Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to make a statement on the case of British-Iranian national Ms Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

I should like to make a statement on the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, in response to the right hon. Lady.

The whole House will join me in expressing our deep concern about the ordeal of this young mother, who has spent the last 19 months in jail in Iran. Every hon. Member will join the Government in urging the Iranian authorities to release her on humanitarian grounds.

I spoke by phone to her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, yesterday, and we agreed to meet later this week. I told Mr Ratcliffe that the whole country is behind him and we all want to see his wife home safely.

In view of the understandable concern, I propose to describe the background to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case and the efforts the Government are making to secure her release. In April last year, she was visiting her relations in Iran, along with her daughter, Gabriella, who was then only 22 months old, when she was arrested at Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran while trying to board her flight back to the UK. The British Government have no doubt that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran on holiday and that that was the sole purpose of her visit. As I said in the House last week, my remarks on the subject before the Foreign Affairs Committee could and should have been clearer. I acknowledge that words I used were open to being misinterpreted, and I apologise to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family if I have inadvertently caused them any further anguish.

The House should bear in mind that Iran’s regime, and no one else, has chosen to separate this mother from her infant daughter for reasons that even it finds difficult to explain or describe. On 9 September 2016, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was brought to a secret trial and sentenced to five years in prison, supposedly for plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic. The House will note that so far as we can tell, no further charges have been brought against her and no further sentence has been imposed since that occasion over a year ago.

Eleven days after Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister raised her case with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran in New York on 20 September 2016. Two days later, I raised her case with my Iranian counterpart, Mr Zarif. For the sake of completeness, the House should know that the previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, raised Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s imprisonment with President Rouhani on 9 August 2016, and my predecessor as Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), wrote to the Iranian Foreign Minister about her plight, and other consular cases, on 29 August 2016. [Official Report, 14 November 2017, Vol. 631, c. 1MC.]

At every meeting with our Iranian counterparts, my colleagues and I have taken every opportunity to raise the cases of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other nationals held in Iranian jails. We have expressed our concerns at every level—official, ministerial, and prime ministerial—on every possible occasion during the 19 months that she has been in jail. In addition, Mr Ratcliffe has held regular meetings with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), formerly the Minister for the Middle East, and with the current Minister for the Middle East, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt).

A situation where a British mother is held in these circumstances is bound to cast a shadow over Britain’s relations with Iran at a moment when, in the aftermath of the agreement of the nuclear deal in July 2015 and the easing of sanctions, we had all hoped to witness a genuine improvement. So I shall travel to Iran myself later this year to review the full state of our bilateral relations and to drive home the strength of feeling in this House, and in the country at large, about the plight of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and other consular cases. In order to maximise the chances of achieving progress, I would venture to say that hon. Members should place the focus of responsibility on those who are keeping Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe behind bars and who have the power to release her whenever they so choose. We should be united in our demand that the humanitarian reasons for releasing her are so overwhelming that if Iran cares about its reputation in this country, then its leaders will do now what is manifestly right. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Speaker]

Just for the avoidance of doubt, the Foreign Secretary has responded to an urgent question in the course of which he has very properly made remarks, but it is important, as others in the House can testify from past experience, to distinguish between a response to an urgent question, on the one hand, and the proffering by Government of a statement, on the other.

[Emily Thornberry]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. How unfortunate it is that we need to ask an urgent question as opposed to getting a statement.

Let me say at the outset that whatever strong feelings we have about Iran’s actions in this case, I am sure we are all joined in sending our thoughts to those affected by yesterday’s earthquake on the Iran-Iraq border. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for returning from Brussels to answer this urgent question. Perhaps he reflected that the last time a Minister of State was asked to answer an urgent question on behalf of a Cabinet Minister, the Cabinet Minister lasted only 24 hours.

I hope that we can make more progress today than we were able to make on the same issue last week. Let us start by clarifying the points on which there is absolutely no difference between us. First and foremost, we all want Nazanin to be brought home as soon as possible. No one who has listened over recent days to the heartbreaking testimony of Richard Ratcliffe can be in any doubt about how urgent it is, for Nazanin’s mental and physical health, that she is returned to her family immediately.

Secondly, if that can be done, as has been suggested, by conferring diplomatic status on Nazanin, that would obviously be welcome, although I would be grateful if the Foreign Secretary clarified how that could be achieved—how we can free this innocent British mother without opening up a Grace Mugabe precedent, which might make it possible to use the same tactic in Britain to help a guilty foreign national to escape justice? Thirdly, we can all agree that the responsibility for Nazanin’s incarceration and mistreatment lies entirely with the Iranian authorities, and we all unite in urging for her freedom to be restored.

On those points, we are in full agreement, but let me turn to two key issues on which we have so far differed and, frankly, we continue to differ. First, the Foreign Secretary argued last week that his comments to the Select Committee did not have “any connection whatever” with the latest threats by the Iranian authorities to extend Nazanin’s sentence, and that it was simply untrue to suggest otherwise. That is entirely contradicted by what was said by the Iranian courts last weekend, and by what was said on the Iranian judiciary’s website and on Iranian state TV. All of them said explicitly that the Foreign Secretary’s remarks were the basis of their renewed action against Nazanin. We know from the evidence of Richard Ratcliffe that when Nazanin was told of the remarks and saw how the Iranian authorities would exploit them, she became hugely distressed and upset. So will the Foreign Secretary today accept the impact that his words have had and the distress that has been caused to Nazanin, and apologise properly for that—apologise not for upsetting people, but for getting it wrong?

