European Union: UK Membership

Debate between Tim Roca and Jim Shannon

Monday 24th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for introducing this important debate, which proves the importance of the petition mechanism to the public for getting important issues debated in this place. Eight years ago, constituents in Macclesfield voted to remain part of the European Union. It was a referendum based on imperfect knowledge. It was called because of the internal politics of the Conservative party and in an attempt to see off the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) and his insistent Europhobe right—a group of people who would never be satisfied, as we subsequently discovered.

The context of calling that referendum was incredibly bizarre, as we had already been through the life-or-death experience of the Scottish referendum that put the UK’s constitutional future at stake. It was also called in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea, so it was a bizarre time to be holding a question on the fundamental membership of an important political and economic alliance. We know how that referendum developed: it was vitriolic, and undoubtedly influenced by the Russians. Just a few days before the vote, one of our colleagues was tragically murdered on the streets of the UK.

We can now clearly see the consequences of our decision, as Members have been pointing out expertly this afternoon. Some 14,000 of 100,000 firms surveyed by the London School of Economics have quit trading with the European Union altogether. Many small businesses in my constituency talk about the barriers, the red tape and the bureaucracy that other Members have mentioned.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research points out that foreign direct investment has fallen 37%, and the OBR has said that the UK economy will be 4% smaller in 2035—that scary figure of the lost 4% is in all our minds—than it would have been had the UK stayed in the EU. That is a cumulative loss of hundreds of billions of pounds that we could be spending on our infrastructure, our public services and our collective defence.

As we went into the election last year, the Government ruled out rejoining the EU and reopening those constitutional questions in this Parliament. It was a manifesto that I stood on and that I am committed to. I understand some of the reasoning behind that, because although the debate will go on about that political choice, we must remember how painful the situation was immediately after the referendum—the business uncertainty and anxiety, the jobs that had been secure that were suddenly insecure, and the investment decisions that were cancelled. A Damoclean sword of unpredictability hung over us, so I understand the trepidation about reopening those questions.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman has set out clearly the concerns that many people have. I am a proud Brexiteer, but we did not get the Brexit that we voted for. Does he agree that the people of Northern Ireland are subject to all the same bureaucracy, high tariffs and cost factors that he has outlined? Does he share the concerns that I have as an MP from Northern Ireland for his constituents?

[Tim Roca]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I think he has proved the point that I made, which is that the people who voted for Brexit were a group who would never be satisfied, because Brexit meant different things to different people. It was whatever illusion—whatever fantasy—people wanted it to be, which is why it was so dangerous to let that nationalist genie out of the bottle in the way that we did.

I welcome the Government’s effort to reset relations with the European Union, our neighbours and our allies, through a new forthcoming sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, supporting artists’ ability to tour in the EU, a mutual recognition agreement for professional qualifications, and a new UK-EU security pact. Those are all really important, but I note that we would have had them if we had continued to be members of the European Union.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to resetting those relationships, but as Members have said, let us go further. Let us look at the youth mobility scheme, let us join the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention and ease barriers to trade, and let us lay the groundwork for a proper debate on where the future of this country should be.

Ryan Cornelius: Detention in UAE

Debate between Tim Roca and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate on a matter of great importance, namely the arbitrary detention of a British citizen by a close ally and friend of the United Kingdom. This case is deliberately being raised as we approach the national day of the United Arab Emirates, 2 December, in the earnest hope that the authorities in Dubai will consider granting clemency and pardoning Ryan Cornelius as a gesture of friendship towards our country, building on our important alliance. As Members will know, this is not the first time that Ryan’s case has been raised. His name has featured in the press, and the matter has been scrutinised by the United Nations and raised by our Foreign Affairs Committee, and now by the new all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs, of which I am proud to be vice-chair. Before we start properly, I pay tribute to Ryan’s wife Heather, and her family, Chris, Diane, Gilly and Sam, who are in the Gallery.

