Iran Nuclear Deal

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

We will certainly work with our friends and partners to keep the deal going and to protect the interests of UK companies and people.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The nuclear deal with Iran does not end Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. At best, it just pauses the programme until 2025. By the Foreign Secretary’s own admission, Iran will then be capable of developing a deliverable nuclear weapon within a year. The price for all that, in the meantime, is that the sanctions relief is funding a campaign of terror throughout the region. We complain frequently in the House about the fact that millions of people are living in misery in Yemen. Well, that is because of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebellion, which is funded by this sanctions relief. There are hundreds of thousands of rockets on Israel’s northern border. Appeasement did not work in the 1930s, and it will not work now.

[Boris Johnson]

I am absolutely at one with my hon. Friend in his desire to be tough on Iran. The question is whether we can achieve that by getting rid of the JCPOA. If we get rid of the JCPOA, what would our subsequent plans be? What would be the options, really, for being tough on Iran in the way he wants? The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) suggested bombing but, after closely interrogating everybody I could find in the White House, I would say that there is no enthusiasm in the United States for a military option, and there is no such plan. What we want to hear now is the successor plan.

Government Policy on Russia

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As the hon. Lady will know, the Prime Minister herself spoke in her Mansion House speech about this very matter and set out clearly her deep anxieties about how Russia is behaving. What we need to do is to concert international activity, sanction individuals who are part of Putin’s regime and keep the international community focused on exactly the points that the hon. Lady makes. Believe me, there is growing support around the world for what she says.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Having listened closely to today’s exchanges, I am sadly struggling to avoid the conclusion that Russia has now reached the point where it has little or no respect for Britain’s foreign, defence and security policy. If I am wrong, will the Foreign Secretary tell me why?

[Boris Johnson]

I have to disagree with my hon. Friend, because I believe that the UK is in the frontline of a struggle between two value systems. As the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said, Russia is determined to impose its own way of thinking, particularly on the peoples of central and eastern Europe—the countries of the former Soviet Union. Russia is effectively revanchist, and it is the UK that is in the lead in standing up to it. Many other countries would prefer to turn a blind eye. Many other countries would prefer to go to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, step up their trade in hydrocarbons and ignore what is going on. Believe me, there are many countries around the table in the European Union that would like to do that, and there are many countries around the world that believe that it is wrong and misguided to stand up to Russia.

We do not take that view; we take a principled view. We have been in the lead in the imposition of sanctions. We have been in the lead in standing up against Russian-supported aggression in Syria and in calling out Russia for what it did in the western Balkans and Montenegro. We are having a summit in this country in July on the defence of the western Balkans and all those countries against Russian encroachment. It is the UK that is resisting. As I have said to Members repeatedly, it may very well be that Russia will behave towards us in a way that is notably aggressive, but we will not be bowed and we will not allow such action to go unpunished.

Syria: De-escalation Zones

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The answer has already been given several times in the House this afternoon: the greatest fear and constraint upon Bashar al-Assad and other members of the Assad regime are the eventual consequences that they will face in terms of prosecution for war crimes.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Meanwhile, just up the road in Afrin, our friends the Kurdish peshmerga, without whom we would not have been able to defeat ISIS, are being backed by Assad’s military forces against a Turkish invasion. Whose side are we on there?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I neglected to answer that part of the question from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). We view the Turkish incursion into Afrin with grave concern. Everybody understands Turkey’s feelings about the YPG and the PKK, and everybody understands Turkey’s legitimate need to protect its own security. However, we do have concerns about the humanitarian consequences in Afrin, which I raised with my Turkish counterpart yesterday morning. We are also concerned about the possibility, which seems to be happening, of the diversion of Kurdish fighters, who have been so effective against Daesh, from the eastern part of Syria back to Afrin and the Manbij gap area to take on the Turks. We simply do not welcome that diversion in the fight against Daesh.

Balfour Declaration

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think the hon. Gentleman answered his own question as he sat down. The Israeli Government need to stop the illegal settlements. They are not yet making it impossible to deliver the new map, but every time they build new units—as he knows, there are new units going up in Hebron in east Jerusalem—they make that eventual land swap more difficult and move us further from a two-state solution. That is the point we make to our Israeli friends—and, by the way, that is the point made by many allies around the world.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is clearly true that residents of the occupied Palestinian territories do not enjoy the full civil rights promised to them in the Balfour declaration, but is it not also true that neither do the more than 800,000 Jews expelled from countries in the middle east and north Africa? We must remember that 21% of the population of the current state of Israel are Arab Palestinians, whereas there has been wholescale ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab and north African countries, starting in 1948.

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend has an excellent point and alludes to the third leg of the Balfour declaration. Balfour spoke of the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities and then of course of the rights of Jewish communities elsewhere around the world. As my hon. Friend rightly says, hundreds of thousands of them were expelled from their homes, too. They will also benefit from a lasting peace between the Arabs and Israelis. That is what we want to achieve and what we are pushing for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

We must all be aware of the reality in Libya, and indeed in Sirte: there is a tragic absence of security and the problems of that city have yet to be resolved. But when they are resolved—they will be addressed, and are being, with the help of this country—the people of Libya will indeed have fantastic economic prospects, and that is the objective of this Government.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The power vacuum in Libya is sucking in economic migration from the rest of Africa, causing deaths in the Mediterranean as migrants try to flee to the European Union. What can the Foreign Secretary do to make sure that the international community recognises the scale of the problem that it faces in this benighted part of the world?

[Boris Johnson]

As I have been saying, the key thing is to bring together all the sides in Libya—the two halves of the country, Mr Swehli, Mr Saleh, Prime Minister al-Sarraj and of course General Haftar—to change the Skhirat agreement of 2014 to get a new political settlement and then to have elections, and through those elections to produce a unified Government that we believe offer the prospect of peace and security in Libya.

My hon. Friend also raises the problem of illegal immigration, which the UK is of course doing a great deal to combat.

Korean Peninsula

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The best thing we can do is to continue our work with the UN Security Council, at which the Chinese have so far been absolutely in step with us. The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on oil, which we think is the next opportunity.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Do we believe that Kim Jong-un is a rational actor? Perhaps more importantly, does China believe he is?

[Boris Johnson]

I do not think we can simply assume Kim Jong-un is totally irrational. We have to hope that he is willing to take the interests of his people—the suffering people of North Korea—into account and that in the end he is willing to protect their interests. We have to ascribe some kind of rationality and humanity to him in the end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

We are in a negotiation whose objective is to come out from under the penumbra of the European Court of Justice, and outside the EU legal order, and that is what we will achieve.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Since we joined the Common Market on 1 January 1973 until the date we leave, we will have given the EU and its predecessors, in today’s money in real terms, a total of £209 billion. Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear to the EU that if it wants a penny piece more, it can go whistle?

[Boris Johnson]

I am sure that my hon. Friend’s words will have broken like a thunderclap over Brussels and they will pay attention to what he has said. He makes a very valid point; the sums that I have seen that they propose to demand from this country seem to me to be extortionate, and I think that to “go whistle” is an entirely appropriate expression.