Changes in US Immigration Policy

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I begin by saying:

“I am heartbroken that today President Trump is closing the door on children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war. I am heartbroken that America is turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants—the people who helped build your country, ready to work hard in exchange for a fair chance at a new life.”

Those are not my words, but the words of a Nobel prize winner. Her name is Malala. She probably knows more than anyone here the difference between true Islam and the poisonous perversion that we see in the hatred of Daesh and others. It is heartbreaking beyond words that the leader of what was once the free world does not know the difference between them.

Make no mistake, however much his supporters and apologists may want to dress it up, Donald Trump has explicitly made the connection between being a Muslim and being much more likely than anybody else to be a danger to fellow human beings. That is offensive not only to Muslims; as a Christian, I find it an offensive, repugnant way of running a country. I have heard people praise Mr Trump for his Christianity. I am sorry, but I was brought up to see the best in everybody, and I cannot see any Christianity in the early days of his presidency. If the lord and saviour whom we both follow was to turn up today at the American border, he would not be allowed in. He would have a Palestinian passport and no valid birth certificate and would not be able to prove that he was a Christian because he had not invented Christianity yet. That is the extent to which the depraved, racist ideologies of one man have poisoned a once great nation.

I heard Government Members complain about repeated references to the Holocaust, but the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) nailed that point perfectly. There are similarities between how Trump has been talking about Muslims for years and how others talked about Jews in the 1930s. If those similarities are not clear enough for anyone in here to understand, they should not be involved in politics at this or any other level. I found the comments of the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) immensely powerful and I want to say something in response to her quote. They came for the Muslims, and I am not a Muslim. They will come for Jews, and I am not Jew. They will come for the gays, and I am not a gay. They will come for the Mexicans, and I am not a Mexican. But, by God, I will speak up and I will join, hand in hand, with the thousands who are in Whitehall right now and in towns and cities the length and breadth of these islands and across the world.

America is our friend, but Donald Trump will never be my friend unless he mends his ways enormously. Friends sometimes do things that are so abominable that we have to say, “You stop that right now or our friendship is over.” We have to ask the Government what is the price of the continued friendship. If we are not prepared to stop that friendship now, how far down the slippery slope does he have to take us before we say, “No more”? If we go too far, it will be too late to stop. Last week at Prime Minister’s questions, I quoted prose by Robert Burns, but I never thought I would have to quote the same words again. He said that that whatever damages society, or any least part of it, “this is my measure of iniquity.” This is an iniquitous action by an iniquitous President, and I will never cease to speak out against it.

US Immigration Policy

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think the conclusion that anybody looking at the President’s electoral rhetoric and what he is in fact doing will draw is that his bark is considerably worse than his bite. I think we have every opportunity to do a very good deal with him on all sorts of things, not least free trade.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

What assessment have the UK Government made of the risk to which the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) referred a few minutes ago, namely that the Islamophobia being propagated in America may make it easier for Daesh to recruit terrorists to operate in the United Kingdom?

Yemen

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I read an article, in The New York Times I think, suggesting that there may be such changes. It is important that people not just in America but across the world understand that the United Nations is pivotal as the international forum in which countries can come together to resolve their issues. If it did not exist, we would invent it. However, we must recognise that the troubled period it has had in the past six months or so, because of the use of the veto, means that it is perhaps now time for it to be reinvented.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) has said, 7 million people in Yemen are going to starve to death. Ninety per cent. of the food that will keep them alive has to be imported. The sea ports through which that food has to be imported are being deliberately and systematically bombed into oblivion by the Saudi-led coalition. How can it possibly be morally defensive to sell any weapons whatsoever to a regime that is undertaking such inhumane actions?

[Mr Ellwood]

I understand the spirit in which the question is asked, but it is not the case that the ports are being bombed into oblivion. As I said earlier, the Al Hudaydah port is divided into two areas, one operated by the Houthis, the other by the United Nations, and they can get ships in, but there is a queue of ships because the working cranes are not large enough to get the kit off. That is the bottleneck that we need to resolve.

Chagos Islands

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Because of the expense and, indeed, because they would not get a good quality of life. Only 200 maximum said that they wished to do that, and it is not the case that the KPMG report said that it was straightforwardly feasible. It presented a number of scenarios, most of which came out at a very high cost that could not justify the resettlement of Chagossians on the islands.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am sure that the Minister knows his history. A couple of hundred years ago, his predecessor would have stood in the same place and assured Parliament that the colony called America could not possibly deliver a decent standard of life to its people. Does not he accept that if the decision whether it is in the interests of islanders to return is made here and they are not given the right to decide, that is a return to the days of the arrogant, colonial, Britain-knows-best days, which should have been consigned to the dustbin of history 100 years ago?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

No, because, as I have already said, that right of self-determination is not considered legally to apply. We have gone through all the arguments today and explained why we think that would be impractical. It is better to look to the future and to make sure that the help that the islanders need, wherever they are, be it in Mauritius, the Seychelles or the United Kingdom, is properly given by Her Majesty’s Government.

