Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Simmonds]

I want to make a little progress and then I will give way.

The inquiry is a complex and substantial task and it is considering an eight-year period. When he set up the inquiry, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), described its scope as “unprecedented”, and Sir John has said that its final report is likely to exceed 1 million words.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion asked when the process will be completed and the report published, and the short answer is that it is up to Sir John and his team. The inquiry is independent of the Government, although I assure the hon. Lady and other hon. Members that the Government are co-operating fully with it. Indeed, the Foreign Office alone has made some 30,000 documents available, which gives a further idea of the scale of the work. Those doing the inquiry have indicated that they intend to begin what is called the “criticism phase” of their work this summer. That will give individuals who may face criticism in the report the chance to make representations to the inquiry. Thereafter, the inquiry and Sir John will have to assimilate those representations into the final report. I do not have a definitive time scale for when that final report will be published, but it is essential that Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues do that work in a thorough and professional way.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

That is absolutely right and it is important that John Chilcot gets all the information required for the report. He will have seen the remarks by David Owen that hint at collusion by Tony Blair and the Prime Minister’s office to ensure that private correspondence between George Bush and Tony Blair will not be available to the inquiry. Can the Minister say that that will now be made available and that we will be able to see the private correspondence between Tony Blair and George Bush?

[Mark Simmonds]

Let me be clear with the hon. Gentleman. The debate about the private correspondence between Tony Blair and George Bush, and the Cabinet minutes from the time, concerns their public publication. The Chilcot inquiry has seen both sets of documents, which I hope goes some way to assuage the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

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[Ian Lucas]

One often forgotten point is that the vote was unprecedented. The then Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is behind me keeping an eye on me, deserve great credit for that. There was intense debate up to 2003, and the vote was important.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman did not vote for the Iraq war. What part of the case for war did he not agree with? Several people said there was a solid case, but what made him vote against war?

[Ian Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman has beaten me to my next paragraph—I was about to mention my position in respect of the March 2003 vote, which I remember very well indeed. The Minister said that little else was in the minds of Members of Parliament at the time, and there was certainly little else in my mind. I made the decision to cast my vote against the Labour Government, the first of only two occasions when I have done that—I was right the other time, too—and I will explain why.

In 2003, I sat through the entire debate on the Back Benches, but was not called. It was only in 2006 that I had the opportunity to speak and explain why I had made my decision. I had an advantage then, because the weapons inspector Hans Blix had spoken following the end of the Iraq war. He said—this is very important—that in March 2003 his belief was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. I believed, and still believe, that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, also believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It was on that basis that those who voted in favour of the war made their decision.

My decision was not made on the basis that I opposed any intervention, but that the weapons inspectors needed more time. I looked at all the evidence, thought long and hard, and decided that it was right and appropriate for me to vote against the war. I do not regret that decision and I never have. It is important to recognise that 139 Labour MPs made the same decision. Some suggestions that MPs were sent down the wrong path by representations made at the time could be put in a misleading way. Many of us made the decision on the basis of all the evidence we had at the time, and we made the correct decision.

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[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good point, and perhaps it is a way for me to wrap up my analysis of the Foreign Office. Of course, this is not a uniquely American problem. Within any British civil service Department, there is no great incentive to admit failure. When I look back at the reports I wrote stuck in al-Amara and Nasiriyah, I find it extraordinary how every week, I claimed great success. Every week, I would write, “We’ve hired another 300 people into the police. We’ve held a new sub-district election. I’ve just created 3,000 jobs. We’ve just refurbished another set of clinics and schools.” To read report after report, week after week, it looks as if the whole thing is getting better and better. In retrospect, I know differently, of course. When I began, I could go into the bazaar to get an ice cream, but by the end, I was stuck in my compound with 140 rocket and mortar-propelled grenades flying at the compound, and we had to abandon it and retreat back to a military base, essentially surrendering Nasiriyah, a city of 600,000 people, to the insurgents.

The situation is not helped by the way we talk about it in Britain today. We do not really think very much about Iraq. We do not think very much about what exactly Iraq is doing with Iran or Syria at the moment, why exactly Iraq got involved in dubious banking transactions to bust sanctions on behalf of the Iranian Government or why exactly our great ally, al-Maliki, appears to have been allowing trans-shipment of weapons from Iran into Syria. Why do we not think about these things? It is because we are not very serious. At some level, this country is no longer being as serious as it should be about foreign policy. Our newspapers are not writing enough about Iraq. The Foreign Office is not thinking enough about the failure. The military is not thinking enough about these things. Unless we acknowledge that something went wrong in Iraq and that something went deeply wrong in Afghanistan, we will get ourselves stuck again.

