Jo Cox
Main Page: Jo Cox (Labour - Batley and Spen)Department Debates - View all Jo Cox's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hammond
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. If only it were so simple as there being two sides; there are about 120 sides as far as I can make out. He is absolutely right. Of course we must ensure that our support is targeted at the Government of national accord. We have to look for bright spots. One of the positive things that I take from the situation in Libya is that, by and large, the different factions are not motivated by ideology, particularly by extreme religious ideology, as they are in some of the other conflict zones. A lot of this is to do with traditional money and power interests. It is about people wanting to protect their local fiefdoms and making sure that they and their communities get their share of the wealth of the state. Prime Minister Sarraj is going about this in exactly the right way. He is going with the grain of Libyan society, recognising that reality and trying to build a consensus mechanism around it.
Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
What guarantees can the Secretary of State offer that our key partners, particularly in Europe, have a coherent strategy on good governance and nation building as well as on the vital issues of migration and counter-terrorism? What reassurances did he get this week from the Government of national accord that they have a plan to broaden out what is essentially a UN-backed political deal, so it is not beholden, and therefore vulnerable, to the many rival regional factions?
Mr Hammond
The most effective step to broaden out the legitimacy of the Government will be the vote in the House of Representatives on the endorsement of the Government. The HOR is committed by the Libyan political agreement to do that, and we hope that it will happen very soon. On the question of our European partners, it is inevitably true that, for 26 of the other 27 EU states, excluding Ireland, migration is at the top of the agenda. It falls to me to urge them, as I urged the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, to accept that, if we want to make progress on the matter, we must try to set this in a context that makes sense not just to us, but to the Libyans.