Secondly, last week the Foreign Secretary was asked several times to do one very simple thing, and that was simply to admit that he had made a mistake—not that his remarks had been taken out of context or misconstrued, but that they were simply wrong. He has, so far, refused to make that clear, and that refusal was compounded yesterday by his good friend the Environment Secretary. Even after all the debate on this issue, the Environment Secretary still, incredibly, claimed that we “don’t know” why Nazanin is in Iran. We do.

It is not good enough. If it is a matter of pride that the Foreign Secretary is refusing to admit that he made a mistake, I feel bound to say to him that his pride matters not one ounce compared to Nazanin’s freedom. After a week of obfuscation and bluster, will he finally take the opportunity today to state simply and unequivocally, for the removal of any doubt either here or in Tehran, that he simply got it wrong?

[Boris Johnson]

I am more than happy to say again what I said to the right hon. Lady last week: yes, of course, I apologise for the distress and the suffering that have been caused by the impression that I gave that the Government believed—that I believed—that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran in a professional capacity. She was there on holiday, and that is the view of—[Hon. Members: “Say sorry!”] I do apologise, and of course I retract any suggestion that she was there in a professional capacity. Opposition Members must have heard that from me about a dozen times.

The right hon. Lady asked an important question about diplomatic protection and how that would work. She is absolutely right that that is a question that Richard Ratcliffe himself has raised with me. All I can say is that I will be answering Mr Ratcliffe. I cannot give her an answer today; I would rather answer Mr Ratcliffe in person. I am delighted to say that I am seeing him tomorrow, and I will be explaining the position on diplomatic protection. As I said last week, he has requested to come to Tehran. I do not know whether that will be possible, but we will see what we can do.

Counter-Daesh Update

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. I will come to his remarks regarding Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in a moment, but let me first address the formal purpose of this statement: the Government’s quarterly update on the fight against Daesh. We are all agreed in this House that Daesh is nothing but an evil death cult and that it must be wiped off the face of the earth. We therefore warmly welcome the recent, hard-fought successes against it in both Syria and Iraq, with its vision of a caliphate stretching across both countries now lying in absolute ruins. But while that specific danger evaporates before our eyes, we know all too well that the wider threat that Daesh poses remains, as it ceases to operate as a conventional military force, seeking to occupy territory and towns, and retreats to the role of a well-armed, well-trained and fanatical network of terrorist cells that seeks to indoctrinate others, and to inflict indiscriminate, mass casualties in Iraq, Syria and far, far beyond. We therefore must not let our guard down. The fight against Daesh has not been won; it is simply switching to a new phase.

I therefore have a number of questions that I hope the Foreign Secretary will address. First, will he correct his junior colleague, the Minister for Africa, who said recently that the only way to deal with British citizens who have gone to fight for Daesh is

“in almost every case, to kill them”?

That, of course, sends a very unfortunate signal to groups in Syria and beyond who are currently holding in detention British citizens captured on the battlefield. Will the Foreign Secretary make it clear today that it remains the Government’s policy that those individuals should be returned to this country to face trial for their crimes, rather than simply being executed by their captors? He might also advise the Minister for Africa that in positions of responsibility in the Foreign Office, you have to engage your brain and think about the consequences of your words before opening your mouth.

Secondly, the Foreign Secretary will have noted last week the first US drone strikes targeting Daesh, rather than al-Shabaab, inside Somalia. Will he guarantee the House that if the UK is asked to participate in the opening of that new front against Daesh, authorising such action will be the subject of a proper parliamentary debate and vote?

Thirdly, as Daesh increasingly ceases to be a military player in the Syrian civil war, will the Foreign Secretary tell us the Government’s current strategy in Syria? What are we now seeking to achieve, in both a military and diplomatic sense, from our engagement there? Specifically, will he tell us whether the Government intend to continue channelling funds to Syrian opposition groups? Will he give us a cast-iron guarantee that none of the £200 million that has already been channelled to those groups over the past three years has ended up in the hands of the al-Nusra Front or other jihadist groups?

Finally, as attention turns to Daesh’s last remaining stronghold, in Bukamal, the Foreign Secretary will be aware of the risks as Russian and Iranian-backed forces approach the town from one side, and the Syrian democratic forces approach it from the other. Will he tell the House what steps Britain is taking to ensure the battle to liberate Bukamal from Daesh, both from the air and on the ground, does not inadvertently lead to clashes between the two liberating armies?

Turning now to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, we appreciate the Foreign Secretary’s clarification, we welcome the phone call he made this morning to his Iranian counterpart and we all hope that no lasting damage is done to Nazanin as a result of his blunder. However, I hope that he will now take the opportunity to apologise to this woman’s family, to her friends, to her employers, to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), and to all those others in this House and beyond who have been working so hard to obtain this young mother’s release, for the distress and anguish that his foolish words have caused to them and to this woman in recent days. We are all bound to ask: how many more times does this need to happen? How many more times does the Foreign Secretary have to insult our international partners and damage our diplomatic relations, and now imperil the interests of British nationals abroad? What will it take before the Prime Minister says, “Enough is enough”? If the truth is that she cannot, because she does not have the strength or authority to sack him, how about the Foreign Secretary himself shows a bit of personal responsibility and admits that a job like this, where your words hold gravity and your actions have consequences, is simply not the job for him?

Catalonia

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Obviously, there were scenes on television of some acts of violence, and they are not the sort of things we want to see, but the fundamental point is whether this declaration of independence or the referendum were legal, and they were not.

