Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad — House of Commons, 2016-05-24
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): And a human rights issue, as the hon. Lady rightly says. The Home Office is turning its face against the massive support of just about every parliamentarian from Scotland and refusing to accept and acknowledge that this family came to our country on a Government-sponsored scheme. I do hope that Ministers will find it in their heart to look at this case in the next seven days Secondly, I come to the subject of Libya. The Foreign Secretary referred a few minutes ago to his visit to Tripoli, where he said the UK was ready to provide training to the new Administration’s armed forces. He said that "it will be possible for us and our partners to support the military training programme." Such a mission would not require a Commons vote because, he said: "That does not extend to non-combat missions." The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who is in his place, rejected the idea of a training mission, stating that: "Even if you say it is just a training mission rather than a combat one, any foreign troop presence in Tripoli will be seen as a Western intervention." The commander of Libya’s air force warned: "If any foreign soldier touches our soil with his foot, all Libyan people will be united against him. Our problems will be aggravated with the coming of foreign troops." Interviewed in RT, former UK ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles warned against "loose talk" of military intervention in the collapsing state. He said: "There’s been talks for weeks and months of the possibility of military intervention. But I don’t think it’s helpful at the moment because intervention is not what they need." Following the Foreign Affairs Committee’s visit to north Africa in mid-April, the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), wrote to the Foreign Secretary accusing him of being "less than candid" and "deliberately misleading to the uninformed reader" over plans to send British troops to join an Italian-led training mission In a few weeks’ time, on 6 July, the Chilcot report will be published. One of the key issues that many of us hope will be identified and brought out in that report is that of pre-commitment—what commitments were made in 2002 by the then Prime Minister to the American President that dictated all his subsequent actions. I ask the Foreign Secretary for a straight answer to this question: what, if any, commitments have been made in relation to intervention in Libya at this stage—not just on combat roles, which the Defence Secretary referred to earlier—or is it genuinely the case that, before any such commitments are undertaken, there will be a debate and vote in this House to ascertain the wisdom or otherwise of such an intervention Finally, I come to the European campaign and to "Project Fear". The term was actually devised in an internal briefing in the Better Together campaign in the Scottish referendum, where the writer self-described the campaign as "Project Fear". I want briefly to discuss why I think that is entirely the wrong campaign and the wrong tactic to adopt The Chancellor of the Exchequer has substantial form on the matter. On 13 November 2011 he gave an interview on BBC Scotland television in which he predicted a collapse in inward investment in Scotland because of the referendum of 2014. That was followed by record years of inward investment in Scotland in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The current Secretary of State for Scotland had the brass neck in a statement on 17 June last year to claim the credit for the record inward investment figures of 2014. No one in the leave campaign should be surprised by the nefarious activities of Her Majesty’s Treasury, given the even more nefarious activities it engaged in during the Scottish referendum campaign My question today is whether this sort of material wins hearts and minds in a referendum campaign. I do not think it does.