What do we do about it? We need to reform. It cannot be business as usual. We cannot just go around pretending it was all fine. We cannot simply blame Blair and Bush.

[Pete Wishart]

Is not the reason for us going to war in Iraq actually quite simple? Prime Minister Tony Blair had some perverse obligation to George Bush, and that is why we went in.

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman has raised exactly the point that we need to talk about. We believe that somehow it is all the fault of Blair and Bush—this is the myth that has entered the national consciousness. My experience as someone inside the system is that we have to look much more deeply at ourselves. We need to look at the Foreign Office, the military, the intelligence services and Parliament. These people, Blair and Bush, do not operate in a vacuum; they operate in a culture that did not challenge and shape the debate sufficiently. It is not realistic for Blair or Bush to know deeply about these situations and it is simply a constitutional convention, of course, that the people who make the decision are the Blairs and the Bushes. However, if we look at what got us trapped on the ground in Iraq—at why, for example, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) found it difficult to get out of Iraq or why President Obama found it difficult to say no to the surge—it is because these people are part of a much bigger system.

The reform of that system is threefold. First, we need radically to reform the way in which the Foreign Office operates. The Foreign Secretary has begun; we need to go much further, thinking all the time about the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to focus on people with deep linguistic and cultural expertise. We need to ensure that we change all the bureaucratic mechanisms. The core competency framework for promotion in the Foreign Office needs to be changed. The amount that people are paid for learning languages in the Foreign Office needs to be changed. The posting lengths need to be changed. The security conditions for the Foreign Office need to be changed, because unless we begin to understand deeply and rigorously what is happening on the ground, it is difficult to challenge the Blairs and the Bushes.

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[Laura Sandys]

Opposition on an issue such as this can come from all sorts of different directions.

It was frightening to see how the group-think had emerged and how, for example, the issue of 45 minutes to London arose. Do we remember that claim? The Evening Standard front page was in many ways a motivation, a call to action, and I was told by friends, colleagues and people who I would say are less than colleagues, “Laura, your position in being against the war is putting families in London at risk.” The debate became really quite vicious. It was not friendly, and it was not constructive in respect of understanding Iraq per se and—I say this having worked in the defence sector myself, and having worked in academia in the defence sector—understanding the potential and the possibilities of ballistic missiles.

What was fascinating about that whole 45-minutes-to-London claim is that No. 10 said afterwards, “Oh, we didn’t endorse that leak, wherever it came from,” but did they question it or contest it, saying to the Evening Standard and the other newspapers, “This actually is wrong”? That was an omission that allowed untruths to permeate the debate and created a very toxic environment, in which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, an opposition needed to thrive.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct about the untruths and all the other issues she has raised, but how come they were so easily accepted by the Opposition? The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who was then Leader of the Opposition, was probably more enthusiastic about this war than Tony Blair was.

[Laura Sandys]

The hon. Gentleman will have to ask them. I was not a Member of this House at the time. However, lots of people from very different political perspectives—people on the right, the left and across the board—were against the war, and there were also people from all the parties who felt it was the right thing to do. I would also say this to the hon. Gentleman: I have seen some of the videos, and I have spoken to people who were tortured by Saddam Hussein, and I can see why people right across the board might have found the humanitarian motive extremely compelling.

One of the gravest failings was mainly constructed in America: the lack of planning post-Saddam and for the future. From my perspective, that was extraordinary. I was part of the “red team” working with military intelligence, and we met three times a week in the run-up to the Iraq war and then during the Iraq war. The minute the so-called conflict stopped, we were all disbanded because we were not needed—because there was no need for anybody with any expertise in Iraq, because the roses were going to be thrown on to the tanks and the Americans and the Brits were going to be embraced in every street, and there were going to be parties and we were going to have liberation right across the board. That naivete was, as has been said, in many ways a result of the lack of opposition and the lack of questioning of every element of the implications of this intervention.

I have subsequently heard that there were two opportunities for our armed forces to support the Iraqis to topple Saddam: as we arrived in Kuwait as part of our preparations for war, and as we were arriving close to Baghdad. At both times, leaders in the republican guard—not the special republican guard—approached the allies and said, “Can we instigate a revolt against Saddam? Then we will invite you in to support us.” That has received very little coverage and created little interest, but, from what I understand, there is truth in it, and I would be interested to see some of the papers to get to the bottom of it. We were there, and if our objective was to get rid of Saddam Hussein, we should have understood that it was important to do that in conjunction with the many forces and interests within Iraq that wanted to get rid of that brutal dictator.

