Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robin Walker and David Burrowes

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The precise way in which the Government will control the movement to the UK of EU nationals and people from around the world is something that we will be working on with the Home Office. We will certainly take into account representations from London and other devolved areas, but we clearly need to come up with a policy that works for the whole of the UK.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I am holding a Brexit forum next month with local businesses in my constituency involving interests ranging from information technology to the creative industries, retail and property. What is the Minister’s advice to those local businesses about engaging with Brexit? Is it to embrace the challenges and opportunities presented, or is it to follow the lead of the Opposition that is full of pessimism and denial?

ISIL in Syria

Debate between Robin Walker and David Burrowes

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

We can often have too partial a view of parliamentary history when dealing with issues of military intervention. I believe the relevant history is not so much the votes on Iraq in 2003, but those on Iraq in 2014. The motion on 26 September 2014 was agreed by a majority of 491, so should we now be extending it and extending RAF operations from Iraq to Syria?

It should not surprise us that my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) opposes the extension to Syria, because he opposed the motion on operations in Iraq. The same is true of the hon. Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who have all spoken against today and all voted against operations in Iraq. It particularly should not surprise us that the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), opposes extending operations to Syria, because not only did he oppose that September 2014 motion, but he was a teller in the No Lobby. He made it very clear then, as I am sure he would have done if he had had more of an opportunity to respond to my intervention, that he, seemingly in principle, opposed the operations in Iraq.

By implication, that means that those Members do not support what has been happening in Iraq, doing good there and regaining 30% of the territory held by Daesh. They are going against the context of our operations in Iraq. I remind the House that those operations sought to go to the aid of Iraq and support people’s right to defend themselves. We were seeking to support them in their efforts to defend themselves against those ISIL genocidal jihadists who were going against Muslims, Christians and Yazidis. We should not forget that context, because that is what led us to vote in favour of action by such an overwhelming majority. The history behind this vote is as much about Kosovo in 1998 as it is about Iraq in 2003. When we look at the liberation of Sinjar, which was brought about because of the support of RAF pilots and our allies, we should remember that it was opposed by the Leader of the Opposition. We saw the horrors of Sinjar.

[Mr Robin Walker]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. Does he agree that crucial in our intervention in Iraq to date has been the fact that there have not been civilian casualties from the RAF action? That shows that we have the capability to take incisive action against terrorist targets without putting civilian lives at risk.

[Mr Burrowes]

That is right. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) described as a disgrace the operations that are taking place. However, it was not a disgrace to liberate Sinjar. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] The action has been effective, proportionate and is not leading to the loss of civilian lives. The grim reality, the horrors in Sinjar were revealed: the mass graves of older women who had been butchered by ISIL.

We should stand four-square behind these operations, which should be extended. Along with the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), I wanted the motion in 2014 to go further. Like him, I recognise the important international principle of a treaty to protect people from genocide. That is what we were seeing in Iraq and Syria. The duty to authorise force extended logically both to Iraq and Syria. So I wanted us to go further then. To be consistent with the decision in 2014, I want us to extend our operations to Syria. As I said to the Prime Minister then, the genocidal actions of ISIL jihadists have no borders. We need to understand that ISIL has the same intent now as it did in 2014. The right to defend Iraqis and the right to defend our UK citizens means that there should be no border in our operations between Iraq and Syria.

We have heard many Members offer their expert opinion about the effectiveness of the operations. We must be careful that we do not become armchair—or Bench—generals. Surely we should accept the evidence from the armed forces, security services and the Joint Intelligence Committee that we have a very clear and imminent threat to our citizens, and that we have a proportionate response to it. My question to my constituents is this: if one of those seven planned attacks on the UK in the past 12 months had not been thwarted and had got through, what would I have done? I would have had to look my constituents and their families in the eye and say that we must tackle the threat by going—