Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). I agreed with some of her analysis, although by no means all of it.

As we meet here tonight, civilians in Libya continue to become victims of a brutal regime that is showing no humanity in its efforts to impose its will on the Libyan people. The contrast between the cowardice of Gaddafi and the courage of his people could not be greater. While he continues to hide behind mercenaries and soak himself in delusional rhetoric in his compound, the vast majority of the Libyan people are standing in hope, in the open, and poorly armed, against him. Like all tyrants, he has lost his grip on reality. He is alone, and lost in his own propaganda.

When I look at the faces of the men and women fighting Gaddafi, I see a yearning for freedom and a grasping for dignity, pride and self-determination. All those are the antithesis of what Gaddafi represents. The only person he is fooling with his insane rhetoric is himself. He is hated by his people, he has lost legitimacy, he is shortly to become a wanted war criminal, and it is now a question of when, not if, he must go.

Against that backdrop, I pay tribute to the men and women of our armed forces who continue to execute the tasks set by the Government with the professionalism that we have come to expect from the best armed forces in the world. I remain in awe of their selfless determination and courage. In putting themselves in harm’s way to protect innocent people, they are standing up for the very best traditions of our nation, and they should rightly be proud of the work they are doing on behalf of their country.

Unlike the hon. Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I remain convinced of the legitimacy of the steps the international community is taking. We could not have stood by and watched Benghazi entered by Gaddafi’s murderous thugs. We could not have watched from the sidelines and merely grimaced at the slaughter that would inevitably have followed.

I fear that we are witnessing Syria begin the slide into the same violence and bloodshed that we have seen so dramatically in Libya. The United Nations estimates that over the last two months about 700 innocent civilians have been killed and hundreds more detained by the Syrian security services. We have seen their cities shelled by tanks, and troops conduct house-to-house searches to arrest and intimidate protesters. In Syria, as in the early days in Libya, people are standing up unarmed, with only an idea to inspire them: the idea of freedom, which we in this country all too often take for granted. The reality is that the only long-term solution for the Syrian regime is one that regains the consent of the Syrian people. Failure to reach out to a political solution will only result in Syria descending into further turmoil and bloodshed. The international community must do all it can to impress that on the Syrian regime.

President Assad is at a crossroads. He can either respond to the demands of his people or he can continue his efforts to repress them, but only one course of action will leave his regime with security and legitimacy. If he chooses repression over reform, I believe he will ultimately be swept from power. I therefore welcome the steps the Government have taken to put pressure on the Syrian regime, but I ask the Secretary of State to say in his winding-up speech whether the discussions with the Syrian ambassador touched on rights of access to that country for the foreign media, and what the Syrian representative told him about the national dialogue proposed by that country’s President.

The events of the last few months in north Africa and across the middle east highlight the urgent need to review our arms export regime, as the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) made clear. People across the middle east and north Africa have displayed true courage in standing up against oppressive regimes that have used the most modern equipment and munitions to try to break their will. It is difficult for any of us in this House to stomach the idea that British-made equipment may have been used against these courageous people.

Of course it is right for the UK to play an active part in the international negotiations that have recently started at the United Nations aimed at securing a global arms trade treaty, but we must not lose sight of the choices that we ourselves can make to tighten our export regime. That is why I welcome both the Foreign Secretary’s review of British arms export controls announced last month and the fact that the Government have revoked more than 150 export licences in recent weeks—but we can, and we must, go further. We need to tighten controls on both exports and re-exports, and we need to make sure that we put human rights at the heart of our consideration of which countries we should export to. When will the Foreign Secretary’s arms export review be published, and will it be brought before the House for debate?

It should now be crystal clear that the long-term interests of this country will always be best found in standing next to the people who seek freedom, and against the regimes that would simply impose their will. This strategic reality needs to be reflected in all corners of our Government and in all parts of the United Kingdom’s global posture.