Situation in the Gulf

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is right: we did foresee that this could be one of the reactions from the Iranian Government. That is why we took a number of steps after the detention in Gibraltar on 4 July, including the despatch of HMS Duncan and a lot of extra activity from HMS Montrose over the past few days in escorting 30 vessels, a number of which were British-flagged. There has been a lot of additional activity, but we wanted to do it in a way that was not a red rag to a bull and did not end up with even bigger consequences than the ones we faced, and that gave diplomatic channels a chance to work. I think that it was right to start in that way, but regrettably Iran has not chosen to follow the path that we hoped, so we are taking much more robust action today.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I share the Foreign Secretary’s concerns about the possibility that tensions will escalate and that the region may descend into conflict. That is why it is so important that we are clear about the legality of the decision to detain the Grace 1. Can I press him on two points? Will he tell us a little more about the legal basis? Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, as the Foreign Secretary will know, has described it as intriguing. Is the Foreign Secretary confident that we, as a country, and the European Union, as a Union, are consistently applying the European Union sanctions against Syria—as we should? I agree with them, but are we consistently applying them so that there is no room for Foreign Secretary Zarif to call into question our motives?

[Mr Hunt]

Those were intelligent questions, and I will try to do justice to them. As I understand it, it is a requirement of EU law that if a load destined, in breach of sanctions, for somewhere that should not be receiving cargo goes through an EU port or EU waters, we have an obligation to seize that cargo. That is a matter of international law, and that is what has happened. Foreign Minister Zarif tries to argue that, unlike the United States, we do not support extraterritoriality in the application of sanctions. But that is not what happened in this case, because the ship sailed into Gibraltarian waters. One could argue that our actions would not have been consistent for us had the ship been seized outside Gibraltarian waters, but it was inside.