Britain and International Security

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I add my voice to those of other Members who have said that it is time for all of us, including our national media, to start to categorise this organisation, which we are against in a wide-ranging international struggle, as what it is: a criminal caliphate; murderous monsters; homophobic horrors; and people who have nothing to do with a state.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

A death cult.

[Mike Gapes]

It is more than a death cult. It is worse than that, because its members are interested not just in themselves dying, but in trying to kill people of all faiths and none throughout the world. There can be no negotiation with such organisations, and that means we have to rethink—sadly—some approaches we have taken in recent years.

In Syria we also have to recognise, as we look back to a century ago, that the system of nation states established as a result of Sykes and Picot after world war one is coming under serious strain. The states that exist in the middle east, many drawn simply as lines on a map by British and French diplomats, are now seriously in question. Arab nationalism was for many years the dominant force in the region, but since the events of 2011—the so-called, misnamed Arab Spring—it is now questionable whether Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again.

In the past few days an embryonic Kurdish autonomous region, Rojava, in northern Syria next to the Turkish border, has come about. The town that was taken the other day, Tal Abyad, by the PYD/YPG, the Syrian Kurdish organisation, has for the first time given it a contiguous series of enclaves.

On the other side, since the justified and welcome decision by John Major’s Government to introduce a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, to protect the Kurds from the murderous Ba’athist, fascist regime of Saddam Hussein, we have had for many years the Kurdish regional Government, with their own flag and armed forces, the peshmerga. The Syrian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds have been fighting Daesh. They have had setbacks, lost many people, and been poorly equipped and outgunned by the most well funded and best armed terrorist organisation that has ever existed. That is mainly because the Iraqi army ran away and handed over American-donated weaponry, but it is not simply for that reason. It is also because that organisation pays people to join it. I heard a story the other day of people leaving republics of the former Soviet Union, having been recruited—young Muslim men, paid thousands of US dollars and recruited to that organisation.

Daesh has an appeal to some disaffected groups and, sadly, within our own society. There is the horrific story of the family of three generations from Luton, of Bangladeshi heritage, who on their way back from Bangladesh via Turkey have apparently disappeared. It is suggested that one of the women was influenced and radicalised, and the whole family—three generations, grandparents and young children, 12 people—have disappeared and are thought to be in Syria.

[Stephen Pound]

My hon. Friend rightly mentions the quality of the weaponry that the peshmerga and the Kurdish forces use. Is he aware of the statement they have just made, to the effect that they are fighting people who have the most modern American equipment while they have to use Soviet-era matériel? Does he feel that we in this country could do more to assist the people who are actually there, on the ground, fighting that murderous, brutal band, which he so accurately describes?

[Mike Gapes]

I agree entirely. That was the point of my intervention on the Secretary of State earlier.

The German Government have provided far more weaponry than we have to the KRG in Iraq, but the United States and our Government are still reluctant to directly provide weaponry. The Syrian Kurds may be getting some limited support, but because of Turkey’s concerns and Baghdad’s objections, the Kurds in Syria and in Iraq are not getting what they absolutely need. These are brave people, and they are putting themselves on the line in defence, in the case of the Iraqi Kurds, of a democratic, pluralistic society that welcomes those internally displaced from the rest of Iraq and refugees from Syria.

I, like the former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), visited a refugee camp in Kurdistan in 2013. At that point there were only 250,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees inside the KRG. The KRG has a population of about 4 million, but now 1 million people have gone there to seek refuge and survive. They need humanitarian help, but they also need military assistance, which we should be giving directly to help the Iraqi Kurds in their existential fight against Daesh.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to mention the extremely dignified behaviour of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), at Brize Norton yesterday. He brought great credit to this House and to this country. It must have been poignant and painful for him to be present, bearing in mind his family circumstances and his own service. I hope I speak for everyone here when I say how much we admired his demeanour yesterday.

