its two co-leaders, were imprisoned after Parliament voted to remove legal immunity from dozens of MPs in May 2016. The Government accuse the party of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ party or PKK, although that is strongly denied and there is no independent evidence. Indeed, the strong suspicion remains that it is being used as an excuse to dismantle domestic opposition to the present Government. Human Rights Watch says:

“Instead of building on the cross-party unity opposed to the coup to strengthen democracy, Turkey’s Government has opted for a ruthless crackdown on critics and opponents”.

In April, a plebiscite will be held to enhance significantly the powers of the President. The Government are conducting a vigorous propaganda campaign in its favour, while the current crackdown clearly impedes opponents’ ability to campaign against it. Despite that, before the Government banned opinion polls, they showed that 45% opposed the changes while 35% supported them, suggesting that even in these difficult times, the flame of democracy remains alive in the country, as is also shown by the reaction to the coup.

We unreservedly condemn attempts such as the failed coup to overthrow democracy, but equally, we condemn any response that does not respect human rights or the rule of law, and the current Government in Turkey have clearly used the coup to target their democratic opponents. In that respect, it is also imperative that we uphold and strengthen the European convention on human rights, yet I observe in passing that some of the things that this Government say about the European convention are not helpful in pushing it in other nations that are going much further than I hope our Government would ever dream of going.

We must lead by example and show unequivocally that we support the ECHR, and we must urge Turkey to do likewise and to approach the Kurdish issue—on which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) went into in greater detail in her fantastic speech—not with repression but by talking to those, such as the Peoples’ Democratic party, who seek a peaceful solution in Turkey: not independence, but home rule. It is a reasonable position, and one with which the Government should work, rather than continuing the oppression from which the Kurds in that region of Turkey have suffered for so long.

Gary Dunne

Mike Weir Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for securing a debate on this case. I also thank the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) for his intervention.

May I add my own condolences to the family and pay tribute to their unwavering determination in the face of their loss? The death of a loved one is always distressing, and the grief of Mr Dunne’s family has clearly been compounded by the circumstances of his death and the procedural difficulties they faced thereafter.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is committed to making the process for those bereaved abroad as simple as possible. Providing consular assistance to British nationals who are the victims of serious and violent crimes overseas and their next of kin is a priority and a central function of our embassies and posts around the world.

Before I address the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, I would like to outline the involvement of the Foreign Office in the case to date. Following Mr Dunne’s death, British officials were in close contact with the family to provide consular assistance. When, as the hon. Gentleman said, the family experienced difficulties in bringing Mr Dunne home to Britain, consular staff did all they could to help. However, it became clear that under local law, the possibility of a further autopsy during the trial process prevented an individual’s remains from being repatriated, cremated or embalmed. The only option therefore was a local burial until the trial was complete. After that, exhumation before a period of five years had passed would only be permitted if an immediate cremation within the cemetery was arranged.

Representations were made to the director general for the Costa del Sol health district in November 2007 and to the provincial delegate of Andalucia’s health district in February 2008, to see if an exception could be made to these requirements, based on the compelling compassionate circumstances of the case. While sympathising with the family’s wishes, both the director general and the provincial delegate explained that, because Mr Dunne was a victim of murder, his case was considered a judicial one.

Understandably, Mr Dunne’s family continued to fight for his return and in July 2008 they petitioned the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). In October 2008, the right hon. Gentleman raised the case with the then Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero, and secured an agreement from the Spanish authorities to allow Mr Dunne’s repatriation without a cremation, on exceptional humanitarian grounds. So, with guidance and support from consular officials, Mr Dunne’s family made an application for his exhumation. As we have heard, three years after Gary Dunne’s murder his family and friends finally held the funeral, at home in Liverpool, which they had long sought. Later that year, Mr Dunne’s family contacted the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to express their gratitude for the assistance they had received.

I now turn to the points the hon. Gentleman raised in his speech. First, I will address the question of whether EU-wide procedures for repatriation could be agreed, to prevent other families from facing the horrifying and distressing situation the Dunnes faced. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, this is a difficult and complex issue. The power to act lies with other Governments, and the ability of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to intervene in domestic matters—such as the variations in Andalucian law on repatriation, burial and cremation, which the hon. Gentleman outlined—is limited. However, it is clear that, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said when he met the Dunne family and—I think—the hon. Gentleman in 2011, we should do all we can to prevent other families from facing the suffering endured by the Dunnes.