My final point is that we must learn the lessons of history. I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, and many other Members, would agree with me on that. We went into Iraq in 1917 and had a very difficult and torrid time, and many of the issues we faced in 2003 were identical, both in intention and implication. We must make sure that we do not end up across the region with three countries: a Sunni country, a Shi’a country and a Kurdish country. My group at King’s college at that time was explicit about that, and we see the same issue arising again now in relation to Syria. If we end up with those sorts of conflicts arising over the next few years, we will have to see our invasion of Iraq as being the first step in causing some deep fragmentation, some great destabilisation and some great global challenges, faced as a result of this decision on Iraq, which was not well thought through.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this debate from the Backbench Business Committee, and for her forceful, eloquent and moving opening speech. It is difficult to say the same of the Minister, who, constrained by the unpublished Chilcot report, chose to say, in almost half an hour, very little of substance, although he did give what I thought was a distinctly Panglossian view of the improvement in the state of Iraq, grossly overstating the case.

There has, however, been a great degree of honesty and frankness from all Members, which is extremely refreshing. I particularly congratulate in that context my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), and although it is always invidious to pick out one person, I thought the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) gave a remarkable speech, making what I think, in my lengthy experience, must be a unique statement in this Chamber: that we should be more willing to admit our own failings. It is true that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, but that is not a doctrine we normally find expounded here.

I want to go over some of the fundamentals. Now, 10 years on, the facts cannot seriously be held in doubt, and they are stark. The United States went to war in Iraq because of oil and because American control of the middle east region was considered important for their foreign policy, as clearly set out in the Project for a New American Century document published by the Bush election team in September 2000. As we now know from then US Treasury Secretary O’Neill, that war was planned from the very first day of the Bush Administration, and 9/11 simply provided the pretext for launching it.

The United Kingdom went to war because President Bush wanted UK support. I do not think there is any doubt that at the Crawford summit in April 2002, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair in effect committed to providing that support, publicly pledging that he was going to stand shoulder to shoulder with President Bush. From that point on, the assessment of the intelligence data conflated analysis into advocacy, to find a rationale for the war which had already been decided on for other reasons. That, I believe, is the explanation.

The decision having been made to go to war, Whitehall provided a briefing that any rationale depended on being able to show incontrovertible evidence of large-scale—I emphasise: large-scale—activity by Iraq to obtain weapons of mass destruction, but because the UN inspectors had left Iraq in 1998, evidence was non-existent or certainly flimsy. The CIA admitted that its resources on Iraq were “thin” and the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee had already concluded, in March 2002, that

“Intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction . . .and ballistic missile programmes is”—

in words we will always remember—

“sporadic and patchy.”

The key point is that in the evidence put together in those crucial five months between the Crawford summit and the publication of the September dossier to justify the war, all the specific data were flawed. The first and central point is that the inventory of chemical and biological weapons and weapon parts that the then Prime Minister presented to the House dealt with weapons that were unaccounted for in the first Gulf war, 12 years earlier, but they were not presented as weapons that were unaccounted for; they were presented as weapons that Saddam Hussein was definitely believed to possess.

Secondly, the 45-minute claim referred to battlefield nuclear weapons, but the impression given was that the threat went much wider.

[Pete Wishart]

The case for going to war was bunkum and nonsense, but the right hon. Gentleman voted for the war. Does he feel that he was lied to, misled or duped?

[Mr Meacher]

Yes—I am glad the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to say, in the spirit of honesty and frankness of this debate, that I am utterly ashamed of what I did on that occasion. It is the worst political mistake that I have made in my lifetime, but I want to say why I did it. I did it because I listened carefully to the then Prime Minister during those two crucial debates. He spoke with enormous assurance and authority, and I believed that, as Prime Minister of this country, he would have been presented with the fullest degree and comprehensiveness of UK intelligence, and he would use those data in a proper and honest manner to make the case. Perhaps I was naive to think that—I now believe that I was—but that is what I believed. I am speaking today because I am so angry at having been deceived. That experience has deeply damaged my trust in the role of Prime Ministers and in the link between intelligence and the various Departments of State and the Prime Minister, who speaks for the Government. I hope that that will be repaired in future, but the damage done has been considerable, certainly to me.

I was talking about the 45-minute claim referring to battlefield nuclear weapons. When the media took it up—the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) forcefully recalled the Evening Standard headline—that was not corrected, even though the authorities knew very well that the wrong impression was being given.

Thirdly, the claim that Iraq tried to buy 500 tonnes of yellowcake, which is required for nuclear fission, from Niger was included in the dossier, despite its having been confirmed by a visit by the former US ambassador to that country six months before that it was completely bogus. None the less, the claim was included.