Yemen

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

Let us be blunt. It is not a small rebel group that fires effectively a ballistic missile at a neighbouring country or attacks a US warship in international waters. That does not fit my definition of a small group of lightly armed individuals. This is a serious and coherent threat to the recognised Government of Yemen, any constitutional process, and, ultimately, to the security of one of the key trade routes of the whole world through what we once saw as the Straits of Aden, with shipping heading up towards the Suez canal. Ultimately, if we allow a failed state in Yemen we will all pay the price for it in the cost of shipping, and disruption to energy supplies.

The alternative to the Saudi coalition—let us assume it is not the Saudis and their allies who intervene—is western intervention to enforce a UN motion. The same people very busily attacking this coalition are the same people who regularly oppose any western intervention in the middle east. For a UN resolution to have any meaning it needs to be implemented and it is questionable who it would want to take the action.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Foster]

No, I do not think I will as we are running short of time.

The argument that the support should be removed is wrong.

On the motion itself, it was interesting to hear the shadow Foreign Secretary telling us about the two command centres. That is what leaps out from the motion. She talks about the northern command centre in Riyadh, where our advisers are and where the strikes were not authorised. She then talked about the southern command centre, where our advisers are not, and says that that is where the problems are in terms of targeting. Well, it does say something that we are going to pull away from the site where it is not happening, which would not make any difference.

Aleppo and Syria

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I, too, commend the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for securing the debate. May I appeal to Members to bear in mind the subject under discussion, and the subject on which you have agreed to a debate, Mr Speaker? The debate is about a humanitarian catastrophe. It has been caused by the breakdown of political processes, crimes against humanity, acts of terrorism and lots of things, but first and foremost we are talking about an imminent mortal threat to 100,000 children. Every one of those children lives every second of their life not knowing whether they will see the next second. Surely that must be a priority. Establishing a peaceful, democratic and legitimate Government in Syria is important, as is stopping the Russian war machine and neutralising forever the threat from Daesh. All of those things are important, but right now, 100,000 children—our brothers and sisters—are in immediate danger of death. Addressing that must be the top priority.

I sometimes think that it is like four different fire engines turning up to a fire and spending time arguing about whose fault the fire is, while in the building the children are screaming for somebody, anybody, for God’s sake to put out the fire. When the emergency services turn out to a suspicious fire, the priorities are to get people out, extinguish the fire and then investigate whether it was caused by a criminal act, and then, if necessary and appropriate, to take action against those responsible. A lot of matters that have been raised in the debate are important, but we can never lose sight of the fact that, if we spend another three weeks looking for a negotiated settlement, it will be another three weeks of children being killed in the raids, starving to death or dying from basic simple illnesses because they cannot get the treatment they so desperately need and absolutely deserve.

There are probably 35 doctors left in Aleppo. They cannot possibly cope with the demands being placed on them. Each and every one of them risks their life every day. We know they are being targeted. I cannot imagine a situation where being a doctor or a nurse meant risking life every day to go to work. That is what those people are doing—heroes each and every one of them. We know that the largest hospital in the city was hit seven times in a single morning. That was not an accident or a navigational error; it was a deliberate war crime. When the time comes, it should be treated as such. Just to make the point, they went back and bombed it again the next day. It is a deliberate tactic by the Syrians and the Russians to attack civilian targets on one day, wait for the emergency services to respond, and then go in and target them again.

We also need to re-evaluate the part the UK is playing. We need to go back to the reasons why the United Kingdom got involved in military action and reassess whether it is still appropriate. The former Prime Minister, in arguing in favour of military action, described the Brimstone missile as a “unique” asset

“that no other coalition ally can contribute”.—[Official Report, 26 September 2016; Vol. 585, c. 1262.]

That unique asset was deployed by the United Kingdom nine times in the seven months between February and August. It was used more than that in January and December last year, but it does not seem to me like a compelling argument for continued military action.

We were also told that there were likely to be 70,000 moderate troops ready to join in the struggle against Daesh—one requirement for a just war is a reasonable chance of success. I hope the Foreign Secretary can tell us where those 70,000 moderate troops are and whether they still exist. If they do not, how many are there?

The former Prime Minister expected and hoped that, if we supported military action, we would have a transitional Government in Syria in about six months. Those six months passed in June. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us how far away we are now? Are we within six months or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, are we further from a peaceful solution than we have ever been? We must face up to those difficult questions. On this occasion, I am asking not because I want to trip up those on the Government Benches. I am asking from the heart. Please can we look to ensure that the part we are playing, whether through military action or anything else, contributes to the solution rather than makes the problem so much more worse?

