Britain in the World

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Having listened to the hon. Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh), I am sure you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we are going to have a dynamic, robust and diverse Parliament.

In seeking to influence international events, we have to make the most of what we have. We have a lot going for us: an open, welcoming, free-trading, entrepreneurial economy; some of the world’s best universities; a global financial hub; the fourth-biggest defence budget; ring-fenced aid spending; and, of course, the English language. Then we have our history, which, for better or worse, binds us to much of the rest of the world. This month marks the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, and much has changed since then.

[Bob Stewart]

At the battle of Waterloo, we had a stumbling problem with the French, but the Germans came to our assistance in the end. Does my hon. Friend think that that will work in our EU referendum?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Indeed so. My hon. Friend has stolen my punch line. Back in 1815, the main issue confronting His Majesty’s Government was how to prevent Europe from being dominated by a single over-mighty power hellbent on imposing one law across the continent, and as he rightly points out, with a little help from our German friends, we triumphed, to the benefit of all Europeans. I hope that this sets a precedent for our Prime Minister’s renegotiation strategy.

The century and a half after Waterloo saw the rise and fall of a global empire. We are still living with that legacy. The question of what role a post-imperial Britain should play in world affairs has never been conclusively answered. I welcome the comments and commitment in the Gracious Speech that the Government will seek a political settlement in Syria and offer further support to the Iraqi Government, but if we are to make good on those commitments, we need to answer that question. It is not enough just to say that we might be a small island but we punch above our weight. It is very true, but it is not a substitute for a serious foreign policy strategy based on a realistic assessment of what we can achieve.

The nation-building approach of the 2000s was not realistic. We deposed dictators, we held elections and then we cut and ran. We know all too well that without a lasting political settlement, it does not work, yet the west’s current approach to the world’s trouble spots, while most realistic, is not serious. Now we do the bare minimum, acting piecemeal and always reactively. We can see that in the current conflict with ISIL. Despite the warnings of regional allies, the capture of Mosul took us by surprise. Our response has been, yes, a few airstrikes and some small arms grudgingly supplied to the Kurds. That approach does not deliver results. It leaves our regional allies high and dry and helps to feed the middle east’s vast conspiracy theory industry. On the Arab street, the word today is that the west itself is behind ISIL’s recent victories, and that we are employing the classic colonial tactic of divide and rule.

We need a new approach for foreign policy—one that recognises that, although we cannot design the world in our own image, we are not powerless to influence events and that it is still possible to play a constructive role through intelligent long-term engagement. That requires us to be more flexible, more innovative and, dare I say, more patient. We need to recognise that, although we cannot act alone, we occupy a unique position in international diplomacy, with disproportionate soft power as the closest ally of the world’s only superpower and with the finest diplomatic service in the world, a tradecraft honed over many centuries of global engagement. As we seek to exert our influence, we need to bring all three advantages to bear.

We also need to get better at working with the reality on the ground rather than trying to fit the facts into a preconceived policy. In Iraq and Syria today, the reality on the ground is that the best the west can hope for is a form of loose federation, with high levels of autonomy for each of the region’s communities, a fair division of the oil wealth and a federal Government that are seen to govern in the interests of all. Our middle east policy, which has always been based around unitary states with strong centres, now needs to reflect the reality. That means effectively arming the Kurds, who have proved to be one of our most reliable allies in the region. We should be talent spotting the next generation of Sunni politicians, whose support is vital to a lasting peace in both Iraq and Syria.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) on one of a series of fantastic maiden speeches that we have heard this evening. I stress that mine is not a maiden speech—I have been specifically instructed by Mr Speaker that whatever maiden status I may once have possessed has long since passed away—but it gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to my great predecessor in the office of Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Sir John Randall.

John Randall was one of the kindest and wisest people in this place, and one of the very few Conservatives to forecast with complete accuracy what would go wrong with the Iraq war. Members may recall that he stepped down from the Front Bench before the invasion, with absolutely no self-advertisement, and never drew any attention to the fact that he had got it so thumpingly right. It is, incidentally, a measure of his popularity in Uxbridge that, at a recent electoral hustings there, virtually every candidate stood up to claim that he or she was the true heir of John Randall. “I am John Randall,” they kept saying, meaning them rather than me. I have to accept that I am not John Randall, but I will do my best to emulate him in his service to the constituency, and to London more broadly.

We are seeing fantastic success in this city. I am delighted to say that, as Hansard will confirm, during my final appearance in the House seven years ago I pointed out to the then Prime Minister that I had just banned alcohol on public transport. I was interrupted by the Speaker, and ordered to sit down. I do not know what objection he had to our policy. I now want to point out that, as a result of that policy, crime on London transport has fallen by 50%. Crime on buses has fallen by 50%, and we now have the safest tube network anywhere in Europe. As a result of the continual improvements we are seeing in our city we have the most dynamic urban economy anywhere in Europe—and I am grateful for the many excellent measures in the Queen’s Speech, which I will rapidly summarise as this 12-minute oration has been compressed to four.

I am delighted that we will see the stopping of the madness of a transport strike being triggered by a tiny minority—something City Hall has long advocated—and devolution to the great economic powerhouses of the cities of England. Fiscal devolution will enable us to build Crossrail 2 and many other wonderful projects—many hundreds of thousands. I also approve, by the way, of the decision to allow people to buy their own housing association homes, provided it leads to the rapid construction of more homes—low-cost homes—and it keeps the revenue raised for investment in housing in London.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Can my hon. Friend tell us how many houses he has built in London during his mayoralty?

[Boris Johnson]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend reminds me that under this mayoralty, and indeed under this Government, we built far more homes than Labour did in 13 years. We have built a record number of affordable homes, and we will go on until May 2016 to build a record 100,000 affordable homes over eight years.

Thanks to the hard and successful work of the Conservative-led Government over the last four years, we have a strong, dynamic, successful economy, but the most exciting thing for me, as someone who came into politics more than 20 years ago, is that we now have a Tory-majority Government with a clear mandate to seek change, and therefore a Government in the most powerful position in our lifetimes to deliver reform and improvement in Europe. We can win that argument by being relentlessly positive and by making it clear that what we are advocating is in the interests not simply of Britain but of the entire European Union.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on the élan and success with which he has begun his pan-European schmoozathon in the chancelleries of Europe. I believe his efforts will be crowned with success, but I would remind him of something that I think all of us would want to remind him, our negotiators, the Foreign Secretary and everybody else: if you are going to go into a difficult international negotiation, you have to be prepared to walk away if you do not get the result you want.