On the comparison between Scotland and Catalonia, no two situations are alike, and each needs to be considered in its own legal and constitutional context. What is clear is that, in this case, the vote and subsequent actions in the Catalan Parliament were neither legal nor constitutional.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this urgent question. I also thank the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for securing it. I was interested to hear his contribution, and I agree with some of the things he said.

We are currently in a very dangerous position, where the future of Catalonia has been turned into a binary choice—a false choice, an impossible choice—between, on the one hand, a unilateral declaration of independence and, on the other, direct rule from Madrid. I do not believe that either choice offers a satisfactory solution to this crisis or that either choice is what the majority of Catalans or Spaniards actually want. I believe that the majority want to see peaceful, sensible dialogue between the parties to try and find a resolution. That is what the socialist party of Catalonia and the socialist party of Spain support, and we support our sister parties in that endeavour.

But what we are currently seeing from the Government of Spain and the Government of Catalonia is as far from peaceful and sensible dialogue as it is possible to get. From Madrid, we see the use of officially sanctioned violence and intimidation by the police and scenes that are horrific to watch. That has been followed over the last month by equally heavy-handed political tactics. From Barcelona, we see a unilateral declaration of independence based on a referendum that had no constitutional basis in Spanish law and in which around 30% of Catalan residents were not permitted to take part and a further 40% chose not to take part.

Neither of those approaches offers a sustainable way forward and neither is a fair or democratic way to proceed; my fear is that the longer we are stuck with this false, binary choice, the deeper and more entrenched the divisions will become and the harder it will be to negotiate a peaceful solution. So, as a matter of urgency, we call on both sides to take a step back, to ease the confrontational rhetoric and heavy-handed tactics, and to start listening to what the majority of people in Spain and Catalonia actually want, which is peace, dialogue and an end to division.

What are the UK Government doing to promote that, or does Brexit suck so much life from our ability to have any influence in Europe that the honest answer is, “Not a lot”?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I agree with the second part, at least, of the right hon. Lady’s response—

[Emily Thornberry]

Not a lot.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As usual, not a lot. I agree that these things were illegal and against the rule of law. However, I disagree with how the right hon. Lady portrays this choice. This is not a binary choice in the way she describes; it is a binary choice between upholding the rule of law or not.

Balfour Declaration

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. As we approach the centenary of the Balfour declaration, Labour Members are glad to join him in commemorating that historic anniversary and expressing once again our continued support for the state of Israel.

In 1918, Labour’s first Cabinet Minister, Arthur Henderson, said:

“The British Labour Party believes that the responsibility of the British people in Palestine should be fulfilled to the utmost of their power…to ensure the economic prosperity, political autonomy and spiritual freedom of both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine.”

The Labour party has adopted that position, not least in recognition of the egalitarian goals that inspired the early pioneers of the Israeli state. We think, in particular, of the kibbutz movement—a group of people dedicated to establishing a more egalitarian society free from the prejudice and persecution that they had experienced in their home countries. Even today, despite the challenges that I will address in respect of its relationship with the Palestinian people, modern Israel still stands out for its commitment to egalitarianism—in particular, its commitment to women and LGBT communities in a region where these groups are far too often subject to fierce discrimination.

Today, it is right to think about the successes of Israel, but we must also be aware that 100 years on, the promise in the Balfour letter cited by the Foreign Secretary—that

“nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”—

remains unfulfilled, and we have more to do. I urge the Foreign Secretary to take the opportunity of the centenary to reflect once again on Britain’s role in the region, as his predecessor did 100 years ago, and ask whether we could do more to bring about lasting peace and stability in the middle east. Can we do more to ensure that the political rights, as well as the civil and religious rights, of Palestinian people are protected, just as Mr Balfour intended all those years ago?

On that point, as the Foreign Secretary well knows, I believe that there is no better or more symbolic way of marking the Balfour centenary than for the UK officially to recognise the state of Palestine. We have just heard the Foreign Secretary talk in explicit terms about the benefits for both Israel and Palestine that the birth of Palestinian statehood would bring. Surely we can play more of a part in delivering that by formally recognising the Palestinian state.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that in 2011, one of his other predecessors, William Hague, said:

“We reserve the right to recognise a Palestinian state…at a moment of our choosing and when it can best help to bring about peace.”—[Official Report, 9 November 2011; Vol. 535, c. 290.]

Almost six years have passed since that statement—six years in which the humanitarian situation in the occupied territories has become ever more desperate, six years in which the cycle of violence has continued unabated and the people of Israel remain at daily risk from random acts of terror, six years in which the pace of settlement building and the displacement of Palestinian people have increased, and six years in which moves towards a lasting peace have ground to a halt.

Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House today whether the Government still plan to recognise the state of Palestine and, if not now, when? Conversely, if they no longer have such plans, can the Foreign Secretary tell us why things have changed? He will remember that on 13 October 2014, the House stated that the Palestinian state should be recognised. The anniversary of the Balfour declaration is a reminder that when the British Government lay out their policies on the middle east in black and white, those words matter and can make a difference. With the empty vessel that is the American President making lots of noise but being utterly directionless, the need for Britain to show leadership on this issue is ever more pressing.

Will the Foreign Secretary make a start today on the issue of Palestinian statehood? As we rightly reflect on the last 100 years, we have a shared duty to look towards the future and towards the next generation of young people growing up in Israel and Palestine today. That generation knows nothing but division and violence, and those young people have been badly let down by the actions, and the inaction, of their own leaders. Will young Israelis grow up in a world in which air raids, car rammings and random stabbings become a commonplace fact of life? Will they grow up in a country in which military service remains not just compulsory but necessary, because they are surrounded by hostile neighbours who deny their very right to exist? Will young Palestinians grow up in a world in which youth unemployment remains at 58%, reliant on humanitarian aid and unable to shape their own futures? Will they inherit a map on which the ever-expanding settlements and the destruction of their own houses make it harder and harder to envisage what a viable independent Palestine would even look like?