Therefore, I have asked that, as a matter of urgency, officials follow up with the hon. Gentleman and the Dunnes’ MEP, Arlene McCarthy, on who has done what following the Downing street meeting, so that we can collectively agree appropriate next steps. Secondly, I know that the hon. Gentleman and the Dunne family are deeply concerned about the apparent inconsistencies in the application of the rules governing repatriation. The advice we have received from the Andalucian authorities consistently made it clear that an unembalmed body can only be exhumed and repatriated after five years, unless it is cremated. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there may be factors at play in the other cases that he mentioned that we are not aware of. Exceptions can clearly be made if the grounds are sufficiently strong, as indeed they were in the Dunnes’ case. However, as I have said, I have asked officials to provide a progress report on efforts to establish common practices across those parts of Europe that currently require delays in repatriation.

The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the lack of support that Mr Dunne’s family felt they received from the Spanish authorities, and indeed the authorities’ level of support continues to fall short of the family’s expectations when it comes to their being kept informed of the current status of the perpetrator of this terrible crime. It is important that the Spanish authorities keep the family informed of any developments in the case, either directly or through their legal representatives. I have asked my officials to contact the relevant authorities in Andalucia to see if lines of communication can be re-established. For his part, I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider raising the matter directly with the Spanish ambassador.

On the issue of compensation, I am aware that, as the hon. Gentleman said, although an award of €125,000 was made by a Spanish court to the family, they have only received €1,500 to date. I am conscious that that can only add to the distress they have already suffered. However, the British Government cannot interfere in another country’s judicial process or direct the Spanish courts to enforce payment, particularly when the offender may not have assets with which to pay the outstanding compensation, which I understand to be the case in this instance. Therefore, I am afraid that our consistent advice to Mr Dunne’s family has not changed. Their Spanish lawyer is best placed to help them pursue this issue through legal channels and to advise them on applying to the Spanish state for payment of the outstanding compensation.

Also, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, with whom the hon. Gentleman has been in communication about this tragic case, has previously provided him with information on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which Mr Dunne’s family may wish to approach for advice—if they have not already done so—about whether they can submit a separate application for compensation from the Spanish authorities.

Our consular staff often have a difficult and frustrating time, but on the whole they carry out their job—as the hon. Gentleman was kind enough, and right, to say—with patience, dedication and a great deal of tenacity. I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman will join me in commending their efforts.

Having said that, I assure the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not complacent. We continually review our consular policy so as to provide British nationals with the best possible service. As part of that work, we have put in place a number of processes to ensure that high standards of consular assistance are provided to British nationals. Our new consular strategy for 2013-16 focuses on doing more for the most vulnerable, including victims of violent crime overseas and their families. Consular teams also undertake regular complex case reviews to ensure that we are providing the most appropriate and effective service in particularly complex and long-running cases, and we employ professional specialists, such as legal advisers and social work advisers, to provide expert advice. In addition, early next year we will undertake a review of the methods used by similar organisations to see how we can develop our own quality control and audit processes.

Cases such as that of the Dunne family highlight the extra support that is needed by those who have lost a loved one to murder or manslaughter overseas. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Victim Support’s National Homicide Service, which in part was set up to address the problems encountered by families such as the Dunnes. Since 2010, the Foreign Office has provided funding to Victim Support so that it can offer such families a dedicated caseworker and give practical support to help with the added trauma, complications and costs that a murder overseas can cause. Those bereaved by murder or manslaughter are now entitled to identical levels of support whether the crime was committed in the UK or abroad, and since 2011 many bereaved families have already benefited from this enhanced support.

In conclusion, I again thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I am aware of the very great support for the Dunne family that has been demonstrated by the people of Liverpool. This is a tragic case that has been compounded by the anguish that Mr Dunne’s family had to endure in order to bring him home to Britain. I hope they have been able to find some degree of comfort and closure in his return. I also hope that, through their legal representative, they are able to seek the full amount of compensation that is due to them.

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister who is responding to the final debate today, which is due to start at 4.45 pm, is not present, so I shall suspend the sitting until 4.45 pm.

Syria

Mike Weir Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right that Russia’s proposals on Monday were a very important change of approach. That is particularly apparent to me, given that I have on several occasions over the past couple of years discussed with Russian representatives whether there is a way of working together on the chemical weapons in Syria. It has always been the Russian position hitherto that the Assad regime would not use its chemical weapons—it did not expect it to use them. I think that the mounting evidence that the regime has used those weapons and the discussions, particularly those in the United States, about whether to take military action have produced a change in the Russian position. Whatever the motives and reasons for that, we should nevertheless welcome it and work with it, which is what we are now seeking to do.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

The Foreign Secretary has said that under the Geneva agreement, there should be a transitional Government

“drawn from regime and opposition by mutual consent”.

