Ukraine

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

This week marks eight years since the late, great Tony Benn sadly passed away. In one of his most famous speeches in this House, he recounted living in London during the blitz. He spoke of huddling in bomb shelters each night and of awaking each morning to a city on fire. Speaking to oppose military intervention in Iraq, he recounted the horror that he had felt as Nazi bombs rained down on London. With plans to give the green light for British bombs to fall on Iraq, he asked Parliament to see Iraqis’ humanity too. “Don’t Iraqis feel terror?”, he asked. “Don’t they weep when their children die?”

Benn’s speech has become a universal anti-war statement and is just as relevant today. Today, it is Ukrainians huddling in shelters each night and seeing their cities on fire each morning. Today, it is Ukrainians who live in terror as Putin’s bombs rain down on them, and who weep for their murdered children.

Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has rightly been unequivocally condemned throughout the House, and I join colleagues in calling for an urgent ceasefire with every effort made to reach a diplomatic end before more lives are lost and an even more terrifying wider European war is triggered. However, amid the darkness we have seen extraordinary bravery and humanity, and not just from the Ukrainian people themselves—from the courage of Russian anti-war activists risking repression to speak out against the war, such as Marina Ovsyannikova, who last night protested live on national television, to the compassion of the British public who have opened their hearts to the Ukrainian people. I am proud that in Coventry, a city of sanctuary, local groups have been collecting donations for refugees. Across the country, more than 100,000 people have signed up to welcome Ukrainian refugees into their homes.

This is a testament to the common decency of the people, but, for all their talk, the Government have not matched that decency. Their DIY asylum scheme passes the buck, individualising a problem that demands a collective solution. Refugee groups warn that it does not go far or fast enough, with the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied children, the most likely to be left behind. I therefore join the likes of the Refugee Council in calling on the Government to follow the example set by our European neighbours and waive visas for Ukrainians seeking sanctuary.

This brutal war has exposed some uncomfortable truths. Each night on TV we witness new horrors befalling the people of Ukraine. We hear the terror in their voices, and see the tears as they weep for their children. We rightly stand in solidarity with them and welcome Ukrainian refugees, but the Government should not limit that solidarity. This month marks eight years since the beginning of the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which has claimed more than a quarter of a million lives and pushed 20 million people to the brink of starvation. As experts have made clear, that war would not be possible without the Government’s support and the £20 billion-worth of arms that they have sold to the Saudi regime since it began.

Like Tony Benn, I ask, “Don’t Yemenis feel terror as well? Don’t they weep for their children when they die? Do we not owe them solidarity too?” From Putin’s slaughter in Syria, where he aided and abetted Assad in war crimes, to the bombs dropped in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, events make us ask, “Don’t they feel terror when bombs are dropped on their homes? Don’t they weep when their children die? Do we not owe them solidarity too?” But instead, our Government respond with laws such as the Nationality and Borders Bill, dubbed the anti-refugee Bill because it will break our 70-year-long commitment to the 1951 refugee convention.

In that speech, Tony Benn brought to light our shared humanity and the horrors of war. As Putin’s bombs rain down on Ukrainian cities and destroy them, it is as clear as ever that that lesson still applies today. We must stand firm against wars of aggression, and in solidarity with all who flee their horrors.