Ukraine

Debate between Ben Wallace and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

I do not need to repeat the profiling of President Putin that, like the problems, was completely and comprehensively set out by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but the real challenge at the heart of the issue is how to respond. We could of course do lots of huffing and puffing. There has been plenty of that during the past few years, which is one reason why Mr Putin has felt that he can carry on with impunity.

The most traditional route is that of sanctions. Although I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), I am afraid that I am slightly cynical about whether we will in the end get to a stage at which sanctions are robust enough to make a difference. The view at large is that sanctions are somehow pain-free, being effective at only one end, but major sanctions usually end up also affecting the people who put them in place. It will take real courage on behalf of the Germans, for example, to push for something in an area such as gas.

There is also the military way to respond. The Foreign Secretary, like many other countries, has been absolutely adamant that a military response is not on the table. I recognise that it is not a political solution or one that would help the situation, but we should not entirely rule out some form of military assistance or aid to the Ukrainian forces, who are equipped with obsolete and rather poor equipment. They are standing guard against the Russian bear almost as a Dad’s Army force at the moment. Russia never hesitates to help Syria with the latest weapons systems when trying to undermine the United Nations or, indeed, the international community. At the very least, expertise in military hospitals should be given to help people who are already suffering.

[Bob Stewart]

I think that we should reinforce the troops in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, because they are on the front line.

[Mr Wallace]

I think that the real thing we must deal with here and now is Ukraine. We must make sure that Ukrainian people have the ability to defend themselves should the Russians overstep the mark.

The long-term solution is of course through economics. It is important to resolve the EU-US free trade treaty to make Mr Putin feel what isolation is like, and to help Europe come to terms with its apparent energy dependency on Russia, which only makes it more and more vulnerable to a man who has proved time and again that he uses energy as a weapon.

There does not always have to be a hot war or a high -stakes conflict for us to face each other down. How quickly we rushed to forget the lessons of the cold war and sought to retire members of the intelligence agencies who were put out to grass when it ended in 1990-91. Let us remember that intelligence agencies around the world helped to change the behaviour of the Soviet Union and to make it collapse from within. Not a month now goes by without people denigrating our intelligence community —most recently thanks to Mr Snowden, who is now enjoying the hospitality of Mr Putin, and there is an irony in that—but they largely understand the Russian bear, know what makes Mr Putin vulnerable and know how to turn up the heat.

Let us remember that the source of Mr Putin’s power is the secret state, in which he can imprison people without trial, and in which he can persecute homosexuals and non-governmental organisations in the Russian state. He gets his power from manipulation, intimidation and corruption, but that is where he is vulnerable. If we can deter and deny him the ability to use that state within Russia and further afield, we can weaken him, and in doing so we can certainly deter him in future.

Let us unleash our intelligence services and capability. Let us no longer be afraid to hide them and run away from the accusations of Snowden. Let us make life a little more uncomfortable for Mr Putin. Let him feel what it is like on the other end of his intimidation in the secret state. Let us not put him in a cold war, but let him feel the cold winds of isolation that we can bring about if we isolate him economically, isolate him militarily and isolate him in his ability to break international law around the world. One cannot be a major player, riding bareback on a horse, if one is isolated from the international stage.

Iran

Debate between Ben Wallace and Bob Stewart

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

At the outset, may I declare that I co-chair the all-party group on Iran with the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and that I have held that position for the past six years?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this timely debate, because it is important that the House move to more discussion of Iran. From what I have heard so far, the debate has been very good, and I have certainly enjoyed the contributions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), whose speech was extremely good and clear about where we are trying to go and the problems we face, and the right hon. Member for Blackburn. I also congratulate the Foreign Secretary on making it clear that the Government are not advocating force or even calling for force to deal with this problem. One of the problems I have with the motion is that although I do not think military action is the correct way forward, given the current position in Iran, I also do not believe that we should ever tie a Government—I do not believe in the principle of ruling something out of such a policy. We have to examine events as they come and see what develops.

I am not going to argue the point about the International Atomic Energy Agency and whether Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. It might be more suitable to have this debate after the inspection is completed and we see the reports from the recent access in Iran. What worries me is what happens after this stage. In the six years that I have done this job in the all-party group, I have never met an official in the United States Government, in the Foreign Office or in the Israeli Government who privately has not said to me, “If Iran thinks it wants a bomb and is really determined to have one, it will get it.”

I have also yet to find many officials who say that they think sanctions will work in the long term to prevent Iran from getting what it has desired not for five or 10 years, but since 1968. In fact, the Americans helped the Shah to build the reactor in Iran; General Electric was involved in that. It has been a long-standing ambition of Iran to possess nuclear power for energy and, I suspect, for nuclear weapons to add to its view that it is a superpower not only in the region, but in the world. It did not launch a tortoise and an insect up into space a few years ago just for fun; it did so to show that it, too, could enter the space race. Unfortunately, Iran was entering that race about 40 years too late, but that was very much about the psyche of Iran and Iran saying, “We, too, can do it. We, too, can be a superpower.”