It has been reported that the Syrian National Coalition has said that it will not deal with some figures in the regime. Will there be any preconditions on who may attend a second Geneva convention to try to establish such a transitional Government?

[Mr Hague]

The mutual consent clause refers to the outcome of the creation of a transitional Government. In our view, it should not refer to who comes to a second Geneva conference. It will be up to the regime and the opposition—the national coalition—to nominate their representatives for the conference. They will need a significant degree of freedom in doing that, but they will have to bear it in mind, when nominating their representatives, that they want a successful outcome. Mutual consent is about the outcome, not about setting preconditions on who can come.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Mike Weir Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I withdraw it, of course, Mr Deputy Speaker. It was not that, but something very similar, that we had to listen to on that day.

The House passed the vote on Iraq by 412 votes to 149, and 217 hon. Members voted for the amendment tabled by Chris Smith. I was among those who voted against the war, as were my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), my hon. Friends the Members for Angus (Mr Weir) and for Arfon (Hywel Williams) and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). I am looking around the Chamber to see who else is here: I see the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), whom I commend for his fantastic speech today. It was excellent to hear a speech from the Front Bench from a former Minister who meant what he said and I thank him for that. He was listened to very carefully throughout the House. All of us here on these Benches today voted against the war. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was not a Member of Parliament at the time, but one thing is certain: had she been a Member, there is no doubt that she would have been in the Lobby with us that evening.

That vote is the one that I am most proud of in my 12 years as a parliamentarian. It defined my first Session in Parliament. I, a young whippersnapper of an MP in short trousers, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, first came here in the Session that lasted from 2001 to 2005, and the Iraq war was the defining feature of that parliamentary term. That was the context and the subtext of a lot of the debates we had on similar and other issues. I certainly remember during the 2005 election the sheer anger on the doorstep about the invasion of Iraq and how the war went.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As a new MP at that time, I too remember the huge anger on the doorstep and the great pressure being put on MPs to vote for war—by the press, for example. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) and I voted against an earlier motion, I recall that one newspaper named us and provided our phone numbers to get people to ring us up. A stream of people—with Geordie accents, I do not know why; the Scots did not seem to bother—then wanted me thrown out of the Labour party. That was news to me, as I had never been a member of it.

[Pete Wishart]

I am, of course, very grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Lots of strange things were going on at that time, particularly to people who were associated with an anti-war position. He is absolutely right to mention the role of the press in all that. They helped to create the environment, the culture and the mood for invasion and war.

The funny thing is that this did not have any effect on the public. The public loathed the idea of going to war in Iraq. I was at a march in Glasgow where 100,000 people were out opposing the war, while 1 million people in London marched against it. There were worldwide protests, too. It is reckoned that the protests against the Iraq invasion and war were the biggest protests ever witnessed since Vietnam—yet we still had the invasion and the war.

We have heard about the case for war and how compelling it was, and we have also heard about people being duped. The public saw through the case; the public knew that the case was flimsy; they viewed it as nonsense; they knew that there was no case for war. They were against the war because they knew it was wrong to attack Iraq. That is why they went out on the streets in such numbers to ensure that the war would be opposed. The Blair Government, however, were determined to go to war.

Parliament was even recalled in September 2002, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd reminded us, and we came down to listen to the case for war. I remember arriving and there in my pigeon-hole was the dodgy dossier. I remember sharing it with my hon. Friends, and we were almost in hysterics at some aspects of the case for war. It was drivel, but we had to listen to it again and again that day. We now know, of course, that the dodgy dossier was compiled from all sorts of plagiarised sources and that the most notable contribution came from a graduate student called Ibrahim al-Marashi. It seems almost like some sort of script for a failed comedy film kicked out because it lacked credibility, yet this was the case to go to war. I know I cannot say the unparliamentary word again, Mr Deputy Speaker, but that is what this dodgy dossier was.

Of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction, still less any that could have been deployed in 45 minutes. There was no collusion with al-Qaeda either, but al-Qaeda is certainly there now. Al-Qaeda is all over the region, following the political instability caused by this conflict. Of course, there was no evidence of any uranium project and nothing whatever could be found relating to any nuclear programme. We now know that Tony Blair and his Government knew this. How they knew this was revealed in the “Panorama” programme, to which some of my hon. Friends have referred. The programme said that the intelligence case to go to war, which was in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Government, was so flimsy that it lacked any credibility. It was based on an agent called “Curveball”, who saw evidence of WMD being compiled, which he passed on to the Germans. It subsequently spread like wildfire around the US and UK intelligence services, so determined were they to find any shred of credibility in the evidence to justify going to war.

