European Council

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Oh, borders. Well, I think that is unknowable. There is a very good agreement between Britain and France that is in the interests of both our countries. We know that it can be maintained with the current arrangements, but it will be for those who are arguing to leave the European Union to discuss and explain those points.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The Prime Minister said that the conclusions set out what is necessary. Let me, if I may, take him to paragraph 4, line 4 of the conclusions, which says:

“The European Council agreed on the need to focus on the fight against DAESH”.

The document makes no reference at all to “ISIL”. Given that the United Kingdom has agreed to this document, will we now officially use the word “Daesh”, which will help us to defeat this evil organisation’s propaganda campaign?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is very persistent and quite convincing. I have just written him a letter to say that, in all our communications with Arab states and partners that use the terminology “Daesh”, we also now use the terminology “Daesh”. Clearly, that now involves the European Union as well. I am comfortable that we should never say “Islamic State” or “IS”, because I think that confers some legitimacy on them, but I think that if we use “so-called” or, indeed, the term “ISIL”, it is clear what we are referring to.