Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I believe the hon. Gentleman is referring to the JICTU—Joint International Counter Terrorism Unit—arrangement we have across government. I think he would accept that in view of what I have said about the mutually contaminating ecosystems of terror that we face, where people are being radicalised online here at home and people are in the ungoverned spaces, be it in Iraq, Syria or wherever, a one-Government approach has to be taken to all this by Her Majesty’s Government. It is right therefore that we co-ordinate with the Home Office to tackle this, but we are also tackling it overseas. One aspect of international diplomacy which the Prime Minister has been leading is countering online radicalisation and taking more than 270,000 pieces of illegal terrorist material off the internet.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

May I remind the Foreign Secretary that 20 million Russians died in the second world war, without which we might have lost the war? Does he agree with Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, that despite Russia’s being a leading nuclear power, a member of the UN Security Council, a fundamental source of hydrocarbons and other vital raw materials, and a leading player in the middle east, we are, through “pointless sanctions” and “demonisation”, doing everything we can

“to push Russia into China’s arms”?

Does the Foreign Secretary agree with Sir Tony Brenton that this may prove to be

“the geopolitical blunder of a generation”?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out Russian sacrifice in the war. He is quite right to allude to it, although I might also point out that probably 30 million people died in Stalin’s purges and famines and various other things associated with communism which, as I say, were indulged by the Labour party. [Interruption.] It is true. My hon. Friend’s point about engagement is valid, and that is what we are doing.