The fourth point, which is very important but which has received little attention, is that the then Prime Minister of this country claimed to the House on 25 February 2003 that the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, in 1995 had revealed

“the offensive biological weapons and the full extent of the nuclear programme”.—[Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 123.]

However, as we now know, from a Newsweek exclusive just a few weeks later, what Hussein Kamel actually said during his debriefing was precisely the opposite. He said:

“All weapons—biological, chemical, missile, nuclear—were destroyed.”

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[Mr Meacher]

That is indeed an interesting point. It would not just have been difficult for the Prime Minister—it would have been a massive humiliation and embarrassment if that had happened. One has to ask why the vote was taken so late. Maybe—I can only speculate—it was precisely to put pressure on Members of this House for what was virtually a fait accompli, which would compel a majority of them to support it. I pay enormous tribute to the 139 MPs who voted against the war. Most were Labour Members, but some were Tories or Members from the smaller parties. They need to be given the credit and honour that they are due.

[Pete Wishart]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and for commending the parties that voted against the war. He was just speculating on what might have happened if the House had voted against the war and whether that would have stopped it. One clear conclusion is known, because Tony Blair said that he would have resigned if the vote had gone against him. I think that was as big an incentive as any to vote against it that evening.

[Mr Meacher]

We all can have our views on that opinion.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). He is of course right to mention the sheer bravery and commitment of our service personnel, the effectiveness with which they conducted Operation Telic, and the speed with which Iraq was defeated, if can use that word. I remember those days clearly, as the MP representing the regimental headquarters of the Black Watch, which was engaged in the operations. I also recall the time of the surge in Falluja, when the media came to me for comment on the many losses sustained by the Black Watch at that time. That was a difficult period for all those Members of Parliament with a military interest in the Iraq war. Those interviews, in which I paid tribute to the many soldiers from my constituency who lost their lives during that war, were among the toughest interviews I have ever had to do. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is also right to mention what happened after the war: the total lack of planning for a sustainable reinvention of Iraq and the stripping of all state infrastructure relating to the Ba’ath party. That was a massive mistake and it led to many of the difficulties that followed the invasion.

I want to go back to 18 March 2003, the day on which we debated the Iraq war. I was here that day, as a few hon. Members who are in the Chamber today were, and I remember it as a dark ugly day, a horrible day. There was nothing like the light Whip that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) described. I was the Whip of our group, and I remember seeing some of the Labour Whips’ activities on that day. People were drawn aside and told that the Prime Minister would resign if the vote did not go through. They were told that their careers would be at risk if they voted against the Government. It was a horrible day. I remember lots of good men and women being dragooned into the Lobby to support their Prime Minister and their Government against their better instincts. It was good to hear the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher)—it is a pity that he has now left the Chamber—acknowledge that we were fed a lot of nonsense about the case for war. Many Members of Parliament, particularly those on the Labour side, knew that, but they were dragooned into providing that perverse support for their Prime Minister and their Government.

I remember listening to Tony Blair that day. I actually watched the YouTube video of the speech this morning, just to refresh my memory of the atmosphere in the debate. We had to listen to endless drivel and nonsense. He said that the case for weapons of mass destruction was beyond debate, that they were really there, and that they could reach us in 45 minutes. He talked about collusion with al-Qaeda, and said that Saddam Hussein was preparing a nuclear programme using uranium from Niger. It was all total and utter bollocks—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should use that word, and I am sure that he will want to withdraw it immediately.

[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.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

What is even more regrettable is that after the war, those on what was then the Government Front Bench continued to assert that there were weapons of mass destruction, and that, as a matter of faith, they would be found. Eventually, of course, they had to concede, but it was a matter of belief and not of fact.

[Pete Wishart]

The Minister has been asked today whether there were weapons of mass destruction, but even now—10 years on, and with a different Government —they cannot concede that there were no such weapons. If the Minister were to rise in order to say, “Yes, we concede that now,” I would give way to him, but so far no UK Government have conceded that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and I think that until a Government do that, we will not have political closure.

We have had five useless reports on Iraq. That is the only thing we can call them: useless. They might as well have been made out of whitewash, given their validity when it comes to trying to discover and understand what actually went on. Now worrying issues are starting to emerge in relation to our best hope of ensuring that those responsible are held to account through the Chilcot report. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd referred to some of the current difficulties with Chilcot.

I mentioned to the Minister David Owen’s view that there is collusion between Tony Blair and No. 10 to ensure that the private correspondence between George Bush and Tony Blair is not revealed. We must see that correspondence, because it will probably tell us more than anything else about the reasons for going to war. We will be able to see how the plan was shaped and designed between the two of them, and to see the commitment that was made by Tony Blair to George Bush.

