Syria

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that what there are too many of is terrorists threatening our country, but I agree with my hon. Friend that we have to combat the ideology, and that is a very big part of our strategy. It is a very big part of our domestic strategy—the Prevent duty: what we are saying all our schools and universities must do, and what our communities must do together. I think that more action on that has been taken by this country than by many others in Europe and around the world.

On starving ISIL of money and resources, I could not agree more. If there are more UN resolutions, more action, more that can be done, I will be first to push for that, but let us be frank about where ISIL get their money from: they got their money out of the banks in Mosul; they get their money from selling oil to Assad; they get their money from owning and occupying such a large amount of territory.

The 70,000 figure is not mine. I have not produced any of these figures; they come directly from the security and intelligence experts who advise me, now filtered through a proper Joint Intelligence Committee process set up under the Butler inquiry after the Iraq war. I am determined that we learn the lessons of that conflict, but surely the lesson cannot be that when we are threatened and we can make a difference, we should somehow stand back.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister was commended, rightly, for not lashing out militarily after the provocation of the atrocities of Tunisia, but he is wrong now to ignore the real threat—the ISIL plan—which is to escalate a regional war into a world war between Christians and Muslims. Would not our action now repeat what we did in 2003, when we deepened the divide between Muslims and Christians, which is ISIL’s strategy? The great threat is home-grown terrorism, and is it not likely that the Prime Minister’s action will increase recruits to jihadism, here and elsewhere in the world?

[The Prime Minister]

I know the hon. Gentleman deeply wants to have the peaceful world that we all dream of. In that we have something in common, but ISIL have taken action against us already. They were behind the murder of the people on the beach in Tunisia. They are behind the plots in our country. They butchered our friends and allies and our citizens in Paris. As for the battle between Muslims and Christians, that is what we want to avoid. It is by working with Muslim allies to stop this radicalisation, stop this extremism and stop ISIL that we prevent that clash from taking place. ISIL butcher Muslims in vast numbers, and that is why they have to be stopped. We cannot subcontract that work out to everybody else; we should be part of it.