UN Security Council Resolution (Libya)

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Friday 18th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I sometimes want to meet that argument with the answer that the fact that you cannot do the right thing everywhere does not mean that you should not do the right thing somewhere. A more detailed answer, however, is that what is happening in Libya is different. The situation is that of a people rising up against their leaders and wanting a more democratic future, and then us watching as, potentially, those people are destroyed by that dictator.

As I have said, I think that what we see coming together here is Britain acting with others in favour of international law and international governance and the UN and all that is right and fair and decent in our world, yet, at the same time, I believe, very much acting in our national interest, because it is not in our national interest for this man to lead a pariah state on the southern banks of Europe with all the problems that that could entail. So I hope that, not just across the world but across this country, we shall be able to build the broadest coalition for support for the action we are taking, encompassing all those who care about the UN and international law and what is good and right in our world, but who also recognise that a hard-headed assessment of British national interest means that we should not stand aside from this.

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

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and last night’s United Nations resolution. I think it is absolutely right for the international community to take urgent action to protect civilians in Libya. Will the Prime Minister please assure me that our intelligence assets in the region are doing all that they can to monitor the activities of, and communication between, senior regime leaders and commanders, with a view to ensuring that we can prosecute them to the fullest extent of international law?

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously—as the hon. Gentleman knows—we never comment on security and intelligence matters in the House. However, his point about the International Criminal Court and the need to be clear about the fact that, as I have said, international law should have a long arm, a long reach and a long memory and that we should gather evidence for that, is absolutely right.