The Chilcot inquiry started four years ago, and with every year that passes, the Iraq war recedes and the Chilcot conclusions lose their potency. I say this, however, to the current Government and those who were in the last Labour Government: we will not forget. We will not forget this, and we will continue to hold this Government to account for what they do.

History will judge these people. At some point, what actually happened will have to come out. If Chilcot does not do that, it will come out later. I am not confident that we will get the truth about Iraq before the end of this decade, however. I think it will take another generation before the true story of Iraq is told, because there are too many big reputations at stake, and too many pillars would come down if it were actually revealed. The Foreign Office and the foreign policy of the United Kingdom would probably be totally discredited if the truth about Iraq came out.

That is why I am not confident that we will find out the true story about Iraq before the end of this decade, and I will be out of here by then. I do not want to be part of a country that does this. It is appalling to be part of a nation that indulges in illegal wars. I am from Scotland. Scotland is the nation that defines me, and I want my country to make a peaceful contribution to the world and not get involved in these illegal wars, so I am glad we will have an opportunity next year to ensure that we are no longer part of a nation that is prepared to indulge in such things.

It was not a Tory Government who took us into this illegal war; it was a Labour Government, for goodness’ sake—the last type of Government we would expect to take us into an illegal war. It is not all about the evil Tories, therefore. It was a Labour Government who did that, and I am glad that next year my nation will get the opportunity to vote for independence and ensure we will never be part of illegal wars again.

I think the case for independence is overwhelming, but this issue really helps it. The issue has politicised so many people. We have heard about the Stop the War coalition, which did so much great work on it, and Stop the War lost one of its greatest advocates in the last few days: the iconic author Iain Banks. I remember when he came down here and participated in the activities of Stop the War. He was an author without peer, an iconic Scot and a great, great guy. He was heavily politicised by the Iraq war. In fact, he tore up his passport and sent it to Tony Blair, such was his disgust at the war.

I want to pay tribute to Iain Banks in my final remarks by quoting some words not from his great works, “The Crow Road” or “The Wasp Factory”, but from him to Tony Blair. He said that

“it was Blair who bowed to Bush in the first place, and Blair who convinced the Labour party and parliament of the need to go to war with a dossier that was so close to lying that it makes no difference.”

Indeed!

GCHQ

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The challenges of gathering intelligence change over time, so I would not want to give the House the impression that all practices and techniques are exactly the same or used in the same way. I can say, as I said in my statement, that the general framework remains the same—the principles of our intelligence sharing with the United States and the general framework for it certainly remain the same. The values on which it is based also remain the same, as under successive Governments.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

We know that the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and all his right hon. Friends in the Conservative party Cabinet want the retention of large swathes of personal data, and he is prepared to compromise our civil liberties to obtain that, but does this episode not demonstrate what could go wrong if we had a home-grown snooper’s charter?

[Mr Hague]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the draft Communications Data Bill, which I have already mentioned in earlier answers. Two parliamentary Committees have considered the draft Bill and concluded that there is a need for legislation in this area, and the Government are committed to bringing forward proposals on that in the near future.

Afghanistan

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Pakistan is going through a period of caretaker government before the elections. We will of course maintain contact with the caretaker Government, and I will continue to pursue with the caretaker Foreign Minister of Pakistan the trilateral process that I have pursued with the outgoing Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, over the past year. I have spoken to the Afghan Foreign Minister in the last 10 days to make sure of Afghanistan’s continuing commitment to the trilateral process. The election in Pakistan will not interrupt that process.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is 10 years to the day since the illegal invasion of Iraq, yet we have no statement and no debate in this House, even though the Scottish Parliament could debate it. Is that because the Foreign Secretary has sent a memo to senior Cabinet members telling them not to discuss the war—not to mention the war? Did he get away with it?

[Mr Hague]

It is easy to obey your request, Mr Speaker, by giving a short answer to this question because it is not relevant to the subject we are discussing. This statement is about Afghanistan, and we do not forget our responsibilities to our forces there just because there are controversies about other conflicts in the past.

UK Constituent Parts (EU)

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Crausby. I am sure that when you got up this morning you realised you had picked the short straw in chairing this debate, given some of the dreary contributions that we have heard thus far. I sometimes think that we should reorganise the furniture when we are debating Scotland’s constitution, given that so many hon. Members agree, and that everything seems to be put to the Scottish Government and the SNP. I feel, sometimes, that we should be sitting in the Minister’s place—perhaps that would be more helpful, in terms of responding to the debate.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) both on securing this morning’s debate and on turning up on time. We were all here two weeks ago, practically in the same spot. It was a shambles. We were ready to go, but the hon. Member who had secured the debate came rushing in several minutes late. It sometimes seems as though Labour cannot organise a Euro-rant in a Belgian brewery.

