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9 July 2009 : Column 332WH—continued
The situation is new, and we now know that there are two Irans. There is the elderly, rural Iran, which until now has in the main supported a mediaeval theocracy. That is the Iran that the Iranian propaganda machine tried to tell us was totally and fully supported by the nation’s population. We now know that there is also a new, young, urban, modern Iran, which supports change. The people who came out on the streets showed immense courage in supporting change after an election that millions believed to be without credibility. I believe that the future lies with the latter Iran, and I am sure that we all pray that it does. It is vital for the security of the middle east and beyond that that is the case.
The question now is: how do we work to achieve that objective as peacefully as possible? The Government must pay attention to that, and although I cannot be here to listen to the Minister’s response, I shall read it in Hansard with great interest. The truth is that we in this country have appeased the former and taken little heed of the latter over the past few years. We have been beguiled by the output of a state propaganda machine that told us that there was no real dissent, and that the only people who dissented were anoraks, idiots, radicals—call them what you will—who are anti the Almighty, but are not the majority of Iran’s citizens. That propaganda has been blown apart, so we must rethink the situation. The report and the Government’s response do not take that into account, nor could they. However, the events of 12 June tell us that appeasement is not the way forward. We have another view of what Iran is all about. It is that the younger, modern, thrusting element of society needs our help, support and understanding if Iran is to become the peaceful, democratic and free society that we all hope it will be.
Appeasement has a long record. The position was summed up on 1 February 2006 by the then Foreign Secretary. His statement, culled down, was that the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran was proscribed at the behest of the mullahs as a sort of gift. We are seeing in a number of ways how wrong that was. I believe that the argument was based on Foreign Office information that was so dated as to be untrue.
I shall take a liberty now by referring to a letter that I will not ascribe, although I am willing to show it to the Minister if he feels that that would be useful, for his information only. Its content is very important and I shall quote two sentences from it. It is from a former Minister. Talking about Iran, he states:
“As time went by...I became less confident about the information with which I was provided. Some was too old to have realistic implications for the present. Some was sourced in ways that made checks on reliability extremely difficult or impossible.”
He goes on to say in another paragraph:
“It is never easy for a former Government Minister—or indeed Governments—to acknowledge their analysis was wrong, however well motivated. But that is the case.”
I am happy to show the Minister the letter privately, because I do not want him to think that I am trying to be misleading or clever in any way. The information has a real bearing on what we are talking about today and needs to be taken into account in a very serious way. Later, I shall talk about the evidence that I have to support its import.
We need to recognise that the analysis was wrong. We also need to recognise, as the Select Committee report itself hints, the ineffective nature of sanctions. They
have not had the effect that we would want. Paragraph 13 of the conclusions and recommendations states:
“We conclude that although the sanctions currently in place against Iran act as a disincentive for its nuclear programme, they are not sufficiently robust to coax it into suspending its enrichment.”
That supports the argument made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling when he said that appeasement had not done its job on the nuclear issue.
We have only to read another conclusion in the report to find out about the effectiveness of the E3 plus 3 diplomacy. Paragraph 4 of the conclusions and recommendations states that
“the E3+3’s diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme is currently a long way from successfully achieving all its goals.”
The truth is that there are two great findings: the report’s finding that our effort to appease the regime has failed and our sanctions have been ineffective, and the subsequent finding that there is a greater rising of the human spirit in Iran than was ever thought possible before. Whatever we say about the people who came on to the streets, they did us a great service through their courage and endeavours, because never again can it be said that there is no opposition to the regime internally. Of course there is opposition to the regime internally, and we need to take great note of it and encourage those people. If what we believe about freedom and democracy in this country means anything, the need to encourage those people must be paramount.
I am sure that that will be taken into account by the new Minister, whom I welcome to his position. He gives us considerable hope.
Andrew Mackinlay: This week’s Minister.
