Western Sahara

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Of course, the UK does that through the United Nations and the Tindouf camps, but he makes a good point about Foreign Office advice to people seeking to travel to Western Sahara. There is very real potential for Western Sahara to be a vacuum in which the ill-disposed can do what they will. We cannot allow that space to be ungoverned. We need to ensure that there is a jurisdiction there to bring order and ensure that the ill-inclined are not a threat to Morocco, Western Sahara, the wider region and, frankly, ourselves.

The anaemic UK official line has relied on two arguments for doing nothing: first, that recognising Moroccan sovereignty would, in some mysterious way, challenge our sovereignty over the remaining British overseas territories, and secondly, that supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan would upset Algeria, which has a strained relationship with Morocco and supports the Polisario Front’s call for independence for Western Sahara.

There is no evidence that recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara would compromise our wider regional equities in any significant way. We know this because peer nations that have been much more forward-leaning on Moroccan sovereignty have not suffered a backlash from a pragmatic Algiers. The only exception is France, but the Franco-Algerian relationship has been toxic before and since independence in 1962, so it in no way compares with our own relationship or with that of other countries seeking a positive future with both Algiers and Rabat.

I appreciate the Labour party’s difficulty in relation to the Polisario Front. Under previous management, Labour supported the hard-left Polisario Front and would never have accepted the Moroccan autonomy plan, but the Prime Minister has invested much time and political capital in putting as much distance as possible between himself and his predecessor. He might therefore see this as an opportunity.

What would changing our line to match our peers do to the UK’s case for holding on to its remaining overseas territories? The answer lies in the unforced surrender of the Chagos islands, which was a decision of infinitely greater consequence than what I propose would ever be.

In any event, Cambridge professor of international law Marc Weller, in his opinion of April 2024, is crystal clear:

“There are no points where endorsing the position of Morocco on which its autonomy proposal is based would in any sense distract from the UK position concerning title to the Falkland Islands.”

What about Argentina, whose mission to turn the Falkland Islands into the Malvinas has been refuelled by the Foreign Secretary’s Chagos capitulation? Well, it has said:

“The Sahara is indubitably Moroccan.”

Much of South America also appears to support the autonomy plan or has recanted its previous support for Saharan independence.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

Can the right hon. Gentleman adumbrate how the uninhabited Chagos islands are equivalent, in any way, shape or form, to the Falkland Islands?