Listening to hon. Members’ contributions today, there is not exactly the warm glow of positivity—more like the deep chill of relentless negativity, which is what characterises these debates.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman. There are 640 of you guys and only six of us, so I will use my time, if that is all right.

Over the past few weeks, the debate has fallen to a new all-time low, with some appalling personal attacks. Things were said in the Scottish Parliament that would never have been allowed by you, Mr Crausby, or the Speaker, and yet, the guys who made such remarks complain about the comments in the online section of The Scotsman sinking to such a low spectacle. What are they saying? Not only are they saying that we will not get European membership, but according to the former Prime Minister, we will be little more than a British colony. According to the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling)—their campaign leader—independence would be nothing more than the road to “serfdom”. People cannot say too poor, too weak and too stupid any more; they know that that is not a great way to enlist the Scottish people’s support. They only hint at that now. The most comical remark, the one that I have enjoyed most in the last two weeks, was that the music that I had spent 15 years making would no longer be my music—British music would not be ours any more—as if music, the ridiculously free-spirited and wonderful thing that it is, has frontiers or boundaries, but that is what these people are saying. They are scaremongering on culture. Welcome to the positive case for the Union.

Of course, the plat du jour this week is scaremongering on Europe. That is what they are doing, and doing well. Barely a day goes past without another instalment in the scaremongering stories, always in association with their friends in the press. Their message to the Scottish people when it comes to Europe is, “You cannae dae this, we’re no gonna let you do that and don’t even think about this!” If I have got their position right, it is something like this: “You’re not going to get into Europe. You’re going to go to the back of the queue behind all the accession states.” That is their position; I think that that is their top line. But if we do somehow manage to get into Europe, it will be on the worst possible terms and conditions. I think that I am right in saying that this is their position. Then if we do manage to get into Europe and on the worst possible terms and conditions, we will be forced to join the euro—but do not worry, because we will not get into Europe anyway.

[Ian Murray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I said that I was not giving way.

These people need to get their act together on the scaremongering, so that we can understand what they are saying.

The subject of this debate is the constituent parts of the UK and EU membership. Scotland is a constituent part of the United Kingdom. We are currently a member of the European Union. After independence, we will continue to be a member of the European Union. We are in the European—

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

We are a member of the European Union because the UK took us into the European Union, the old EEC, back in 1973, but the European Union is not the only union. The UK is a union. It is based on the Act of Union, which brought together the Scottish and English Parliaments three centuries ago, so when Scotland secures its independence, the Act of Union falls and there will be two successor states. That is what will happen. Whatever happens to an independent Scotland will happen to the rest of the United Kingdom. It will be just like what happened with Czechoslovakia: the Czech Republic and Slovakia were treated as two new nations. These people sometimes like to use the example of Russia—

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not giving way to the hon. Lady.

These people sometimes use the example of Russia when it comes to these situations, but not even the most rabid cybernat has ever compared the United Kingdom to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That is how ridiculous their argument has become. When it comes to European membership, whatever happens to an independent Scotland will happen to the rest of the United Kingdom, but let me reassure all the English Members who are sitting here today: their European place is safe. There is simply no precedent or process to kick a constituent part of the European Union out. That just does not happen—there is no way. This fox was effectively shot by Graham Avery of Oxford university, who is a senior adviser at the European Policy Centre in Brussels and honorary director general of the European Commission, when he said to Westminster’s Select Committee on Foreign Affairs:

“For practical and political reasons the idea of Scotland leaving the EU, and subsequently applying to join it, is not feasible.”

It is not feasible.

[Ann McKechin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not giving way to the hon. Lady.

There is only one part of Europe that has left the European Union—the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) will recall this—Greenland. It took something like two years for Greenland to get out of the European Union, and it wanted to go. It had a vote that said that it wanted to leave the European Union. It was only after complex negotiations that it was allowed to go.

These people believe that somehow Scotland will be stripped of its European Union membership and all the European rights that we have built up in the course of 40 years. Scotland is actually enthusiastic about Europe, unlike the hon. Member for Stone and his hon. Friends. It is absolutely absurd to suggest that an independent Scotland would not be welcomed with open arms to the European Union. We are talking about oil-rich Scotland, fisheries-rich Scotland, renewable-energy-rich Scotland. Scotland complies with every single piece of European legislation and is enthusiastic about its European membership. The idea that Scotland would be kicked out of the European Union is totally absurd.