Mr. Binley: I hope not. I have great faith in the Minister’s ability and approach to the whole business and I look forward to some encouraging words from him later, even though I cannot be here to listen to them.
Finally, there is the Government’s attitude towards the PMOI. That organisation was proscribed by the UK Government. We know from my comments about a former Foreign Secretary why it was proscribed. In December 2006 the Court of First Instance ruled that the proscription was unlawful. The Minister will know all that has happened since then, up to the events involving the Court of Appeal and the European Courts. He will know that a statement was made that, if not unique, was pretty unusual in British judicial history. I am referring to the ruling of the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, which stated that
“having carefully considered all the material before us, we have concluded that the decision”
“...is properly characterised as perverse.”
The Foreign Office got it wrong, and got it wrong continually in that respect, so thank God we had 12 June, because there is a vital need to rethink in all sorts of ways.
The Select Committee report demands to know why the Government resisted the court decisions on the PMOI. At the time of the Government’s initial response to the report, legal matters were still proceeding. I am sure that the Minister will now tell us why the Government
continued to oppose court after court and decision after decision on that issue. I believe that my enemy’s enemy is my friend—the Chinese are very wise. I am not saying that the PMOI has not in its history acted as a terrorist organisation within Iran. It has never done so against the interests of the west, I might add, but in Iran that is true.
I met Lord Malloch-Brown, a Foreign Office Minister, and the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), who was also then a Foreign Office Minister, with a number of other people. When I asked why they still considered the PMOI to be a terrorist organisation, one of their senior aides said that that was because it was still involved in terrorist activities; it had never made a statement to the effect that it was not. In fact, statements have been made consistently and regularly since 2002 by the leader of that organisation—Mrs. Maryam Rajavi—and many others. They were public statements. It amazed me that the Foreign Office could make such a statement to me. That underlines again how out of touch the Foreign Office has been.
We face a new situation. We need the Foreign Office to think differently—to think anew about how we approach the matter. We do not have many weapons in our armoury. I recognise that the history of Iran tells us that we do not have the ability to make a great impact on that country. There is a whole cultural problem that dates from 1911 onwards and perhaps even earlier. I know that we did not have a great cultural heritage when we opposed the Mosaddeq Government in the early 1950s and that many people feel that we supported the Shah beyond what was reasonable, decent and fair, so I understand that our influence is limited, but it is still important, in terms of working in collaboration with other nations in the western world.
I ask the Minister to consider six ways in which we might react to the new situation. First, as I have already argued, we need to change the thinking in the Foreign Office. We need to ensure that our intelligence is up to date and that senior officials do not look as foolish as they did when making their statement at a meeting with me. It is vital that we have proper information—the Minister knows that he depends upon it—and I am sure that it will happen. I am happy to show him the letter that I quoted, but I ask that it be kept private, as it was sent to me under confidential cover. We need to change our thinking.
Secondly, we need to recognise that internal regime change is now a possibility. It was not on the cards to a great extent when the report was published. It is certainly on the cards now, and we need to take that into account.
Thirdly, we should end the appeasement of the mullahs. We seemed to believe that they were kindly vicars, attending tea parties and eating cucumber and cress sandwiches and dealing out compassion to their parishioners in a friendly and patrician way. That is not the case. We are talking about a fanatical Islamic society run by fanatical Islamic mullahs. They recognise only strength. They have shown that they do not understand appeasement; they think that it is weakness. We must become much stronger and more united in that respect.
Fourthly, we should demand an end to Ahmadinejad’s defiance of United Nations resolutions, as recommended in the report. That goes without saying. Fifthly, we
should strengthen specific sanctions against vital industrial and commercial sectors, and against vital people in the Iranian Government.
Sixthly, we should recognise the value of opposition in exile. I have made that point before. Some may not like the PMOI, but I am a supporter of the organisation, and I am pleased to say so. However, it has a massive ability to dispense information in Iran to the very people whom we are debating. It has the ability to gain information from Iran that ought to be of great use to the Government and the Foreign Office.
