Queen’s Speech

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, earlier asked for facts in the EU debate to be presented fairly and properly. Vote Leave’s new ad, out today, says that Turkey is joining the EU. There are two things wrong with that. First, it is a lie, a deliberate attempt to mislead. Secondly, it uses Turkey in a way that trivialises and misrepresents its nature, its position and its real importance in the migration crisis. The truth is, of course, not that Turkey is joining the EU but that Turkey is central to resolving the desperate state of affairs in the eastern Mediterranean. The situation is desperate and is getting worse: since this debate started, 120 people have been reported dead in suicide bombings in Syria.

We should not view the situation only or even chiefly through the dangers that migration presents to the countries of the EU. The fact is that western intervention in the eastern Mediterranean has been a disaster. We have intervened in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Can anyone claim that the lives of ordinary people in these countries are better since our interventions? They are not. It is because they are incomparably worse that we have such large-scale migration from the area. The overwhelming majority of migrants are not economic: they are refugees fleeing war, anarchy, the destruction of their homes and imminent death for them and their families. The West is a proximate cause of all this. It has a clear and moral duty not just to ameliorate but to try to fix the root problems, a duty to help not just the migrants but to remove the conditions that make migrant flight necessary. The EU is trying to help with the first and so are we, but our effort is very limited in scale and ungenerous. We can and should take more migrants directly. Other EU countries have done this.

However, it is extremely disappointing and very worrying that the major focus of EU effort is its deal, or putative deal, with Turkey. Long before the EU contrived its deal, Turkey had already taken in 2.7 million Syrian refugees. The cost to Turkey has been enormous, not just financially. Being host already to so many refugees and agreeing to host EU returnees has destabilised the country in significant ways. It has contributed to and been an excuse for attacks on Kurdish polity and Kurdish towns and villages inside Turkey. It has allowed cover for President Erdogan’s push for more power. It has served as a cover for a continuation and worsening of assaults on civil liberties and the rule of law. Last week Turkey began proceedings to withdraw parliamentary immunity from MPs, widely interpreted as the beginning of an action against Kurdish MPs. Before that, the Government closed down or took over opposition media. These things are not compatible with European values. They are not compatible with EU membership.

In normal times the EU would oppose these measures but the desperation to prevent the flow of migrants seems to have overruled the concern for civil rights and the rule of law in Turkey. The EU deal is unsatisfactory and unsafe on many levels. President Erdogan has explicitly refused to uphold his part of the deal—for example, he has explicitly refused to meet EU conditions about reform of his terrorism laws—yet the deal is now in operation. Migrants are being returned to Turkey amid widespread doubts about what conditions await them there. Visa-free access to the Schengen zone is due to commence. This should not happen unless Turkey fulfils its part of the deal.

Europe does need Turkey but we need Turkey as a reliable and trusted partner. We need to accept its right to democratic self-governance and we should applaud its generosity in hosting so many Syrian refugees already. But we should not condone assaults on democratic freedoms or the rule of law. We should not trade help over migration for turning a blind eye to Turkey’s violation of EU rules and principles. Most of all, we should be enlisting Turkey’s active help in addressing the root problem: the continuing war in Syria. Until that war ends, there will be no end to the flight of refugees and no end to the moral and political panic this flight has caused in Europe.