I do not know whether the Foreign Secretary agrees with the Prime Minister about whether it is worth answering hypothetical questions, but as we mark the centenary of the vital step taken by a former British Foreign Secretary in recognition of Israeli statehood, I ask this Foreign Secretary how he believes he will be remembered in 100 years’ time. Will the Government in which he serves be remembered for recognising the statehood of the Palestinian people and taking a similarly vital step towards correcting an historic wrong? I can assure him that if the Government are not prepared to take that step, the next Labour Government will be.

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for the spirit in which she addressed the questions. She asks, if I may say so, the right questions about the way ahead. The UK is substantially committed to the support of the Palestinian Authority and to building up the institutions in Palestine. British taxpayers’ cash helps about 25,000 kids to go to school, we help with about 125,000 medical cases every year and the Department for International Development gives, as she knows very well, substantial sums to support the Palestinian Authority with a view to strengthening those institutions.

When it comes to recognising that state, we judge, in common with our French friends and the vast majority of our European friends and partners, that the moment is not yet right to play that card. That on its own will not end the occupation or bring peace. After all, it is not something we can do more than once: that card having been played, that will be it. We judge that it is better to give every possible encouragement to both sides to seize the moment and, if I may say so, I think the right hon. Lady is quite hard, perhaps characteristically, on the current Administration in Washington, which is perhaps her job—

[Emily Thornberry]

It ought to be your job, too.

[Boris Johnson]

Indeed, and I am hard where it is necessary, but there is a job to be done. At the moment, as I think the right hon. Lady would accept, there is a conjuncture in the stars that is uncommonly propitious. I will not put it higher than that, but there is a chance that we could make progress on this very vexed dossier. We need the Americans to work with us to do that and we need them to be in the lead because, as she will understand, of the facts as they are in the middle east.

We need the Palestinian Authority, with a clear mandate, to sit down and negotiate with the Israelis and do the deal that is there to be done, and which everybody understands. We all know the shape of the future map and we all know how it could be done. What is needed now is political will, and I can assure the right hon. Lady and the House that the UK will be absolutely determined to encourage both sides to do such a deal.

Raqqa and Daesh

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

My right hon. Friend is correct to point to the immediate misery of the aftermath for those who have been caught up in the conflict. The world now recognises that it has a responsibility to work with those on the ground to rebuild areas of conflict, because that is the best way to prevent conflict from happening again. We expect a political reconciliation, so that there are no sectarian difficulties in either Iraq or Syria as they return to conventional governance.

On the physical reconstruction, the Syrian Democratic Forces have been at pains to minimise the damage to the city’s infrastructure as they advance, but, in an urban battle such as this, it is impossible to advance against an enemy such as Daesh without causing any damage at all. It must be remembered that Daesh’s tactics do not adhere to the conventions of warfare. It booby-traps buildings and has taken many other desperate measures to protect its vile interests, including using schools and hospitals as tactical headquarters, denying those facilities to the innocent civilian population.

A stabilisation programme will be put forward under the auspices of the UN reconstruction effort, which will come after political decisions are made to ensure the reconstruction follows political commitments made by those involved in the governance of Syria. I do not know about a donor conference yet, but I will take that idea back to the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. I wholeheartedly agree with his sentiments. For once, we are in union that the victory against Daesh in Raqqa is a vital blow against an evil death cult, and it makes a mockery of Daesh’s pretensions to establish a caliphate in Syria or elsewhere. It shows them to be the weaklings and cowards they are.

This is a timely reminder of the battle we and our allies fought on this very day 75 years ago, the second battle of El Alamein—the battle that destroyed the Nazis’ ambition to control Egypt. As we recall Churchill’s words after that hard-fought victory, perhaps we can turn them around: this is not the end of the beginning for Daesh, it is the beginning of their end. We should be grateful for that.

I hope the Minister can address my questions in his response. If he is unable to do so and we rely on the Foreign Secretary to make a fuller statement, will he ensure the Foreign Secretary is able to answer my questions? I will not repeat the question on the Government’s response to the humanitarian crisis, but this is my second question: now that Daesh is in disarray in Syria, what is Britain’s ongoing military mission in Syria? In short, what is our strategy for the future of Syria, and what is the military’s role in that strategy? In particular, what steps will the Government now take to help rebuild some form of sustainable governance in Raqqa? What role, if any, will the armed groups that helped to liberate the city from Daesh play in its future administration? And how will the Syrian, Kurdish and Arab opposition forces, which played such a pivotal role in the campaign to retake Raqqa, be represented as part of a genuinely viable peace process for Syria as a whole? If there is one thing on which we can all agree, surely it is that the very last thing the middle east needs right now is another vacuum.

Finally, as the Minister will know, his Department recently confirmed that it has channelled £200 million since 2015 to support the so-called moderate opposition in Syria. Can he give the House a guarantee today that none of that money has ended up in the hands of al-Nusra or other jihadi groups? It would be a tragedy if, while rightly celebrating the destruction of Daesh in Raqqa, British taxpayers’ money is funnelled into organisations that are just as bad.