We were misled; that is all we could say about all this. This House was misled. I regret that more Members are not here today. We need to hear more testimony, particularly from those who voted for the war. We have to hear from them, as we did from the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, to understand that they were misled, lied to and given the wrong evidence. The only way this House can get any sort of closure on this issue is if we massively confess. Those who voted for the war need to come here and say, “We got it wrong. We were lied to by a former Prime Minister, and I wish I had never voted for the war.” That would be the honourable thing for hon. Members to do in this House—but I doubt whether it will happen.

The war was not, of course, based on intelligence. Intelligence was just a useful gimmick—a useful tool to ensure that Tony Blair could do what he wanted, which was to fulfil the almost perverse obligation that he felt that he owed to George Bush. He had probably told George Bush that he would take this country to war.

The night on which the five SNP Members voted against the war, as did our colleagues, was indeed a proud occasion, but let me tell the House about something else of which I am particularly proud. When that man, that former Prime Minister, came into the Chamber for his lap of honour, the House got up like a circus to clap him, but I would not rise to clap that warmonger. I sat rooted to my seat, and I am proud that I did so.

[Mr Weir]

I sat rooted to my seat as well. However, I remember the current Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, standing and waving his hands to encourage his members to rise and cheer on the Prime Minister who had led us into this disastrous war.

[Pete Wishart]

Members were almost hissing us for sitting still, but I am glad and proud that I never rose to my feet to clap that warmonger.

The Iraq war is, of course, associated with Tony Blair, and always will be. It is his legacy. He might as well have had it tattooed on his head, such is his association with that illegal war. Conflicts tend to become associated with prominent figures and leaders: we have had Thatcher and the Falklands war, Churchill and world war two—and Iraq and Blair.

What was it all for? What was achieved? More than 100,000 dead, a region destabilised, a country divided along sectarian lines, and international diplomacy discredited as never before. We may never retrieve our credibility in the international community following Iraq, and that is a sad, sad indictment of what happened here. I will not even bother to go into the details of the millions of people who have been displaced. But another dreadful thing happened, and it is the thing that we will most regret: we have alienated a generation of people living in the Muslim world. Furthermore, we have dangerously radicalised a proportion of them, and that is what we are having to deal with now. That is another legacy of the Iraq war with which we have continued to contend, and we will live to regret it.

By any standard, Iraq has been an absolute and utter disaster. That illegal war was one of the most regrettable and damaging foreign policy adventures ever undertaken in our name. Some Members have gone on about Suez, but the mighty Suez is nothing but a little stream compared with the foreign policy damage that has been created by Iraq. Those responsible must be held to account. History will eventually judge them, but I should like to think that it will be done now, while I am still a Member of Parliament. I should like to think that some justice will be delivered. So far, the only people who have lost their jobs because of Iraq are people who worked for the BBC. One person lost his job because he said that the dossier was “sexed up”. That dossier was more sexed up than some teenage starlet in her latest pop video.

UK Constituent Parts (EU)

Mike Weir Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ann McKechin]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. If Scotland were not part of the EU in a post-separation scenario, obviously its trading relationship with the rest of the UK would be in question—what criteria, tariffs and so on would be in force? Scotland’s economy relies heavily on having a stable export market, and many thousands of jobs depend on foreign trade, but the manner in which the Scottish Government have twisted and turned at every corner to avoid a clear answer as to what legal advice they had on such questions can only corrode public trust. I shall give way in the hope that the questions may be elucidated.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying but, given the increasing Euroscepticism in the UK population and what is happening in this Parliament, how can she even be sure that the UK—with or without Scotland—will be a member of the EU in the next five to 10 years?

[Ann McKechin]

The hon. Gentleman may be surprised to know that on that issue I am united with them. The quality of our alliances and partnerships is what will allow Scotland to succeed, which is why I want to be part of a strong European Union, as much as I want to be part of a strong United Kingdom.

Let us return to the question of our status in Europe. Every time that the Scottish Government have been asked about the question of status, they have always sought to give the firm impression that continued EU membership was guaranteed and that no real material change in membership obligations would result from separation. One example of that sorry story is the interpretation of the Scottish Government ministerial code. That document was apparently altered—in a way that begs even more tricky questions—between the FOI request being made and the truth being forced out last month. Paragraph 2.35 of the code states, and I emphasise the first sentence:

“The fact that legal advice has or has not been given to the Scottish Government by the Law Officers and the content of any legal advice given by them or anyone else must not be revealed outwith the Scottish Government without the Law Officers’ prior consent. The only exception to this rule is that it is acknowledged publicly that the Law Officers have advised on the legislative competence of Government Bills introduced in the Parliament…Views given by the Law Officers in their Ministerial capacity are not subject to this restriction.”