These people also say that we will be forced into euro membership. That was blown out of the water by Dr Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist at the European Policy Centre, who reminded the Scottish Parliament’s European and External Relations Committee that euro membership is based on strict criteria. My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir) is absolutely right about this. There are five conditions for joining the euro. One is membership of the exchange rate mechanism. Joining the ERM is voluntary. That is why Sweden is not in the euro. I do not know how many times we have to explain this to Labour Members. Scotland will not join the euro, because Sweden has not joined the euro, because it is based on ERM membership.

There is a threat to Scotland’s European membership. It does not come from an independent Scotland. It comes from the Union; it comes from the Westminster Tories, because they are at it again. They are even prepared to defeat their Government to ensure that they get this country out of the European Union. I looked at William Hill yesterday. It is offering odds of 2:1 that by 2020 there will be a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU—a straight in-out referendum. It is offering odds of 6:1, which I think are very generous, that the UK will be out of the EU by 2020. That is the threat to Scotland’s EU membership. It does not come from an independent Scotland; it comes from the Westminster Tories. Westminster Tories are running absolutely terrified of the UK Independence party, which is now odds-on favourite to win the next European election. That is what is informing Government policy when it comes to Europe. What we have now is a surly, sulky UK as a member of the European Union. That is what Scotland has to put up with as it secures its EU membership. The UK is looking for the “Out” door—

[Ann McKechin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I am not giving way to the hon. Lady; I have told her that.

That is what we have in terms of Scotland’s EU membership represented by the UK. What would be better? An independent Scotland, independent in Europe and seated at the top table. Our number of MEPs would be increased from six to 13; there would be 13 champions putting Scotland’s case. That is what Scotland needs; that is what Scotland requires.

There is a clear choice facing the Scottish people when it comes to European Union membership: independence in Europe, a seat at the top table, our own representation in Europe, or isolation in a United Kingdom that is on the way out of the European Union and almost relaxed about its decline and failure. I know the choice that the Scottish people will make in 2014. It will be the positive choice—it will be for Scotland’s independence and national liberation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) on securing the debate. I associate myself with the comment by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) when he congratulated her on turning up on time this morning.

Scotland’s membership of the EU has been discussed in pubs up and down Scotland during the past few weeks. That is not, sadly, because it has been in the news, but because of the Scottish Government’s failed attempt to keep secret the fact that the First Minister lied to the Scottish people about seeking advice on the matter. In fact, he did not just lie about seeking legal advice. We know that he was told by his Lord Advocate and Solicitor General that a separate Scotland would not automatically be an EU state. Not only Scottish Government lawyers say that. In the past two weeks, a plethora of expert opinion has confirmed what everyone, including the SNP, already knows—that Scotland would not be guaranteed membership of the European Union.

It was incredibly kind of the hon. Gentleman to give me and the entire world advance notice of his speech today. He did not stray far from what was on his website two weeks ago, when he published even the well-rehearsed bad jokes that we were robbed of the chance of hearing. In publishing that, he single-handedly wiped out any lingering notion of the SNP’s ears being open to the facts. His only intent in this debate has been to propagate his party’s myths. His speech was without substance when he wrote it two weeks ago, and it had not matured well by today. I cannot understand why he still feels that a Scotland separate from the UK would automatically be a member of the EU, when everyone outside his party disagrees.

Most of the people in this room are here because they share my love and concern for Scotland, when we have a Scottish Government who have repeatedly been caught being dishonest about the facts that will inform voters’ choice in 2014. They simply cannot be trusted. Scotland benefits from being in the UK in the EU, and Scottish people deserve to have laid before them the actual facts, rather than the Scottish Government’s version of them. It is their responsibility to provide clarity and evidence about their proposals for the future, not to waste taxpayers’ money on unnecessary court cases. The First Minister misled the Scottish people, but now we are expected to trust him.

In contrast, the UK Government have made it clear that they have received legal advice. They have stated that, in the event of Scotland separating from the UK, the residual UK would be considered by the EU to be the continuing state; and Scotland would legally be a seceded, new state and therefore not a member state. I would appreciate it if the Minister confirmed that he agrees with the President and vice-president of the European Commission that a new state wanting to join the EU has to apply like any other.

[Pete Wishart]

Two new states.

[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.

European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I will attempt to be relatively brief, or at least briefer than the Europe Minister, in order to allow my colleagues and others to speak.

The Opposition welcome the Bill, which will, first, give effect in UK law to the treaty on the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union and provide parliamentary approval of that treaty; and, secondly, provide approval for the so-called Irish protocol, which gives specific guarantees to the Irish people regarding the extent and application of the Lisbon treaty and safeguards Ireland’s right to decide its own policies on the right to life, family and education, taxation, and Irish neutrality.