[Alistair Burt]

I warmly welcome the right hon. Lady’s remarks, which are highly appropriate and much appreciated. The whole House has engaged collectively on this subject, and it is appreciated by all that she speaks as she does. The House is demonstrating that there is nothing between us on presenting a united front against Daesh and its ideology.

I am pleased that the right hon. Lady mentions El Alamein, partly because I was there on Saturday. As a much-travelled Minister, I had the opportunity to represent Her Majesty’s Government in laying the wreath on behalf of the United Kingdom to commemorate the 75th anniversary of that extraordinary battle, which over a period of days turned the tide in north Africa and in the war. I was proud to stand alongside representatives of the Commonwealth and people from the United Kingdom who fought with the Desert Rats, as well as representatives of the German and Italian Governments, to recognise that, 75 years later, Europe has achieved much by coming together. In doing so, we demonstrated tolerance and forgiveness, which are sometimes rather lacking in other parts of the middle east, where memories are long and dates are often remembered for the wrong reasons. I was proud to represent the United Kingdom, along with representatives of the military, our ambassador and Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, who represented the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of which he is vice-chairman.

Returning to the right hon. Lady’s questions, we recognise the need for ongoing humanitarian relief, about which we have more information if she wishes. As far as the military are concerned, we do not know what will come next. The military will remain engaged as long as there is a need for them to be there. As I have indicated, the strategy further to close off the avenues for Daesh in the Euphrates valley will be supported by United Kingdom personnel until there is no possibility that military action could recommence and no possibility that coalition forces could be put under pressure.

As the right hon. Lady rightly says, the coalition is clearly essential. The coalition comprises a large number of people from the Kurdish region of Syria and Iraq and from other areas. Discussions are ongoing about how the coalition will stay together, but it is premature to say anything about a disbandment. The coalition has to be kept in place until there is no further military threat, and that will be advised either by my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary or my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in due course.

On support going in the wrong direction, there has been a continual concern since 2011 that, in trying to provide support for legitimate opposition forces in such difficult circumstances, arms and money get traded. There has been an absolute determination to try to ensure that supplies going to support opposition forces do not go in the wrong direction. As far as possible, that is still the case. I cannot say with absolute certainty that not a single pound or element of aid has gone in the wrong direction—there are difficulties on the ground, where forces must co-operate to overcome Daesh—but the Government are absolutely determined to ensure that, as far as possible, the risk is minimised. I assure the right hon. Lady that that is the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

At our last session of questions, the Foreign Secretary agreed with the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) that if the EU demanded a single penny in the Brexit divorce bill, then they could “go whistle”. A month later, the Foreign Secretary said—[Interruption.] I appreciate that accountability is difficult for the right hon. Gentleman, but he ought to listen. He said:

“We are law-abiding, bill-paying people”

who will

“meet our legal obligations as we understand them”,

so can he clear up this issue today? Does he accept that there will be a divorce bill or not, and if so, how much should the bill be?

[Boris Johnson]

I must very humbly and apologetically correct the right hon. Lady, because she is not faithfully representing what I said. [Hon. Members: “She is.”] She is not. What I said in answer to an hon. Friend on these Benches was that some of the sums I had heard spoken of were, in my view, or in the view of my hon. Friends, eye-watering and far too high. The figure I heard was €100 billion. Would Labour Members cough up €100 billion? Would you, or you, or you? I think they would, the supine, protoplasmic, invertebrate jellies. I think that is the sort of money they would readily fork out. I think it is too much.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the Hansard reporters caught the full flavour of that. We will inspect the Official Report tomorrow.

[Emily Thornberry]

I do not think that has really cleared up a great deal, but let me try another question.

Again at our last session, the Foreign Secretary told this House—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I cannot believe that the Foreign Secretary conducted himself in that way when he was a schoolboy. Or perhaps he did, which might explain some matters.

[Emily Thornberry]

Let me just quote again from the last session of Foreign Office questions, when the Foreign Secretary told the House:

“There is no plan for no deal”.—[Official Report, 11 July 2017; Vol. 627, c. 141.]

Five days ago, he said that

“we must make the right preparations…for a no-deal scenario.”

We know that the Cabinet cannot stop fighting about the Brexit that they want, but it would be a start if our flip-flopping Foreign Secretary could stop fighting with himself.

[Boris Johnson]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry]

I have not asked the question yet, Boris. Which is it: the Telegraph article or the Florence speech—the lion roars or the lion wants to stop this malarkey? Apart from his own fading ambitions, what exactly does the Foreign Secretary believe in?

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Lady should not refer to the Foreign Secretary by his first name. It is rather vulgar.

[Emily Thornberry]

I do apologise, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Not the name, but merely the mention of it. It is unseemly and insufficiently reverential.

Iran

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the future of the joint comprehensive plan of action with Iran.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. The Government take note of President Trump’s decision not to recertify the joint comprehensive plan of action and are concerned by the implications. The Government are strongly committed to the deal. The JCPOA contributes to the United Kingdom’s wider non-proliferation objectives. The International Atomic Energy Agency continues to report Iran’s compliance with its nuclear commitments. We share serious concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its destabilising activity in the region.

[Emily Thornberry]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. While I am, as always, grateful for the Minister’s presence and his opening remarks, I must say that it is a matter of deep regret that the Foreign Secretary did not consider this worthy of his attention today. For a man who so desperately wants to run the country, he shows surprisingly little interest in running his own Department.