I am grateful for the comments made by Ian Smart, the former president of the Law Society of Scotland, in a recent blog, which points out the revelation that legal advice given by “anyone else”—not the Scottish Law Officers—does not require the consent of the Law Officers; only the content of that advice must not be disclosed. Ian Smart said:

“And that is, on any view, deliberately the way the code reads for otherwise the first sentence would be the much simpler.”

The First Minister, however, in his interview on “Scotland Tonight” four weeks ago stated:

“That’s quite clear in the Ministerial code. It’s both the fact of whether it exists, and the content. I would need to clear it with the Lord Advocate if I wanted to say that I had not sought legal advice.”

That is simply not the case if we read the code accurately. Given the outcry about his remarks in the now famous TV interview with Andrew Neil back in March, we might have thought that the First Minister would have taken the opportunity to reread his own ministerial code before rushing into the TV studio. The tricky question that needs to be answered now is whether the First Minister sought legal advice from “anyone else” before that FOI request or his interview with Andrew Neil in March. If so, who was that from and what was said?

There may be some clues. On Tuesday, 30 October, the Lord Advocate wrote to Ruth Davidson, MSP. The third paragraph of that letter contains an interesting statement:

“As was made clear by the Deputy First Minister the Scottish Government has now requested specific legal advice from the Law Officers on EU membership. As you will be aware legal advice on many issues is provided by the lawyers in the Scottish Government Legal Department…but in relation to certain matters the Government will seek a legal opinion from the Law Officers. That is what is happening in relation to the matter of EU membership.”

That same afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, summed up a debate on this very matter and, soon after 16.38 in the Official Report, said:

“Clearly, if ministers have sought legal advice, the law officers will provide that legal advice, so to reveal that legal advice has been sought from the law officers reveals the fact of such advice and puts us in breach of the ministerial code.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 30 October 2012; c. 12755.]

Both of those statements cannot be true, however. Catherine Stihler’s inquiry remains whether the Government have been given any legal advice, and on that point there is still deafening silence.

The First Minister and his colleagues may argue that, when they make contentions on EU membership, they are speaking about evidence from a variety of experts—“in terms of the debate” is the phrase most commonly used—but that is not the same as legal advice. They know the difference. Some of the people quoted are not lawyers; some have died; and most of the statements seem to have been made prior to the Lisbon treaty, which made fundamental changes to the European Union’s constitution. None of those represent a legal opinion, and just as many eminent people disagree with those expert opinions, including no less a person than the current EU President.

Here is one simple question the Scottish Government should clarify urgently. Have they already had legal advice from their legal directorate? It is difficult to imagine that, when the Scottish Government issued their White Paper, “Your Scotland, Your Voice: A National Conversation” in 2009, they did not run it past their own legal department. That document contains examples of ambiguous phrasing in its comments about EU membership. I draw hon. Members attention to page 110, paragraph 8.12:

“Settling the details of European Union membership would take place in parallel to independence negotiations with the United Kingdom Government”.

That phrase sounds as though it were written by a lawyer, and as I am a lawyer and a member of the Law Society of Scotland, I speak with some experience. Will the Minister confirm whether his Department has received any information about whether the legal department was consulted on that document, and whether it asked his office for advice or information about EU membership if Scotland were to separate?

That brings me back to volatility. As other hon. Members have said this morning, the EU is undoubtedly experiencing the most challenging and volatile period in its history. Its fiscal policies are under constant stress, there is significant unrest in many regions caused by massive hikes in unemployment and cuts to public services, and there are major differences of opinion in the political leadership. That is where legal opinion hits realpolitik.

Yes Scotland’s latest leaflet states without reservation:

“We can all see the one thing holding us back—we let someone else take decisions for us.”

lf the Scottish Government want our country to remain part of the EU come what may—that seems to be what the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) said—the painful truth is that other people will make decisions for us on how long the application process will take, the conditions for membership, the size of our contribution, our entry into the eurozone, and our entitlements under the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries agreement. As one small nation in 28, our negotiating position, at best, will be fairly weak.

[Mr Weir]

That is all very interesting, but has the hon. Lady bothered to listen to the news from Europe, where the Prime Minister is going to discuss the European budget? It seems that the rest of the EU is ganging up to cut the UK out of the EU, and to cut the famous rebate that everyone goes on about.

[Ann McKechin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for proving my case about volatility and disputes in the European Union. Any union or partnership that lasts a long time has difficult phases, and this is one. He has proved my point that the negotiations will not involve simply providing a list—that is what the First Minister always seems to suggest—saying what Scotland would like and expecting people to nod and say, “That’s fine. Don’t worry. That’s okay with us.” That will not happen, and any attempt to try to prove the opposite shows the weakness of the argument.

