Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: Iran

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) on securing this debate, and also commend him on a very measured and serious speech, which I entirely agreed with. I also strongly agree with his point—I am conscious that I am paraphrasing, but it is useful for some Members to be reminded of this—that not everything that happens in the middle east is about Israel. Plenty of other countries across the middle east have a great deal to fear from a nuclear Iran. As friendly outsiders to all communities in the middle east, it is incumbent on us to look at a wider prism than the interests of just one community or country.

My party’s standpoint on any matters nuclear is that we abhor nuclear weapons. We do not want to see proliferation around the world. We also want to see the UK rid of nuclear weapons, and we want them out of Scotland’s soil. That is, of course, a different discussion, but my party’s proposition is that, as an independent state, we will get rid of the nuclear weapons and employ more people in conventional defence, which will be more effective and better suited. It will also be a better example for the world. If we are serious about cutting back on nuclear proliferation, let us consider our own role in encouraging these weapons. That is a different discussion for a different time, which I look forward to.

However, there is much agreement on both sides of the House today, and I would like to focus on that. We all agree that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a massively negative influence in the middle east and the wider world. My party supports the JCPOA. I take on board a number of the criticisms and concerns that have been expressed on both sides of the House, and we are not naive about its failings or the failings and, indeed, mendacity of the Iranian regime. However, we do favour talk, and I would Members what their proposition is if they are not in favour of the JCPOA. If they are not in favour of talks and an internationally binding legal agreement, what are they proposing? We are open to Magnitsky sanctions, and we are open to other embargoes, but we do believe that the JCPOA, with its faults, is the best chance of bringing Iran to the table.

We therefore support the UK Government’s efforts. Indeed, I suspect I am more supportive of their efforts than some Members on the Government Benches in today’s discussions. I commend the Minister for what he has been doing, because—I agree with the concerns that have been expressed by Members on both sides of the House—the signs are not encouraging. The IAEA’s report confirmed that Iran has stepped up enrichment of uranium. There is absolutely no justification for the levels of enriched uranium that Iran now has and its capacity to make more. There is no civilian purpose for such a product. It is simply an effort to achieve nuclear weapons, which must be resisted and stopped.

The news yesterday that there will not be a Brussels meeting to try and push on the JCPOA efforts is dispiriting, but we must continue. We must push on these efforts. We need to give more impetus to these efforts, not less. We cannot be seen here to be undermining efforts at talks when they are under way. I urge the Minister to continue his efforts, to get stuck in and to breathe some impetus into these talks. I would be grateful for an update if he can give one, given the confidential nature of those discussions. He can be assured of Scottish National party support for his efforts and indeed those of the wider Government.

Having expressed that support and demonstrated, I hope, bipartisanship, can I also make a plea? Can the riot act please be read to UK Government Ministers to stop them playing fast and loose with respect for international law? The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said recently that the protocol would be breached in a “limited and specific way”. Those are not the words of a serious Government that respect international law. It sets a bad example for the bad actors who already exist in the world. Then, an unelected Lord, a member of the UK Government—it is telling that many do not like unelected bureaucrats and decrees by high muftis or whoever else in Tehran—absolutely disingenuously said that elements of the EU withdrawal agreement were contingent or would somehow fall away, when that was not the intention of the UK Government, and it certainly was not the intention of anybody else.

Over the weekend we then saw, most egregiously of all, the Lord Chancellor, no less, floating the constitutionally and legally illiterate idea that the Government will somehow intervene in and overturn decisions on human rights where the judges get them wrong. It is this Parliament that changes the law, not the Government. That sort of statement would not be out of place in Tehran, and we must be conscious of the examples we are setting.

Where the UK Government are serious about breathing life back into these talks and stopping nuclear proliferation anywhere in the middle east, but especially in Iran, they will have SNP support. I encourage the Minister to make more efforts in that regard.