The nuclear deal with Iran stands out as one of the most successful diplomatic achievements of the last decade, and let us be clear: the deal is working. What could today have been another North Korea-type crisis in the heart of the middle east has instead been one problem that the region does not have to worry about. For Donald Trump to jeopardise that deal—for him to move the goalposts by linking it to important but utterly extraneous issues around Iran’s wider activities in the region; for him to play these games—is reckless, mindless and downright dangerous. It makes a reality of Hillary Clinton’s prophecy that putting Donald Trump in the White House will create a real and present danger to world peace.

Let us make it clear that when Donald Trump talks about the deal needing to be fixed, that is utterly disingenuous, when the only evidence that it is in any way broken is a figment of his fevered brain. Yet sadly this behaviour is what we have come to expect of this President. Some of us in the House have been sounding these warnings from day one of his presidency, whether over climate change, human rights or the Iran nuclear deal. When we raised those fears in the House, what did the Foreign Secretary say? He said that I was being “too pessimistic”. He told us that his strategy of hugging the President close—inviting him to meet the Queen, holding his hand when needs be—was the way to wield influence. Specifically on the Iran deal, the Foreign Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box seven months ago and said that I had simply got it wrong on the Iran deal. He said:

“We were told that the…plan of action on Iran, was going to be junked”,

but

“it is now pretty clear that America supports it.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2017; Vol. 624, c. 116.]

Well, one of us got it wrong. One of us was being naive and complacent, and one of us is seven months too late in waking up to this issue.

It really is high time that we had a Government capable of standing up to Donald Trump, not just meekly following his lead. Perhaps in his response the Minister can make a start by making clear two specific differences between this country’s policies and Donald Trump’s. Will he make it clear today that the Government will reject any attempt to make the deal subject to new conditions that have nothing to do with Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons? Will he also make it clear that we reject an approach whereby international agreements can be made by one President and torn up by the next for purely political reasons? It puts us in the invidious position that we will never ever feel secure doing a deal with America again. Will he share that concern today and reassure our allies that this is one Trump lead that the British Government will never follow?

[Alistair Burt]

I am answering a question about the future of the joint comprehensive plan of action with Iran, and I think I will focus more on Iran and the British Government’s position than anything else, because that is what I am required to do.

I thank the right hon. Lady in the first place for making it clear that she agrees with the Government’s assessment of the importance of the joint comprehensive plan of action and our belief that the deal is working. I can tell the House that this was a hard-won deal. It went through many years of negotiation. It was not designed as an all-embracing deal to cover everything that concerned the west and Iran, and both Iran and those who have signed the deal have made that clear. There are a number of issues on all sides, certainly involving ballistic missiles and also Iran’s activities in the region. As Foreign Minister Zarif made clear, however, at a meeting of the UN at which the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was present—as was I, representing the Government, and other signatories—if the deal is to be renegotiated, there is an awful lot on both sides to be renegotiated that was never contemplated by any party when we signed the deal. The deal was designed to do a specific job, which was to curtail Iran’s nuclear programme and its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and so far it has done just that. That is why the UK strongly supports it.

Clearly we disagree with President Trump’s assessment. We do not fail to understand the United States’ concerns about Iran’s activities in the region, and we have made that clear, but we also believe that those matters need to be dealt with outside the agreement, which is why the agreement is so important. To have gone through all that and got something that works, in a world where it is quite difficult to get agreements that work, and then to put it to one side would not help the wider situation. We will continue to work our counsel with the United States and other parties to the agreement, and we will continue to work with the Iranian Government on matters of mutual interest, including those things about which we have concerns, to see if we can use the agreement as a possible springboard to future confidence, knowing that these things do not come quickly, but knowing also that signatures on deals matter. That is what the UK will adhere to.

Hurricane Irma: Government Response

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Let me thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I join him in commending the British personnel who are playing such a typically superlative part in leading the relief effort. I also join him in sending my thoughts and those of everyone in the House to those individuals in the British overseas territories and beyond who have lost their lives as a result of the hurricane, and to the tens of thousands more who have lost their homes and livelihoods in its terrible wake.

The unprecedented nature of the devastation makes it all the more important for us to ensure that the Governments and British citizens of the overseas territories, British expats living on the affected islands and British tourists visiting the region receive all the help they need as urgently as they can get it to cope with the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and to begin the long and arduous process of recovery.

I appreciate the efforts spelt out by the Minister today and last Thursday, and I know how hard he and his civil servants have been working over the past week, but he will equally appreciate the widespread criticism that the Government’s response has been both too little and too late. That criticism has come not just from the Opposition or from the respective Chairs of the Select Committee on International Development and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, but from the very groups I mentioned earlier: the Governments and British citizens of the overseas territories, British expats and British tourists. Theirs is the experience and criticism that really counts. So let us consider what they have been saying and the questions they have been asking, which the Minister will perhaps address today.

First, on the issue of evacuation, I thank the Minister for what he said, but it is alarming to many of us on both sides of the House that almost a week has gone by and he is still talking about the potential evacuation of British citizens, and, even then, only the most vulnerable. By contrast, across the islands, we hear the same accounts that the French, Dutch and American Governments have swiftly evacuated their citizens. It is the British who are left stuck, with the only commercial plane services available charging extortionate rates to get them out. A young British woman on the British Virgin Islands, holidaying with her mum and her two-year-old son, says:

“The UK should be doing more. People need evacuating. It’s becoming dangerous with supplies running low. I’ve looked at getting out but pilots want £2,250.”

That is clearly unacceptable, and it proves the point that, with the security situation deteriorating in many of the affected islands, all British citizens should be considered vulnerable. So can the Minister clarify for the House when all British citizens who want to be evacuated can expect to be evacuated, and what the Government are doing in the meantime to guarantee their safety, their shelter and their security?