Can any of us really imagine what 12 million refugees look like? A great many are refugees in their own country, and millions of them are scattered across the globe. I for one would welcome many more if only we were allowed to do so. Nine million of those refugees are women and children who have played no part in any war or any crime. They are utterly innocent. Thirteen thousand children have lost their lives. Are we going to allow that to get to 14,000, 15,000 and 16,000, or are we going to accept, ultimately, that the first priority is to save the lives of those who are left to prevent those appalling statistics from getting any worse?

I am a great fan of the Scots-Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle. I did not get his permission to quote his song, but I hope he will not mind the breach of copyright. Many years ago, in response to another conflict, he wrote:

“And have you seen the madmen who strut the world’s stage

Threatening our destruction as they prance and preen and rage?

Rattling nuclear sabres as humanity holds its breath

Feeding on fear and bigotry as the children starve to death”.

The children are starving to death today. Our first priority must be to feed the children by whatever means needed, and then we can deal with the rest of the mess that the Russians, the Syrians and Daesh have created.

Turkey

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I know that the Minister will impress on President Erdogan how important it is that people get a fair trial, regardless of how serious the offence someone is accused of committing—indeed, the more serious the alleged offence, possibly the more important it is that they get a fair trial. It is difficult to see how that can happen when so many judges have been arrested. What practical help will the Minister be offering to the Turkish Government to make sure that anyone who has been arrested and is going to be put on trial gets a fair trial, in accordance with the proper rule of law?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The most practical influence we can have on this is to join with like-minded countries and make our view clear collectively, be it through the EU or other forums that join together countries such as our allies in the United States. The collective and singular voice calling for upholding of the rule of law and the proper functioning of a democratic state is what we can most effectively provide at this early stage. The point about NATO has already been made. The point about the long-term objective of Turkey wanting to join the EU has already been made. I hope that bilateral discussions, the likes of which I hope to have tomorrow, will also impress on the Turkish Government exactly the point the hon. Gentleman has put to the House.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Beckett]

I am familiar with the insistence that, in some way, this is hugely important. That is not the impression that the public are being given or, if I may say so, that the right hon. Gentleman, among others, is striving every day to give them. The public are being given the impression, not that the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was sporadic and patchy but that it was there, but that the intelligence services and the then Prime Minister knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction and deliberately misled the House. That is not true and was never true. No attempt—

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Margaret Beckett]

No.

No attempt to read that into the record can possibly be justified. We did not know it then—no one knew it then—and most people very firmly believed in Saddam Hussein’s intentions.

The third allegation is about the secret commitment. I was not the slightest bit surprised to hear the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) quoting the single sentence that is included in the background notification. I agree with him entirely if his assertion is that it was a profound mistake for the former Prime Minister to use that phraseology. However, I do not read into it the sinister feeling that the right hon. Gentleman does, nor indeed did the Chilcot inquiry. To my mind, if this had been a conversation, rather than a written memorandum, it would have been something along the lines of, “I am on your side, but”—but—“if we are to take action, all these things have to be addressed; we have to go the United Nations and so on.” Chilcot acknowledges that it was Mr Blair’s intent to get President Bush to go through the United Nations route, and that—against the advice of the President’s own allies—he pursued that with determination and had success in doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

On Remembrance Day 2007 I attended a ceremony in Glenrothes that none of us ever thought we would have to attend: the unveiling of a war memorial in a town that did not exist at the end of the second world war. The memorial has two names on it—those of Private Marc Ferns, aged 21, and Private Scott McArdle, 22. They were let down by their country. They were sent into an illegal war that was not an act of last resort, and they were sent in without the equipment that they were entitled to have to protect them from enemy attack.

I believe that the Chilcot report establishes those facts beyond doubt. It does not bring those two soldiers back—nothing can bring them back—but Chilcot finally establishes facts that some wanted to keep hidden. It starts to give answers to the families. We need to decide on our response, and part of our early response should be for this House of Commons to apologise for the dreadful error of judgment that our predecessors in this place made, which cost so many young lives.

There must also be a proper holding to account of those who were responsible, whose conduct has been brought into the full glare of the Chilcot report. It is not about one person; it is about 179 people. It is not about witch hunts or settling old scores, as was ridiculously suggested earlier. It is about applying the principle that nobody, but nobody, is above the law, and that if those in positions of responsibility betray that responsibility, there will be no hiding place from justice.