The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) quoted a former US Defence Secretary. In West Point in 1962, another former US Defence Secretary, this time from Truman’s Cabinet, Dean Acheson, made the famous remark:

“Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role”

In his extremely wide-ranging speech at the beginning of this afternoon’s debate, that was very much the sense of what the Secretary of State was saying: what is Britain’s role in international security? We have tended to see it through the prism of military force and we have tended to see that as a military defensive process.

In terms of Britain’s military posture world wide, no one can deny the quality of our armed forces, our servicemen and women. However, we have to accept that the Royal Navy—the branch that I perhaps know most about, and which has been experiencing lean manning for many years—has been doing as much as it can with a diminishing resource decade after decade, year after year, month after month. There comes a time when we have to evaluate our role in terms of our capability on the global stage and in the wider global theatres. Where I may slightly disagree with most of those on my party’s Front Bench and with the official policy of my party—but, slightly worryingly, agree with the hon. Members for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) and for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Donaldson); I sincerely hope that I do not blight their political careers for ever by supporting their comments—is that I am simply unconvinced that the Trident nuclear system, which is not an independent missile system, is the answer to the problems we face today. When we are talking about international security, I simply cannot understand how the Vanguard boat system, a system predicated on the cold war and vast Russian tank divisions rolling through Poland and on to the north German plains, has any relevance in a modern asymmetric civilianised warfare.

What we have talked about this afternoon proves to me that there may well have been a time for that system, but it is not today and we have to look at different ways. I appreciate that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, is writhing in agony upon his Bench. I would not deny him four Vanguard boats in his bath to play with, but I am not entirely sure they should be the major financial component of our Royal Navy. Despite how few assets it has, the Royal Navy is not just combat ready and does not just interdict drug smugglers; it rewires cities after natural disasters and is a great maritime rescue agency. We all know the work that HMS Bulwark is doing in the Mediterranean. Let us credit the Royal Navy for all the things it does so well, but not at the same time automatically fall victim to the shibboleth that there is something wonderful about the Trident nuclear weapons system, which somehow informs everything the Royal Navy does. We can do much more than that.

If there is one thing I have learned from this afternoon’s debate, it is the absolute and utter primacy of the United Kingdom remaining part of the European Union. If we are to be that one lonely nation fighting our corner across the world and doing all the things we want to do so well, how much better and how much stronger would we be as part of the wider organisation of the European Union and as part of NATO? Anyone who may be harbouring any thoughts of being tempted by the seductive words that sometimes drift across the Chamber even to think about voting to leave the European Union will have heard this afternoon’s debate and said, “No. For this nation’s security, for international security and for strength, we are part of Europe—and we should continue to be so.”

In terms of youth and hair, I intend to challenge neither the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine nor the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), but I repeat my earlier comments and say I agree with their statements about the nuclear weapons system. We are talking here about international security—not just international military security.

We have to be smart. What is this country really good at? It has the intelligence; it has the global expertise. We know about Iraq because we created Iraq. We know about much of the world because we were there at the beginning. We have the expertise and intelligence, so let us be a smarter country and work on that basis.

Let us pause for a moment. Last Friday everyone was talking about Tunisia. What did we do to support Tunisia, which should have been a beacon of hope in the Maghreb? It should have been one of the few countries resulting from the Arab spring that was actually taking the right route and going forward. We should have done more. It cannot be only when disaster strikes that we suddenly discover the importance of these countries.

We heard earlier about Russian expansionism. Let us look at some countries that we do not talk about except in crisis. I make no apologies for mentioning Armenia yet again on the Floor of the House. Armenia is a beacon of stability in the south Caucasus. It is a country that we should be supporting, endorsing and working with. We should be looking to our friends. We should not be waiting until disaster strikes before we start talking about countries, sending them resources and devoting our attention to them. There are many terrifying places in the world and it is inevitable that we look at where the blood is flowing fastest and where the sound of gunfire is loudest, but let us also look at those places that are not in crisis, but which can add massively to the peace of the world.

We can do so much more in this country. I profoundly hope we can. This afternoon’s debate has been incredibly important. I apologise if I have offended my Front-Bench team by my slightly traditional and old-fashioned Labour views on nuclear weapons. Let us please remember that this is about international security—not just international military security.