With regard to the accession treaty, there is, as the Europe Minister underlined, cross-party support for enlargement of the European Union in this House, and that has long been the case. This support is based on both the political and the economic case for enlargement. The process of EU accession has provided, and continues to provide, an incentive for peace, democratisation, economic reform, the promotion of human rights, and the development of anti-discrimination legislation. That is the clear political case for enlargement. The Nobel peace prize committee rightly recognised that the EU has played a vital role in unifying a continent ravaged by wars and inspired peace and democracy beyond its borders.

In terms of the economic case, again I find myself in agreement with the Europe Minister. It is clearly in the UK’s national interest for British companies to have access to the largest single market in the world, with some 500 million consumers, and for that market to continue to grow with enlargement. We are confident that British businesses will find new opportunities in a reformed Croatian economy.

When the Labour party was in government, we supported the accession path for the western Balkans. Since the end of the bloody conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the signing of the Dayton accords, which took place only some 17 years ago, there has been remarkable progress. We were strong supporters of Slovenia’s accession in 2004. Croatia started accession negotiations in the same year and those negotiations were concluded in June last year. Croatia has transposed the 35 chapters of European law into its national legislation, and that is no mean feat. We welcome the transformation of Croatia’s society, economy and democracy that adopting these laws has brought about, although we still have concerns about progress in certain respects; I will come to those later.

In December last year, the accession treaty was signed by Croatia and all 27 member states, and it was approved by the European Parliament. Parliaments in all other member states are now debating the accession treaty and going through the process of ratification, as are we, and 16 member states have so far ratified it.

In the run-up to accession, Croatia has “active observer status.” Its 12 observer MEPs are allowed to speak but not vote in the European Parliament, and it has the same rights on Council working groups and Commission committees. The Commission’s recent enlargement report, published last month, set out three areas in which Croatia must do more—competition, judiciary and fundamental rights, and security and justice.

This time last year a debate in this House looked specifically at Croatia’s progress on chapter 23 of that report—judiciary and fundamental rights—and several right hon. and hon. Members made the point that we should learn lessons from previous rounds of enlargement. It is important that the momentum Croatia has built up does not stall, and that progress is made before accession. We must avoid the European Union having to put in place a co-operation and verification mechanism to monitor areas that have not seen sufficient progress prior to accession. I am therefore happy to see that pre-accession monitoring is ongoing in Croatia, and we are expecting a further report from the European Commission some time in the new year—spring, I believe —and before Croatia’s expected accession on 1 July.

When in government, the Labour party led the way in putting pressure on Croatia and all states in the western Balkans to engage fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to bring war criminals to justice. Indeed, chapter 23 of the report was opened so late because at the time the Labour Government judged that they needed that leverage to ensure the Croatian Government co-operated fully with the ICTY. I think we were right to do so, and all outstanding fugitives wanted by the tribunal are now on trial in The Hague.

In April last year, former military commanders, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, were sentenced by the Court for their role in the war. Those convictions show that justice has been done, and that the international community can and will pursue the perpetrators of war crimes. Engaging constructively with the Court is a test of Croatia’s willingness to draw a line under its past and look towards a brighter future within the EU.

The European Commission also highlighted that increased effort is needed to strengthen the rule of law, improve the judicial system and fight corruption. There is still significant concern over the extent of corruption at both local level within the public procurement process and in some state-owned companies.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady will know that another very important European debate was to take place in Westminster Hall this afternoon, but the lead speaker did not turn up. Does the hon. Lady have any excuse for why that happened and why hon. Members did not get that debate?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. That has no relevance to this debate, and hon. Members should know a little better than trying to embarrass each other. Surely we have better manners.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

It is a good line. The Arab Partnership is interested in working with the Tunisian authorities on what they are looking for by way of re-establishing government. It enables us to draw on resources right across the UK—for example, institutions, NGOs and organisations such as the Local Government Association —that have expertise to offer. The hon. Gentleman certainly makes an interesting suggestion. It has not been raised directly with me in my visits to Tunisia, but I will certainly take it back with me.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Anybody who has been to Tunisia recently will have been impressed by the enthusiasm for the new democracy and the ideals of the revolution, but many challenges remain, particularly in the economy. What material resources and assistance are the UK Government therefore giving the constituent assembly in the drafting of the new constitution?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to put the focus on the economy. When we talk about the changes that have taken place in the Arab world we concentrate on the political, but unless the economics are right they will undermine the political changes that have been made. The UK provides support multilaterally through the G8, the Deauville partnership and the European neighbourhood partnership, and we have offered support for capacity building right across the board, including on constitution drafting and issues affecting economic reform.