Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Liam Byrne
Main Page: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)Department Debates - View all Liam Byrne's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Boris Johnson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out Russian sacrifice in the war. He is quite right to allude to it, although I might also point out that probably 30 million people died in Stalin’s purges and famines and various other things associated with communism which, as I say, were indulged by the Labour party. [Interruption.] It is true. My hon. Friend’s point about engagement is valid, and that is what we are doing.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
One of the things we need from cross-Government co-ordination is for British citizens who fought for Daesh to be prosecuted for genocide and war crimes. More than 400 people from this country have fought in that conflict and come back here, but not a single one has been prosecuted for either genocide or war crimes. Surely that must change.
Boris Johnson
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As he knows, they are guilty of a crime—what they have done in going to fight overseas is a crime—and they should be brought to justice. What we have done overall is to call for the evidence that we need to prosecute them to be gathered by the special investigative team that has just been set up by the UN, thanks to the UK’s agency.