United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

This is not something that began in Libya, and it will not end in Libya. It came out of a regional situation. It is a response primarily to Egypt and Tunisia. We should be celebrating, but with immense caution, what both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have supported because of that broader regional context. We are talking about not one country and one month, but a series of countries and 30 years. We have to keep our eyes on that, or we will find ourselves in a very dangerous and difficult situation.

The situation in Libya and the no-fly zone are driven, of course, as everybody in the House has said, by our humanitarian obligation to the Libyan people. It is driven by our concerns for national security and, probably most of all—this is not something that we should minimise—by the kind of message that we are trying to pass to people in Egypt or Tunisia. If we had stood back at this moment and done nothing—if we had allowed Gaddafi simply to hammer Benghazi—people in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria would have concluded that we were on the side of oil-rich regimes against their people. We would have no progressive narrative with which we could engage with that region over the next three decades.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that it is incredibly significant that both the Arab League and countries in the area such as Qatar support the engagement and the UN resolution?

[Rory Stewart]

I agree very strongly. That is immensely significant, but the meaning of that needs to be clear. The limits that the Prime Minister has set are so important to all of us exactly because of that point. The reason we need the Arab League and the UN on side, the reason we need a limited resolution, and the reason all the comments from around the House warning that the situation should not become another Iraq are so important is that we are talking about 30 years, not just the next few months.

Respectfully, I disagree with the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell); the most important thing for us now is to be careful with our language and rhetoric, and careful about the kinds of expectations that we raise. I would respectfully say that phrases such as “This is necessary,” or even “This is legitimate,” are dangerous. All the things that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have done to hedge us in, limit us, and say, “This isn’t going to be an occupation” are fantastic, but they are only the beginning.