On the national central bank and financial regulators, Croatia’s recent entry negotiations show that they are not tick-box exercises, and again there is no guarantee that other EU members would be attracted to the solution that the Scottish Government prefer at the moment of relying on another EU member to provide both important institutions, and that is if that EU member agreed to that in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) on securing the debate. Although it may not be a regular occurrence, I concur with a lot of what she said.

I confess that I have always been puzzled by the Scottish National party’s policy of independence in Europe, or whatever its particular slogan is at the time. Although I profoundly disagree with independence for Scotland, there is logicality in believing that Scotland should be a master of its own destiny: that it should break away from a currency, a monetary and fiscal union, and a political union, and decide matters for herself. I do not agree with that, however. I think that the union has been one of the most successful political, social and economic entities that the world has ever seen, and it would be a tragedy if Scotland split away from it. There is, however, logic in saying, “We want to be masters of our own destiny and decide policies for ourselves.”

What I find illogical is the argument that being in one union is so disadvantageous to Scotland that we should split away, destroying 300 years of shared history and experience, and then rush straight into an even bigger one. That is illogical, and I contend that in such a union, Scotland would have a far weaker influence than it currently has in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Weir]

I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument. The UK is part of the European Union and has surrendered some sovereignty to joint decision making, but that is different from an encompassing political union, which some in the EU want. I presume that he is very much against that, but that is the position in which Scotland finds itself within the EU, and there is nothing illogical in seeking to get out of the United Kingdom in order to join together with other nations in the EU, to a restricted degree.

[Iain Stewart]

I am tempted to go down the path of having a debate on the wider issue of the EU’s direction—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) would be only too happy to join in—but I think I might exceed my five-minute allowance. The point is that if Scotland became an independent member of the EU—I will come on to why that will not be a straightforward process—it would be joining an ever-deepening union. I do not want the United Kingdom to be part of that, but that is what Scotland would be forced to sign up to. Under the terms of the EU treaties, all new member states are obliged to make the political and legal commitment to join the economic and monetary union, and to adopt the euro as a currency.

[Mr Weir]

That is simply not the case. Under the EU treaties, a nation has to join the exchange rate mechanism II before moving on to the euro. ERM II is voluntary, and in the case of Sweden, it has made it clear that it is not moving towards the euro, although it joined the EU later. Scotland would be in the same position. There is no obligation on Scotland to join the euro.

[Iain Stewart]

I profoundly disagree with that analysis. Sweden is obligated to join the euro once it has satisfied the economic conditions. That is the position, and I disagree profoundly with the hon. Gentleman’s position. He has said nothing that dissuades me from the view that an independent Scotland would be sucked in to a full economic and monetary union, and that would not be in Scotland’s interests.

It is far from certain that Scotland would become an automatic, independent member of the EU. There is no precedent for a current EU member state splitting up into constituent parts, with the part that broke away becoming a separate member. Therefore, we must look at what the treaty on European Union says, and article 4.2 is clear that the EU must respect the fundamental, constitutional and political structures and the territorial integrity of a member state, which has exclusive competence in such matters. The EU cannot therefore recognise a unilateral declaration of independence by part of a member state. Furthermore, according to article 49, the hypothetical new state would need to request membership and attain the unanimous support of the European Council for that request, and have its membership approved through an accession treaty, to be ratified by the Parliaments of all member states.

If one looks at the political reality of other member states in Europe, that is far from a foregone conclusion. Would Spain, for example, agree to it with its issues in Catalonia and the Basque country? Would Belgium, whose constitutional integrity is under question, agree? I do not believe that that process would be automatic. I am not suggesting that Scotland could not become an independent EU member, but I ask at what time and at what cost. Croatia’s accession to the EU has been mentioned, and that has been going on for over 10 years. Slovenia made an objection to that process, and although it was overcome, it took time.

I ask again what the cost to Scotland would be. What uncertainty would be created for business at a fragile time for the global economy? What else would she have to surrender to get membership agreed? I believe that euro membership would be inevitable. What about Scotland’s budget contribution, which is a topical issue? The SNP contends that Scotland has a budget surplus in the United Kingdom. I think that issue is far from settled, but for the purpose of the argument, let us accept that the SNP is correct and that Scotland pays more into the United Kingdom coffers than she receives from it. Does that not mean that Scotland would be forced to pay a much higher contribution to the EU budget? Has that been factored into anyone’s calculations? I do not believe so. What about other issues, such as Schengen and the common fisheries policy? What influence would Scotland have to protect her current freedoms? It is all uncertain.