On the wider issue of safety and security, the Minister will be aware of the concerns on islands such as Tortola that, as desperation and shortages grow, law and order is completely breaking down. In the absence of a clean-up operation, the threats of disease and water-borne infections are also growing. One resident has said:

“There is debris all over the island… people are running around like headless chickens… there has to be some…coordination.”

So what are the Government doing as part of their emergency support for the overseas territories to help their Governments re-establish some basic command and control, to maintain law and order where it is threatening to break down, and to put in place emergency plans to stop the causes of preventable, water-borne diseases before those diseases begin to spread?

Thirdly and finally, as we talk about the need to help the Governments of the overseas territories, and we hear the reassurances from the Minister and his colleagues that they are in it for the long term, we have to ask what that means. It cannot mean simply cleaning up the damage that has been done, giving people new homes and new livelihoods, and hoping that this will last for a few years until the next hurricane strikes. That is not fixing things for the long term; it is just patching things up until next time. With climate change making such hurricanes more intense and more frequent and showing no signs of slowing down, we urgently need a long-term plan for the overseas territories—a plan that is built around resilience and sustainability. So can the Minister confirm that when the Government sit down with their counterparts in the affected islands, the question of coping with climate change and future extreme weather events will be at the top of the agenda, with financial commitments to match, and will not, as usually happens, be the afterthought that always proves too difficult and too expensive?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. I am glad that, in her opening remarks, she recognised the magnitude of the hurricane—the largest natural disaster of this nature I think we have seen in any of our lifetimes. I am sorry, though, about the criticism she is levelling. Having seen this in the very centre and having watched it, and knowing, as a former DFID Minister, what is possible and what is done by the Government, I am afraid I comprehensively reject her criticisms, which I think are unjustified. It is inevitable that people in distress will want more, but it is essential to appreciate that when half a million people are hit by a hurricane, we cannot evacuate half a million people. What we have to do, particularly for those who wish to reside in the countries in which they permanently live, is to bring them help and, of course, the reconstruction the right hon. Lady mentioned. For instance, on St Martin, which is not one of our overseas territories—it is both Dutch and French—we are working closely with the Dutch and French. As I said in my statement, we hope that people will be evacuated even today.

It is quite right that people are prioritised according to need, and that is exactly what our call centre has done with the over 2,000 calls it has had, which have been logged and prioritised, and people have then, through all the logistical work I described in the statement, been evacuated and helped as required.

Let me say something about security, because that is a perfectly valid point that the right hon. Lady has raised. We had a serious threat of the complete breakdown of law and order in the British Virgin Islands. The prison was breached, and over 100 very serious prisoners escaped. What we then had to contend with—this is what Ministers, the MOD and everyone else are for—was how to cope with the threat that followed from that. So on Friday we put some Marines off RFA Mounts Bay to protect the governor and maintain law and order. I am pleased to say that 48 hours later we have been able significantly to reinforce the Marines. We have maintained and kept law and order on the British Virgin Islands, which at one point could have dramatically threatened the already unfortunate plight of those who have been hit by the hurricane. I hope that the right hon. Lady recognises what the governor there has done, what the Marines did, and what we all did to make sure that law and order was preserved.

On the long term, the right hon. Lady is right. DFID looks at the long term in all its programmes, quite rightly. In the face of growing severe weather incidents, it is important to build resilience and proper defences into the infrastructure wherever possible, but the infrastructure in a lot of these overseas territories is very flimsy, very small and very vulnerable. Perhaps the silver lining in the cloud is that where so much has been swept away, when things are rebuilt they will be better able to withstand the ferocity of the sort of hurricane that we have seen over the past week.

Korean Peninsula

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Before I respond to the Foreign Secretary, I am sure the whole House will join me in sending our thoughts to the families of all those killed over the summer in the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and across the world, including seven-year-old Julian Cadman. Given the subject we are discussing, it does us all well to remember that some 8 million children like Julian, under the age of 10, live on the Korean peninsula today.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement, and I join him in unreservedly condemning North Korea for the flagrant breaches of international law that have brought us to this sorry pass. I have three questions prompted by his statement. First, although he mentioned the new sanctions regime agreed on 5 August, he will know that we are still in the early stages of enforcing the last set of sanctions agreed last November. Indeed, only 80 countries have so far submitted implementation reports on the new sanctions regime, so how does he propose to ensure that these new sanctions are implemented quickly and effectively and given time to work?

Secondly, on the strategy outlined by the Foreign Secretary, he will have seen the article today by his predecessor, William Hague, considering whether the strategic goal will eventually shift from preventing North Korea achieving nuclear capability to accepting that that capability exists and seeking, in some form, to contain it. Does the Foreign Secretary agree with his predecessor? Has the Foreign Office planned for that scenario?

Thirdly, given the threat to Japan and South Korea, the Foreign Secretary will be aware of the suggestion that they should now be allowed to develop their own nuclear weapons as a response to Pyongyang. Does he agree with me that that would be utter madness? Surely it cannot be a serious suggestion that the world’s response to North Korea breaching the non-proliferation treaty should be to encourage other countries to do the same. Surely our goal must be the denuclearisation of the entire region.

Beyond the substance of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, I welcome its careful and judicious tone. After a summer of utterly reckless rhetoric from Washington and Pyongyang, we urgently need some cool heads and calm words, especially now that we have drifted from that dangerous escalation of rhetoric into the even more dangerous escalation of actions. With every ratcheting up of words and deeds, the risk grows. That escalation will lead to miscalculation and a war will begin, not by design but by default.

