UK Citizens Returning From Fighting Daesh

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The short answer is that very little support is offered to returning individuals. Indeed, my research suggests that the vast majority of people are not even questioned by the police or security services on their return.

Many people going out have little knowledge of the principal militias such as the YPG. My purpose tonight is not to besmirch the YPG, but to point out that it divides opinion and that many if not most Britons who go out have no real knowledge of that group or the accusations against it. Amnesty International has accused the YPG of war crimes.

The Turkish Government believe, rightly or wrongly, that this is an offshoot of the PKK, which is of course a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and the USA. Recent reports suggest that some foreign fighters have left the YPG in the field because of its views and joined other even more obscure militias such as the so-called “self-sacrifice” group, which operates in the Nineveh region.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman should be congratulated on securing this debate. Having said that, I have been listening to what he has been saying and I wonder how he would regard ex-British servicemen who fight alongside the Kurds? Is it not an interesting question to ask what happens to them when they return?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on securing an interesting and informative debate on a topic that has been unfairly overlooked during our discussions about the conflict in Syria and Iraq. As you might expect, Mr Speaker, I have a prepared speech, and I shall refer to it sporadically, but I want to tailor my remarks to the issues that have been raised in the debate. I sense the shivers that are going down the spines of Home Office officials as I utter those words.

My hon. Friend made an emphatic case for why we should broadcast clearly and powerfully that travelling abroad in uncertain circumstances such as those that he has described is extremely dangerous. There are three reasons for that. First, the cause that people go to support is often not what it is purported to be in the propaganda that has encouraged them to do so. Secondly, as my hon. Friend suggested, those people may well not return. They may be placed in extremely jeopardous situations, even if they are going abroad to offer help. They may not know that they are going to fight—to engage in conflict—but they will nevertheless be placing themselves in extreme danger, almost regardless of their original purpose. Thirdly, on their return they may well face prosecution and will certainly face arrest. Extra-territorial jurisdiction applies in many of the places to which they might travel—particularly, as in this case, Syria. It is entirely possible that they have committed crimes abroad that are subject to that jurisdiction, and can be tried in a court here in the United Kingdom. That is another fact that is not made known to them when they are recruited. So my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, first and foremost, we should send out the extremely clear message that if people travel to a dangerous place, they will put themselves in all kinds of jeopardy.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

There is a history of people volunteering to go abroad in this way—for example, during the Spanish civil war and other wars since then. Do the Home Office and the Cabinet Office view such people technically as mercenaries?

[Mr Hayes]

As I have implied, these matters have to be gauged on a case-by-case basis, because people travel abroad for humanitarian reasons and all kinds of other reasons. In the first tranche of people travelling to Syria, many went with good intentions and to do good work. They went to help. The pattern of travel to Syria has changed over time, but I would certainly not want to make any general assumptions about why an individual went or what they did when they got there. However, it is almost universally true to say that they place themselves at considerable risk. If people want to offer humanitarian help, it is much better to do that in a more organised way than in a dilettante fashion. People can contribute in all sorts of ways to the humanitarian effort in which the Government are playing a powerful part without putting themselves at risk. There are things that they can do to help.

Part of the reason behind the advice that was offered by my hon. Friend in his impressive speech, and which I have amplified, is that some of the organisations that people might join—ostensibly for the good and noble purposes that he described—might themselves be proscribed. Some of the organisations fighting Daesh are themselves proscribed and might be engaged in activities that we neither endorse nor support. The picture is often more complicated than is portrayed when people are recruited.

Many of those people are recruited through the internet. It will not have missed your consideration, Mr Speaker—little does—that people communicate in all kinds of modern technological ways these days. Much of the propaganda that is now emanating from Daesh uses the most modern methods of communication. We often think of Daesh as brutally archaic, which is understandable given its means and its methods. Indeed, it is often suggested that it is an organisation from times past. However, its technological methodology is extremely up to date. It takes advantage of every kind of social media and it uses the internet regularly in a well-organised and sophisticated way. That is precisely why its message is seductive to its adherents and apologists here in the United Kingdom.