Before getting to the details of the case, I would like to reflect briefly on the important relationship between the UAE, particularly Dubai, and the United Kingdom. The relationship is built on a long history of friendship. Since its foundation in 1971, the United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai, and the UK have been trusted friends. The country, and the emirate specifically, have been a source of stability, economic growth, and innovation in the region, and successive Governments in the UK have been a valued partner in its pursuits. Trade between our two countries covers a variety of areas, including energy, financial and professional services, education, healthcare, infrastructure, defence and aerospace.

In an era of global insecurity, the UK and UAE have a long-standing strategic defence partnership to preserve peace and stability in the Arabian gulf. The UAE is the UK’s third-largest trading partner outside Europe, behind China and the United States. More than 5,000 British businesses operate in the Emirates, and around 240,000 British nationals live and work in the UAE. Total imports and exports between the UK and the UAE reached £24.2 billion in 2023. It is a valuable trading relationship. According to VisitBritain, in 2023 the UK welcomed 477,000 visitors from the Emirates. Going the other way, there are approximately 1.4 million visitors from the UK to the Emirates every year. Those statistics demonstrate the closeness of our nations on matters of tourism, business and defence. However, I am increasingly worried that the continued arbitrary detention of Ryan Cornelius will start sending the wrong message to tourists, expats and businesses, potentially threatening our valued and historic relationship.

Before his detention in Dubai, Ryan had worked in the middle east since at least the 1980s, specialising in property and construction. At the turn of the millennium, with cheap credit, a booming market and plentiful opportunities, we all know that the Gulf began to attract many entrepreneurs, Ryan among them. He became an investing partner in three very large projects in Dubai, Bahrain and Pakistan. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Ryan’s lender, a German venture capital group, found itself unable to fund Ryan’s projects. Due to the dearth of alternative funding, he found himself drawn into restructuring negotiations between that group and their lender, the Dubai Islamic Bank. These negotiations resulted in a three-year repayment schedule, secured against Ryan’s businesses and personal assets. Repayments were made on schedule. The collateral provided by Ryan and his partners was considered more than enough to cover the borrowing from the DIB. Indeed, the Pakistan project that I mentioned—the Indus refinery—received two separate valuations in excess of $1 billion.

In 2008, when Ryan was returning from a trip to Karachi to find a potential buyer for the refinery so that he could clear his outstanding debt—which, as I say, he was servicing on time—he was arrested while transiting through Dubai. He was detained and placed in solitary confinement for six weeks, and the Dubai Islamic Bank commenced seizure of his personal assets and businesses, eventually including his London home. In 2010, Ryan was put on trial for fraud. The case was initially dismissed for lack of evidence. Following a retrial, Ryan was charged with theft from a public body and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was ordered to repay the outstanding balance and handed a $500 million fine. In May 2018, he was issued with a 20-year extension to his imprisonment, meaning that he will not be eligible for release until May 2038, when he will be 84 years old.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I spoke to him before it. I have always been a speaker for human rights, as he and the House knows. Whenever I hear stories like the one he has outlined so well, it tells me that there is injustice. The friendship between the UK and UAE does not matter; this is about justice and doing right when somebody is discriminated against. Does he not agree that the inaction of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s—I say that respectfully—in respect of one of our citizens is incredibly concerning? The fact that Mr Cornelius has served his sentence, only to have the goalposts moved, does not speak of international justice, but injustice. I believe that our Foreign Office has an absolute duty to advocate for this British citizen.

[Tim Roca]

The hon. Member makes an important point. I will return to the FCDO in a moment and perhaps address some of what he mentioned.

As I said, Ryan was issued with a 20-year extension to his sentence in 2018. The law sanctioning such extensions was not brought in until after Ryan’s arrest. In April 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention completed a detailed investigation that found that the UAE’s treatment of him contravened eight articles of the universal declaration of human rights, to which the UAE is a signatory. The group ruled that Ryan has been held in conditions amounting to “torture”, that he had not received a fair trial, and that his detention was “arbitrary”. It called for his immediate release. As things stand, he has not been released. He remains an arbitrarily detained British national in the United Arab Emirates—a country that is an ally.