We should work hard for the UN’s involvement in future elections in Iran. We must put proper pressure on the Iranians in every way possible and through every peaceful mechanism available to us. I do not advocate a physical attack on the nation; that would be counter-productive and dangerous for all. However, I do advocate that we take a consistently credible and strong approach to a regime that believes that it is only strength that counts, and which will believe that even more strongly now that it is under such pressure.
This debate is not only about Iran; it is not only about Iran and Israel; and it is not only about Iran and the middle east. As was stated so startlingly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling, it is about our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. It is about our country’s well-being. It is about us acting in a free and democratic world. There is a real threat to that objective, but I am not willing to put up with it, for the sake of my children and grandchildren. That is why I speak so passionately. I look forward to reading the Minister’s response.
4.4 pm
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): I am pleased to follow my good friend the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley); I agree with every word that he uttered. I now turn to my left and to other colleagues and friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) and the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) made important speeches, and I agree with some of what they said. I shall nevertheless draw upon their speeches, because I have reservations about some of their conclusions.
The real problem is illustrated by the United Kingdom’s attitude to Iran. It shows the dysfunctional nature of the formulation of Government foreign policy in general. It is aggravated by the high turnover of Ministers in the Foreign Office. That is why, from a sedentary position and with a slight smile, I referred to my good friend—I have enjoyed his company and his wise counsel on a range of political issues—as “this week’s Minister”. I said that because there is a high turnover of Ministers, particularly at the junior level.
We suffer from the obsession of Prime Minister Blair and the current Prime Minister, who have played musical chairs with important ministerial portfolios. It does not matter how skilled, motivated or dedicated the incumbent Minister is—new Ministers often come from Departments totally unrelated to foreign affairs—it inevitably means that the mantra is handed down by officials whose judgment has been shown to be flawed time and again, particularly in relation to the UK’s policy on Iran. To some extent, that was demonstrated by what the hon. Member for Northampton, South called their obsession;
they have aggravated the PMOI and done everything that they can to disadvantage brave people in exile who stand up for human rights in their native land and who try to demonstrate to the rest of the world the pernicious nature of the Iranian regime.
In my view, not only was the Foreign Office wrong in its repetition of that attitude by successive Ministers there and at the Home Office; it was madness. I am delighted that I and other Members of both Houses, across the political spectrum, were able in the case of Lord Alton of Liverpool and others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department to demolish the Government’s argument. The Register of Members’ Interests mentions our involvement in that case. It was important because it humbled the Foreign Office and the Home office, showing their deficiencies of judgment, and because it sent an unusual but significant signal to the regime in Tehran that the British judiciary is proudly separate from the Executive and the Government, whose approach to foreign policy is seriously flawed.
I believe that the Foreign Office has too often been arrogant on Iran’s dialogue with other key partners. I remember that the Russian Federation tried to explore, in a positive way, the question of Iran and other countries having civil nuclear energy, the full fuel cycle being facilitated at four or five key locations around the globe, which would allow many states, including Iran, to have nuclear energy. However, it would not be done in a way that caused nuclear proliferation or facilitated the preparation of nuclear weapons or warheads in a particular country. To my knowledge, that was dismissed by the Foreign Office. It does such things time and again as a result of its phobia and its attitude of dismissal to anything suggested by the Russian Federation. Latterly, that idea was picked up by the Foreign Office, but it was too late—it missed the window of political opportunity. So my criticism of the Foreign Office is justified because it totally and consistently misread the situation.