As the hon. Member for Glasgow North said, the Scottish Government are making it up as they go along. There is no certainty, which I believe we should have. The United Kingdom should remain strong and intact. The debate about our position in the EU is a broader question; personally, I want to get us back to more of a common market, and certainly not into a deeper political and monetary union. However, we are better off fighting this together and not splitting up into component parts, when we would have no certainty and Scotland’s interests would be subsumed into the wider interests of Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pamela Nash]

No, not the residual UK.

Earlier this year, Salmond declared that

“the negotiation on Scotland’s representation would be conducted from within the European Union.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 19 January 2012; c. 5500.]

That is not impossible, but it is not automatic, and it would be a difficult negotiation. There is no need to take only my word for that; notable members of the European political community and academics have said the same over the past few months.

Accession would need to be approved by all 27—soon to be 28—member states. Although Spain has not confirmed that it would block an application from Scotland, it has said that we would need to join the queue. It is difficult to see how the Spanish Government could reconcile their position on Catalonia with a new Scottish state joining the European Union.

There is also the issue of the euro. Contrary to the proclamations of the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), all new EU member states have been required to sign up to the eurozone. Sweden joined the EU in 1995, but it is still obliged, when conditions are met, to join the euro.

[Mr Weir]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pamela Nash]

No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because his colleague, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, did not have the courtesy to give way to any of mine.

The UK is one of only three countries that currently benefit from an opt-out. The SNP has said that a separate Scotland could opt out of the euro, but the evidence suggests otherwise. There is also the small matter of the Schengen agreement, and of many other opt-outs from which Scotland now benefits as part of the UK. The Schengen agreement would involve passport controls at the border with England, as we have heard in the Scottish Affairs Committee. The SNP has simply dismissed that as scaremongering, because that does not fit with its campaign strategy, but the evidence again suggests otherwise.

In conclusion, this issue is too important for the people of Scotland to be continually misled from one side of the debate. I hope that today’s debate helps inform them, and helps them make an important decision in two years’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) on securing this important debate today. It is not surprising that those who have different views on the relationship between Scotland and the UK should also try to find different arguments to support their position about Scotland’s relationship within the European Union. There are arguments on both sides that draw on various legal authorities. The arguments put forward by people such as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) are much stronger than those that have been put forward by the SNP. None the less, I accept that arguments can be found from various sources to support different positions in the debate. Of course this is not just a legal and constitutional argument. Ultimately, whatever the legal position is, it is also a political issue that the European Union will have to face if Scotland were to become independent. Whatever side of the argument one takes, it is inevitably the case that if Scotland were to be independent, whether or not one regards it as one of the successor states to the UK or as a new state, there would have to be a new treaty. That is undoubtedly the case whatever one’s legal analysis of the position.

The new treaty would require a negotiating process, and we have heard today a number of the issues that would have to be clarified and resolved in that process. There are the institutional relationships and structures of the EU, internal matters such as the rota for which country takes over the presidency, and the number of MEPs and the number of votes. Even those matters have in the past been the subject of many years of negotiation in relation to new treaties.

There are also much weightier issues, such as the UK rebate and whether Scotland would succeed to some share of that, which would require substantial negotiation. There is also the common fisheries policy. Given the SNP’s position on fisheries issues over recent years, one assumes that it would want to see the repatriation of the common fisheries policy towards an independent Scotland. One cannot imagine that that is something that can be simply agreed within negotiations in a matter of weeks or months. It will clearly require considerable and lengthy negotiations as part of a new treaty. The same could be said of many other issues that have been referred to in this debate.

Such issues may eventually be resolved. However, in trying to resolve them, there are two factors that will have to be taken into account. As a strong supporter of UK and Scottish membership of the EU, I can say that the EU does not do things quickly. We all know that it does not resolve outstanding issues quickly, because it is a complex organisation with many member states.

[Mr Weir]

Following the precedent of Greenland, will the hon. Gentleman not accept that even if he is correct and there will have to be negotiations, those negotiations will be done not outwith the EU but within, as happened with Greenland when it wanted to leave the EU. Scotland will still be a constituent part of the EU after independence until negotiations are complete.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

That is an arguable position. I will not go into that debate now. My point is that there will have to be lengthy negotiations whatever happens. Moreover, wherever those negotiations take place in an organisational sense, they will be the subject of horse-trading and of give and take. Let us take, for example, the fisheries policy. If the SNP wanted to achieve its objective in relation to the fisheries policy, another country somewhere in the EU would demand something else. If the SNP were to get the opt out of Schengen, which it seems to want, someone else in the EU would want to achieve something else. Even with goodwill on all sides, which may be a matter of some question given that other member states might not wish to encourage easy secession, to put it mildly, from another member state, this is a process that will be lengthy and complex. That is why it is right to point that out and right to ask the question, “At the end of the day, would the benefit from leaving the UK be worth the substantial negotiations and the period of time that would be spent in undertaking those negotiations?” More importantly, it also means that it is only reasonable to ask another question: “What would be the outcome of this process?”