I do not have time to highlight the specific parts of the executive summary that I believe point unerringly to the conclusion that former Prime Minister Tony Blair deliberately and persistently misled his Cabinet, misled his Government, misled this House and misled the people of these islands, not about whether he believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but about whether he cared that those weapons of mass destruction existed. He was never interested in a war to disarm; he was only ever interested in a war to achieve regime change. He was acting in support of the policies and interests of a foreign power, even when those were incompatible with the stated policies and objectives of Her Majesty’s Government.

It is not correct to talk about the previous Prime Minister committing war crimes, but there is an argument for saying he was in contempt of this House. However, his conduct, had it been carried out by a diplomat, would have led to a trial for treason. It is unthinkable that, simply because he was Prime Minister, he should somehow be immune to any further investigation. It is simply not good enough that he should be allowed to walk away with nothing more than a half-hearted apology and expression of regret.

Even the motion that the House of Commons approved on 18 March 2003 said nothing about regime change. Even at that point, the former Prime Minister was keeping up the pretence; he was arguing about weapons of mass destruction when what he was interested in was overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein. The only conclusion I can form is that Tony Blair’s actions were dishonest and misleading from the beginning. As a result, these islands went to a war they should never have taken part in.

Marc Ferns, Scott McArdle and 177 others went to that war and will never come home. We owe it to their memory—we owe it to their families—to make sure that those responsible have the case against them tested in a court of law.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Indeed. That pipeline is in the economic and strategic interests of the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend also makes a strong point about Scotland: many Scottish companies are in Azerbaijan in the wake of BP’s investment, and that is another example of how the UK and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, through our embassies, are helping to deliver for the people of Scotland.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I was in Tbilisi, in Georgia, last week with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. A number of people we spoke to were extremely concerned about the impact of the UK leaving the European Union on a lot of the diplomatic work that is going on to encourage countries such as Georgia to move towards western Europe. What assessment has the Foreign Secretary made of that issue, and what steps is he taking to persuade people in countries such as Georgia that their future lies in links with western Europe?

[Mr Lidington]

We were very active in the preparation for, and at, the NATO summit in Warsaw to emphasise that our commitment to working closely with countries such as Georgia to bring them into the Euro-Atlantic family of nations continues, and I think their Governments well understand that commitment.

Human Rights in Iran

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Thank you very much, Sir Edward. I apologise for any confusion caused by the late changes that we had to make to our intended speakers.

In the interest of brevity, I will not give a full summing- up speech. I commend the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) for securing the debate, and particularly on making such positive suggestions about what we might do. It is easy to identify, criticise and condemn horrific human rights abuses in Iran, but much more difficult to come up with ideas that might start to make a difference, although perhaps not as quickly as we might like.

We should identify and target individuals who have clearly committed crimes against humanity, as the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said. We should also seek to maintain dialogue with anyone in a position of potential influence in Iran who we think is seeking to modernise and liberalise or can be persuaded to do so. I believe that President Rouhani is in the latter camp, but only just. His rhetoric to date has been encouraging, but his actions have been very discouraging. We need to keep up the diplomatic pressure, as well as the informal pressure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned.

We must continue to remind ourselves of why we think we have the right and the responsibility to get involved at all. It is because we are talking about human rights—the rights of all humanity, regardless of where they live, who they are and what they do or do not believe. We have a responsibility to defend those rights wherever they are being abused, even in countries that spend billions of pounds buying weapons and arms from us and that might be developing the means to threaten us directly—some of the interventions in this debate were possibly pointing to that.

Simply because Iran no longer presents a direct nuclear threat to us, it does not mean that we can ignore the horrific abuses it continues to carry out against the rights of its citizens. Possibly the most chilling aspect of today’s debate has been the number of Members who have been able to speak about completely separate and barbaric abuses of the human rights of anyone who follows or converts to the wrong religion, who is born on the wrong side of the gender divide or who dares to express a political opinion. We would consider any one of those abuses to be an abomination in today’s society, yet they are all happening every day under the Iranian regime.

Finally, we must be careful about getting on too high a moral horse. Many of the human rights denials and violations in Iran that we are rightly condemning now were fairly common practice in these islands not so long ago. It is only 40 years since race and gender discrimination were made illegal, and neither have yet been abolished in our society. Women still cannot genuinely be regarded as being treated with full equality. In my lifetime, someone mentally incapable of understanding the impact of his actions has been executed for murder, and magazines have been prosecuted for blasphemously printing things thought by some Christians to be offensive. Within the lifetime of all of us here, it has been a criminal offence to have sexual relations with someone of the same gender. Although it is right for us to continue to condemn and keep pressure on the Iranian regime, we should do so from a point of view of humility, accepting that some things that we criticise in others were common practice in our own society within our own lifetime.

If anything, that should give us optimism that however bad things are in Iran just now, they can improve. Five years before the East German regime collapsed, I would never have believed that human rights would return to East Germany. There is optimism for Iran, and we should continue to work on it.