I said that I departed from some of my colleagues’ conclusions, especially in relation to the recent so-called elections and candidates. I am amazed that people fall for the argument that the electorate exercised freedom and that the elections were simply rigged by the man who came out on top and his cohorts. Whoever won, the elections would not have had legitimacy. I am rather old fashioned and think that all citizens should be able to stand as candidates, but half the people of Iran—namely women—could not, so there was blatant gender discrimination. I am amazed that politicians, the Foreign Office, some good friends and colleagues, and the BBC have given such legitimacy to this flawed election. They would not do so anywhere else. If these elections had been held in Belarus or Russia, for instance, we would be hammering home time and again the fact that half the population was disfranchised from seeking elected office. Furthermore, the turnout was abysmally low, because hundreds of thousands of people did not want to give any credence or legitimacy to this flawed election.
Colleagues have praised the candidate Mousavi. I do not share this view at all. Although he seems to have been disadvantaged in this so-called election, he is wholly part of the main thrust of the regime. He signs up fully in his allegiance to the regime’s constitution and the system under which the clerics decide who can seek election and how. I do not consider him to be a liberal or the great hope or leap forward for Iran. He is
the same and equally to blame for the corrupt Iranian regime. The sooner we make it clear that we do not see him as the Archangel Gabriel, but as another one of the regime’s thoroughgoing rotters, the better. There is the delusion that Mousavi is a goodie, when in fact he is a baddie. That is why I am disappointed with the BBC. Of course, in all the news agencies, and in particular the BBC, there are some extremely brave men and women who collect and report the news. However, I draw a distinction between them and the editorial nature of the BBC, which accepts and repeats the mantra that Mousavi is a good person. I think that the spin doctor is the Foreign Office. It is not only wrong in spinning that; it is deceiving nobody but itself and those who listen to the BBC in the UK. Most people know that the truth lies elsewhere.
I have told you, Mr. Benton, that I like the Minister and have known him for a long time, as you have. He has a very proud record of standing up for the state of Israel, which I wholeheartedly endorse. He has been very brave, but not uncritical, in supporting the state of Israel and its right to exist. I—and you, Mr. Benton, I suspect—also support that right. However, if the Minister was not a Minister but a humble Member of Parliament, he would be persona non grata in Iran. Those in the regime would not let him across the threshold. In fact, it remains to be seen whether they would let him go this very evening to Tehran. I doubt whether they would—and it would be personal, and because of his brave and consistent attitude in defending the state of Israel. They are that rotten! I would be very interested to see, if he is ever dispatched to Tehran, whether he is allowed in.
I was almost cheering the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling when he touched upon the Government’s response. I, too, want to flag up the fact that arms, training and explosives are coming from Iran into Afghanistan and killing UK servicemen and women. No doubt the Minister’s brief will read, “This is a sensitive area—skirt it if you can.” It will not say that exactly, but it will be words to that effect. It will tell him to try to avoid responding to any points made about paragraph 20, page 7 of the Government’s response, which states that
“we also have evidence of IRGC—Qods Force involvement in negative and destabilising activity in Afghanistan, including supplying arms and funding to the Taliban.”
I have some issues with the Government, because this Parliament has never had a proper mandate to deploy our troops in Afghanistan, but we are there now and taking severe casualties. The Minister needs to tell us precisely what is in his briefing pack in relation to that point. If I am wrong, and it says nothing, why? It is not sufficient for him to write to Members; we need a wholehearted statement on how we can reconcile our recent courteousness to the regime with the fact that our armed forces are suffering and losing lives owing to the activities of the Iranian Government. How can the Government dismiss the charge, as they did yesterday in another debate, that we are appeasing this regime? Parliament is entitled to an explanation.
The Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office differ greatly on this matter. That has no doubt been aggravated by the fact that the Prime Minister considers the Secretary of State for Defence so unimportant that he is No. 23 in the Cabinet hierarchy. This is unacceptable. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the
Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne), occasionally admitted that he blamed Iran for some of the deaths of British soldiers, yet that issue has never been clarified by the Foreign Office. So what does the Foreign Office have to say about the fact that we are tolerating a regime that is facilitating the killing of our armed forces and service personnel?
The Government’s response to the point about sanctions can only be described as pretty pathetic. They wrote:
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