For the SNP to suggest that even asking those questions is in some sense disloyal to Scotland does a disservice to the people of Scotland, who are asking those questions themselves. They want to know at the end of the process what will be the relationship of Scotland with the EU? To know what that relationship would be, we need to ask the questions and we need to try to get some answers from the Scottish Government and the SNP. We then need to find out from debates and discussions with other European states what the likely response would be to the demands coming from the Scottish Government and the SNP if independence were to be supported in a referendum.

Once we have that information, the Scottish people can decide in the run-up to the referendum whether they should support independence or oppose it because of what I believe is the situation—the fact that we would be worse off in a smaller member state, even if that smaller state were able at the end of the day to enter into and complete negotiations, than if we were part of a larger member state, with all the negotiating strength that we have at the moment and that I would not want to see us lose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Reynolds]

That lack of transparency is of concern to all of us, and it has blown a hole in the credibility of what the First Minister has said on this issue.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has made a speech today, which I have had the fortune—or misfortune—to have read before the debate, in which he made some strange references to giant pandas and “The X Factor”, but remarkably he made no reference to the European treaties and perhaps more tellingly he also did not refer to any other European Union member state. If he had cared to take a look at them, he would have seen that those treaties make it very clear that new member states must apply for membership of the European Union. Article 52 of the treaty on European Union lists the members of the European Union, including the UK, and article 49 of that treaty states that new member states must apply for membership of the European Union. Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) has made clear, the European Commission President has also stated the clear facts. He has said recently:

“A new state, if it wants to join the EU, has to apply to become a member of the EU, like any state.”

[Mr Weir]

The hon. Lady keeps going on about new states, but the point is that Scotland is already a member of the EU. We have already cited the position of Greenland. Scotland is not a new state; it is already a member of the EU; we have rights as European citizens, as has been said by other experts; and we will not be starting from the same place as Croatia, which keeps being mentioned by Labour Members.

[Emma Reynolds]

I beg to differ with the hon. Gentleman. The four nations of the United Kingdom are a member of the European Union, by virtue of being part of the United Kingdom. I will quote another European Commission President, Romano Prodi, who was a very respected President. He confirmed that

“a newly independent region would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the European Union and the treaties would, from the day of its independence, not apply any more in its territory.”

Beyond the pronouncements of European Commission Presidents current and past, there is the brutal truth that the SNP must face up to—that this decision about a separate Scotland’s membership of the European Union would be a political decision and one taken by all of the other 27 member states, who are soon to be 28.

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman—he should listen to this carefully—that, as has already been stressed in this debate, the pronouncements by the Spanish Foreign Minister are not encouraging. That is hardly surprising. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North has already pointed out that the context in which we find ourselves in the European Union is one in which we are going through the most challenging and volatile period in European history. In September, 1.5 million Catalans took to the streets in Barcelona in an independence rally.

Libya (London Conference)

Mike Weir Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we absolutely can. We have diplomats and development advisers who are very well placed to do that. As I have mentioned before, doing that across the whole of north Africa in a way that is not patronising to the countries involved but which brings genuine expertise in the building of civil society and political pluralism is an important part of our role.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

My colleagues and I fully support resolution 1973, but the reinterpretation of it in respect of arms to the rebels does suggest mission creep and is in danger of shattering the political consensus. It has been suggested in some quarters that the rebels have also asked for British troops to help with training. Can the Foreign Secretary give us a cast-iron assurance that there will be no British troops on the ground in Libya in any circumstances?

[Mr Hague]

Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman somewhat on that point. He knows that the UN resolution is clear that there must be no occupying force in Libya or any part of Libya. Let me give him further reassurance: in my meetings with the interim transitional national council, the opposition in Libya, they have not asked for our troops to go to train them, and we are not doing that at the moment. For the reasons that I gave in the House last week, I will not exclude our ever having any forces of any kind anywhere, in small numbers, on Libyan soil, because we have already had to do that: in order to rescue our nationals from the desert a month ago, we had to send the RAF and special forces into desert locations. Circumstances can arise in which such limited operations have to take place, but there will be no ground invasion of Libya and no occupation of Libya, and the request to which the hon. Gentleman refers certainly has not been made to me.