Exiting the European Union: Sanctions — House of Commons, 2017-07-19
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I add my congratulations and best wishes to the hon. Members for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) on their maiden speeches. They spoke with enormous passion, and although their speeches were very different in style no one can question their commitment to their constituents. I welcome both of them to the House. I thought the Woody Allen quote was a reference to my attempts at cooking, but perhaps that says something about my sheltered upbringing Three different things could happen when the United Kingdom is no longer automatically bound by European Union decisions on sanctions. We can attempt to impose sanctions where the EU does not do so, but that will be a waste of time because no one will pay any attention. We can choose not to impose sanctions where the EU does so, but that will probably lead to our dealing with some very dodgy characters on the world stage. The most likely outcome, however, is that we shall allow the EU to take its decisions without any UK input and tamely and obediently follow suit. Even that is not without its risks I am hoping that when he sums up the Minister will tell us what assessment has been made of the legal risk of the United Kingdom imposing, on its own, sanctions that have also been imposed by the European Union. It seems to me that an aggrieved party who might be put off from taking on the European Union in the courts might see an individual stand-alone legislator as a softer target. What assessment has been made of the risk that the United Kingdom will find itself as the fall guy—being sued in the courts every time the European Union does something that the bully boys of corporate business do not want to take on the EU about? They might happily have a pop at one wee tiny island in the north Atlantic In his opening remarks, the Minister said that we wanted to work with other countries as well as the EU. He specifically mentioned the United States of America. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) has already raised some of the alarms on that. We have recently discovered that the President held a secret, unlimited, unrecorded meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20. We do not know whether that was in the context of a possible trade deal or state visit—maybe the President just wanted to catch up with his unofficial election agent What happens if those talks, which were not talks, were about the United States being willing to ease or break sanctions against Russia? Where would that leave the United Kingdom? Our bestest pal ever across the Atlantic says, "Trade with Putin!" The European Union says no and our conscience has to say no. Can the Minister give an assurance that regardless of what crazy crackpot scheme Trump and Putin cook up between themselves, until the Russians have returned every last square inch of Ukrainian territory into the hands of the people and elected Government of Ukraine, there will be no lessening of sanctions by the United Kingdom unless that has been agreed by the entire European Union Another concern would be if the UK decided to impose sanctions but nobody else did. We have to remind ourselves that the United Kingdom is no longer a colonial power; the sun sets every day on the British empire, which does not extend any further than the British isles. There is a real danger that, to prove some kind of political machismo, the United Kingdom will attempt to impose sanctions on countries for whatever reason and nobody else does. I was going to say that we would be made to look like a laughing stock, but it is a bit too late for that Can the Minister name a single example of a country where unilateral sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom would make a blind bit of difference? It seems to me that we are frantically, with a huge amount of hassle, taking back control of something. Attempting to exercise that control unilaterally and in an isolationist manner will achieve absolutely nothing, but it will incur significant expense and legal risk for the United Kingdom My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston raised some of the comments made by the Law Society of Scotland. One of the things that it has identified is what would happen if the United Kingdom wanted to start, on its own, imposing sanctions on countries believed to be sponsoring terrorism—I will not mention the secret report on Saudi Arabia that the Government appear to have commissioned but now will not tell anybody about. Of course, there is no suggestion at all that the Saudi Arabian Government are involved in anything unlawful in Yemen or anywhere else. How could anyone possibly suggest that What steps are the Government taking to arrive at a legally sound definition of what a terrorist-supporting state actually is? If that is not clear at the beginning, the door is again open for us to be sued by any aggrieved party. I am reminded that one of the very few countries that Gordon Brown, the previous Prime Minister, used anti-terrorism legislation against was Iceland. That shows what can happen if a definition of terrorism is a bit too vague. I have never known Iceland to sponsor state terrorism, but Mr Brown apparently thought that it did I understand the need for the Government to talk positively and bullishly about every single aspect of Brexit, despite the fact that the majority of their own party voted against it in the referendum, but we need to be realistic. We need to be alert to the fact that the United Kingdom’s trading position and international reputation could be at risk and its economy severely damaged The Minister chose not to name a single example of EU sanctions that the Government would want to lift or of where the United Kingdom would want to impose sanctions that have not already been imposed by the European Union. This appears to be yet another example of where the desperation to take back control has come before any sensible, intelligent consideration about whether in some cases control is better exercised by 28 nations acting together than by one tiny little island in the north Atlantic that thinks it can do it all by itself.