Faced with that situation, we are told that all options remain under consideration and that no options have been ruled out, but if any of those options risks 10 million people in Seoul being, in the Foreign Secretary’s words, “vaporised”, or similar devastation in North Korea and Japan, we have to say that those options should be in the bin. The reality is that the only sane option is, as William Hague wrote today, dialogue and diplomacy. That means a deliberate de-escalation of rhetoric and actions, it means properly enforcing the new sanctions regime, and it means restarting the six-party talks to seek a new and lasting settlement.

Yet we have a US ambassador to the UN who says,

“the time for talk is over.”

We have a President who says,

“talking is not the answer”.

Although in his case I would usually be inclined to agree, for the US to turn its back on diplomacy at this stage is simply irresponsible and, as its closest ally, we must be prepared to say so.

Although we welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, the real test is what comes next. Will Britain be a voice of calm and reason on the world stage? Will we ally ourselves with Angela Merkel? She told the German Parliament today:

“there can only be a peaceful and diplomatic solution”.

If the answer is yes, and if that is the route the Government take, they will have our full support; but if they pretend that military options involving decapitation, annihilation, fire and fury belong anywhere but in the bin, and if they swear blind loyalty to Donald Trump no matter what abyss he drags us towards, they will be risking a hell of a lot more than just losing our support. I urge the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues to remain calm and judicious in their approach, to discount all so-called military solutions and to steer a course towards the only options that work: dialogue, diplomacy and peace.

[Boris Johnson]

I join the right hon. Lady in the sentiments she expresses about the victims of terror across our continent over the summer months. There is a lot in her reply with which I agree, and she is certainly right to commend a measured tone in these things. In her focus on Washington and the pronouncements of Donald Trump, it is important that we do not allow anything to distract this House from the fundamental responsibility of Pyongyang for causing this crisis. It is a great shame that there should be any suggestion of any kind of equivalence in the confrontation—I am sure she did not mean to imply that—and it is important that we do not allow that to creep into our considerations.

The current situation is so grave because it is the first time in the history of nuclear weaponry that a non-P5 country seems to be on the brink of acquiring the ability to use an ICBM equipped with a nuclear warhead. This is a very grave situation, which explains why we are told, and we must agree, that theoretically no options are off the table, but it is also essential—the right hon. Lady is right about this—that we pursue the peaceful diplomatic resolution that we all want.

In the history of North Korea’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon over the past 30 years there have been flare-ups and crises, and then they have been managed down again. We hope that in the UN, with the help of our Chinese friends and the rest of the international community, we can once again freeze this North Korean nuclear programme and manage the crisis down again. I share the emphasis on peaceful resolution that the right hon. Lady espouses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

It is not for me to comment on the ability of the Labour leader to control his own party. I take it that Labour Members are all following official Labour party policy, which is to come out of the EU and the single market. If they are not, they can stand up now and, by their questions, betray their real position, but as far as I know they are supporting the will of the British people as expressed last year. If they wish to dissent from that, now is the time.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

May I start by welcoming the new Foreign Office Front Benchers to their positions? Back in July last year, they chastised me when I wrongly accused them of being an all-male team. If only I had waited a year, I would have been correct after all.

Talking of female Tory MPs, the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) used a disgusting, racist phrase in her comments at the East India Club, and I hope the Foreign Secretary will join me in condemning them; I hope he will agree that derogatory, offensive language deriving from the era of American slavery has no place in modern society. But the hon. Lady was at least trying to ask a valid question—a question about what would happen if Britain failed to reach a deal on Brexit. So may I ask the Foreign Secretary to answer that question today? Can he explain what that no deal option would mean for the people and businesses of Great Britain?

[Boris Johnson]

As I said before, the chances of such an outcome are vanishingly unlikely, since it is manifestly in the interests of those on both sides of the channel to get a great free trade deal and a new deep and special partnership between us and the European Union. That is what we are going to achieve.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer, but unfortunately it leaves us none the wiser. This is slightly baffling because it was, after all, the Prime Minister—the Prime Minister for now, at least—who decided to put the no deal option on the table. She could not stop using the phrase during the election campaign. But now, when we ask what it would mean in practice, the Government refuse to tell us. The Foreign Affairs Committee said in December:

“The Government should require each Department to produce a ‘no deal’ plan, outlining the likely consequences…and setting out proposals to mitigate potential risks.”

It went on to state that anything less would be a “dereliction of duty”, and that we cannot have a repeat—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Lady but she really does need to bring herself to a single-sentence question, because there are lots of colleagues who want to take part. She is normally very succinct, but today is an exception. Return to form!

[Emily Thornberry]

Given that a plan for no deal would be worse than that dereliction of duty, will the Foreign Secretary spell out publicly what no deal would mean? If he is not prepared to tell us that publicly, can he reassure us that at the very least he has a detailed private plan to manage that risk?

[Boris Johnson]

There is no plan for no deal, because we are going to get a great deal. For the sake of illustration, I remind the right hon. Lady that there was a time, which I am old enough to remember, when Britain was not in what we then called the Common Market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I hesitate to say it, but we certainly regard as very considerable the Prime Minister’s achievement in getting the US President to sign up to the G20 agreement on climate change, as she did.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

What?

[Boris Johnson]

Absolutely right. The Prime Minister was instrumental in getting the Americans to sign up to the communiqué. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that whatever their disagreements with the current incumbent of the White House, the President of the United States is the leader of our most important ally, and he therefore deserves this country’s respect and consideration.