Paul Sweeney
Main Page: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)Department Debates - View all Paul Sweeney's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(5 years ago)
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Mark Field
The hon. Lady represents a city centre seat, as I do, and I am well aware of the issues faced by people who want to make their lives in the United Kingdom and who would make a great contribution here. Those people want their situation to be regularised, but these are inevitably issues for the Home Office. I am sorry—I am not trying to get out of this matter, but I think it would be useful for her to contact the Home Office with the specifics.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Libya is a country with immense potential, given its resource wealth and its position in the Mediterranean, yet there is something quite tragic about the fact that, having effected the displacement of its Government, the British state has not been in any way competent in effecting the transition to a peaceful solution in Libya. We have to take responsibility for that reality. What will this Government do to ensure that the United Nations-backed Government of national accord are properly resourced to effect security and stability on the ground? They are clearly failing to do that at the moment, and they are being displaced by other forces sponsored by other foreign powers.
Mark Field
While everyone needs to take responsibility for issues that have happened in the past in Libya, it would be a little unfair to suggest that things were perfect before our engagement there in 2011. We all recognise that there have been major problems for some time, but the tragedy of what has happened in Libya and elsewhere is that things at least seemed to be better when there was a strongman dictator in charge, and that when we tried to move towards a more pluralistic and democratic outcome, things got worse. In my view, that should not in any way be a justification for dictatorship or autocracy, but it has tended to be the case. A number of dictators, including Gaddafi, have been supported by the west in the aftermath of 2003 and leading up to 2011. These are difficult issues that we inevitably have to deal with, but responsibility has to be shared with the people on the ground. The tragedy of what has happened in Libya is that it has been a divided country almost since it was created—it was created using rather an artificial divide—and the only time there appeared to be stability was under a dictatorship. That is a terrible lesson for future generations of Libyans to learn.