We have to ask ourselves the question: what happens if Iran produces a bomb? Both Pakistan and India produced a bomb, as did North Korea, in isolation. If Iran does produce a bomb or gets close to doing so, we must ask ourselves what the plan B is and what we are to do. That is where the question for the United Kingdom becomes separate from the question for Israel and the United States. The question for Britain and Her Majesty’s Government is: is it in Britain’s interest to take military action? I know what is in Israel’s national interest, and I defend Israel’s taking that action to defend itself, but that is not the same as what is in Britain’s national interest. The challenge for the policy makers and for the Government will be to prove to this House and to my constituents why taking some form of military action, most likely outside the United Nations and perhaps in support of only one or two other countries—Israel and the United States—is in the interests of my constituents and in the interest of the national security of Britain. That is a much further jump to make.

We need to point out differences between Iraq and Iran. Until recently, Iran certainly ruled by consent—we did not like it and we did not choose the policies, but it ruled by consent. Saddam Hussein never ruled by consent and was a military dictator in the region, and although we should rightly be concerned about Iran’s moving—it is more than drifting—towards being a totalitarian state, we must remember that there are differences.

We must also remember how things appear from an Iranian point of view. If you are an Iranian, your neighbourhood is not very nice; Saudi Arabia is ideologically opposed to the Shi’a sect and thinks that you are heretics. I come from and live in Lancashire, where in the 17th century puritans and Catholics were hammering each other, and the view is the same in this region. Pakistan developed a nuclear weapon and was rewarded with a seat at the top table. That part of the world is unstable, and the arms race has already started; Israel possesses a nuclear weapon and it refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iranians will feel that there is an inconsistency in the west’s position. A number of resolutions, both at the IAEA and the UN, have asked Israel to sign up to that treaty, but it is has consistently refused to do so. That consistency is where we have to start.

We could also try to redouble our efforts on other measures. I congratulate the Foreign Office on the investment that has been made in the past few years to try to double our presence around the world, or to increase it in many embassies. However, we have to know our opponent when we are dealing with Iran. It is full of a separation of powers and full of personalities, because that is how the politics is decided there. The right hon. Member for Blackburn knew that when he tried that communication.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentions differences within Iran, and there are huge differences of opinion with Ahmadinejad; hundreds were killed after he was elected, five people were hanged last night in Tehran and the middle classes are against him. We may well find in the next few months or years that he cannot stay in power and is replaced. Let us just hope that that happens and sense comes from the people of Iran, because I am not sure that we can do very much from the outside.

Prevention of Nuclear Proliferation

Debate between Ben Wallace and Bob Stewart

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Absolutely. They do so less and less each day, and that is one of the major regrets for someone such as me who believes that Iran has a great future and that the west often looks to the wrong allies in the middle east in the long term. I disagree, however, with the position on the Mujahedin-e Khalq. I believe that if one of the few things the Iranians and the Americans both agree on is that the MEK should be a proscribed terrorist organisation, we should perhaps maintain that.

I have some specific questions for the Minister about the sanctions. Why did he choose to include the Central Bank of Iran? A number of cases have been brought to my attention, including one from a company in Cambridge that has gone through five regimes of British export licences, and has European as well as Treasury approval to sell engineering goods to Iran. It is owed £12 million for goods already delivered and the sanctions—either those effectively extraterritorially imposed by the United States or our own—have prevented it from getting its money. I suspect—in fact, I know—that that threatens its very viability. When I went to visit Treasury officials, the answer to the problem was that they did not really get engaged in commercial-to-commercial decisions. I am afraid that the Treasury’s decisions have caused the problem, and in the past, companies—including American companies—have used a corridor from central bank to central bank to clear certain moneys. Not so long ago, JP Morgan in New York received money from Iranians that was owed to an American/UK contractor. If they can do it, so can we.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The only question I would ask is: would not the Iranians consider it to be part of the irritation factor not to use such a channel, if there was one? They could stop that payment, which is owed to one of our companies, just to irritate us further, even if there was such an avenue.

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend would have a point if it was not for the fact that at the moment, the Iranians need our goods more than we need theirs. I meet plenty of day-to-day Iranians in business and everything else—not in my business, as I do not have any such interests—who try to do the right thing and live by the rule of law.

Secondly, I ask the Minister what our European colleagues are doing. Historically, Germany and Italy are some of the biggest traders with Iran, and my worry is that the strength of the E3 plus 3 was unity. That was its strength: we brought together the three European powers of Britain, Germany and France along with China, Russia and America. For every round of sanctions that has come before this House or the international community, there have been fewer and fewer signatories to it. As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) pointed out, as we get fewer and fewer signatories we are at risk of undermining the message that says that we all agree that Iran should not be progressing along such a path.

My worry is that the Iranians are super-sensitive to such differences. They are one of the greatest trading nations in history, of course, and my word, are they canny! When I was there, there was no shortage of some of the things that were subject to sanctions. They used to use the Bahrainis as one of the greatest routes for money, goods, new cars and so on. Without Germany and without Italy, there is a real danger that we could be left high and dry.