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| The world is plagued by fire and blood – Britain must not look the other way | The world is plagued by fire and blood – Britain must not look the other way |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| ‘We don’t live alone – we are members of one body,” the furious police officer informs the members of the Birling family in JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. “We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish ...” | ‘We don’t live alone – we are members of one body,” the furious police officer informs the members of the Birling family in JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. “We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish ...” |
| We have come through an election campaign in which – but for Ed Miliband’s cheap, quickly regretted dig at the prime minister over Britain’s involvement in the campaign to liberate Libya (which the former Labour leader neglected to mention he’d also backed) – the focus was, as ever, on domestic politics: NHS waiting lists, the economy, the strains on the union. There was precious little sense of responsibility for the fire and blood and anguish that was all the while being endured by the people of Libya, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. | We have come through an election campaign in which – but for Ed Miliband’s cheap, quickly regretted dig at the prime minister over Britain’s involvement in the campaign to liberate Libya (which the former Labour leader neglected to mention he’d also backed) – the focus was, as ever, on domestic politics: NHS waiting lists, the economy, the strains on the union. There was precious little sense of responsibility for the fire and blood and anguish that was all the while being endured by the people of Libya, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. |
| Worse than that, it was hard during the campaign not to be conscious of a new insularity in the land – or, worse, a downright hatred of foreigners – which was being cynically whipped up by the likes of Nigel Farage, with his crude, rabble-rousing diatribe in the TV debate against migrants with HIV, and, even more appallingly, the Sun columnist Katie Hopkins, who told us all not to trouble ourselves with the hundreds of migrants drowning off the Libyan coast because they were merely “cockroaches”. | Worse than that, it was hard during the campaign not to be conscious of a new insularity in the land – or, worse, a downright hatred of foreigners – which was being cynically whipped up by the likes of Nigel Farage, with his crude, rabble-rousing diatribe in the TV debate against migrants with HIV, and, even more appallingly, the Sun columnist Katie Hopkins, who told us all not to trouble ourselves with the hundreds of migrants drowning off the Libyan coast because they were merely “cockroaches”. |
| As a migrant myself – I came to this country from Poland in 1978, at the age of six – I suppose I take this more to heart than most. But I don’t think I am being unduly sensitive when I say I detect a pejorative tone in the voices of all too many people when they talk about migrants in general, and asylum seekers in particular. There was a time, during and immediately following the second world war, when politicians from the right and the left talked with pride in the house about how we were able to give sanctuary to so many of the victims of Adolf Hitler’s carnage. And more recently it was a Conservative government, under Ted Heath, which did not hesitate to offer asylum to the south Asian immigrants expelled from Uganda by the thuggish Idi Amin, in contrast to Indira Gandhi’s vacillation and ultimate refusal to accept all but a few of the refugees. | As a migrant myself – I came to this country from Poland in 1978, at the age of six – I suppose I take this more to heart than most. But I don’t think I am being unduly sensitive when I say I detect a pejorative tone in the voices of all too many people when they talk about migrants in general, and asylum seekers in particular. There was a time, during and immediately following the second world war, when politicians from the right and the left talked with pride in the house about how we were able to give sanctuary to so many of the victims of Adolf Hitler’s carnage. And more recently it was a Conservative government, under Ted Heath, which did not hesitate to offer asylum to the south Asian immigrants expelled from Uganda by the thuggish Idi Amin, in contrast to Indira Gandhi’s vacillation and ultimate refusal to accept all but a few of the refugees. |
| To take the year 2013 as an example, only 4% of all immigrants to the UK were asylum seekers, therefore whilst I don’t necessarily believe that decisions on the number of asylum application should be governed at EU level, as it is being proposed, I do feel that if we are able to reduce the total number of immigrants to this country, we can then increase the number of these which are asylum seekers without having a significant effect on the total number. | |
| Every MP I know, of all political persuasions, got involved in politics with a simple desire to do good. It is a desire to see us do just a little bit more good beyond our borders – certainly to try to redress the balance from our current almost obsessive domestic pre-occupations – that has prompted me to throw my hat into the ring to become the next chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee. This body has to some extent served as the house’s conscience on international affairs in the past – and this conscience now needs, in my view, to be reawakened. | Every MP I know, of all political persuasions, got involved in politics with a simple desire to do good. It is a desire to see us do just a little bit more good beyond our borders – certainly to try to redress the balance from our current almost obsessive domestic pre-occupations – that has prompted me to throw my hat into the ring to become the next chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee. This body has to some extent served as the house’s conscience on international affairs in the past – and this conscience now needs, in my view, to be reawakened. |
| The increasing numbers of immigrants we are seeing are of course a legitimate and serious cause for concern. Voters are rightly concerned about unfettered and illegal immigration, and there has been some understandable if somewhat belated criticism of “multiculturalism”. | The increasing numbers of immigrants we are seeing are of course a legitimate and serious cause for concern. Voters are rightly concerned about unfettered and illegal immigration, and there has been some understandable if somewhat belated criticism of “multiculturalism”. |
| But we cannot simply pull up the drawbridge on our side of the Channel and leave the rest of the world to it. International affairs – to the extent of actually involving ourselves in them – is not a luxury that we can indulge in only during the good economic times when a few billion pounds can easily be found for humanitarian relief or a useful, politically expedient war. | But we cannot simply pull up the drawbridge on our side of the Channel and leave the rest of the world to it. International affairs – to the extent of actually involving ourselves in them – is not a luxury that we can indulge in only during the good economic times when a few billion pounds can easily be found for humanitarian relief or a useful, politically expedient war. |
| After America failed to get the backing of Europe over Syria and Barack Obama’s policy of “no boots on the ground” began to seem like a good Samaritan permanently looking the other way, Libya has, for instance, become a vast vacuum that terrorist organisations such as Islamic State have been tragically and murderously quick to fill. | After America failed to get the backing of Europe over Syria and Barack Obama’s policy of “no boots on the ground” began to seem like a good Samaritan permanently looking the other way, Libya has, for instance, become a vast vacuum that terrorist organisations such as Islamic State have been tragically and murderously quick to fill. |
| The isolationists say we should never have removed Gaddafi. They forget the genocide that he was about to unleash on his own people. | |
| Our involvement in toppling him makes it incumbent on each of us to now ensure that the foundations of a stable and democratic settlement in that troubled country are put in place and built upon in the years ahead. I am uncomfortably aware that what are Libya’s problems today can all too quickly become ours tomorrow, not least if the country becomes an exporter of terrorism. | |
| There are, of course, a great many politicians who care passionately about international affairs – I worked closely, for example, with Andrew Mitchell when I sat on the international development select committee and saw in him a man determined to alleviate suffering around the globe. And I have huge respect for Sir Menzies Campbell and Lord Ashdown, whose voices have carried such weight in times of international crisis. The same, of course, could be said about the late Labour leader Clement Attlee, under whom Indian independence happened. | There are, of course, a great many politicians who care passionately about international affairs – I worked closely, for example, with Andrew Mitchell when I sat on the international development select committee and saw in him a man determined to alleviate suffering around the globe. And I have huge respect for Sir Menzies Campbell and Lord Ashdown, whose voices have carried such weight in times of international crisis. The same, of course, could be said about the late Labour leader Clement Attlee, under whom Indian independence happened. |
| It is not for us to act like international policemen. Gunboat diplomacy is also, thankfully, a thing of the past. The influence we exert now on the international stage is based not on military might but on our sense of morality and our determination to see that right is done. Take Gladstone and the Bulgarian horrors. Take our country’s stand on Poland in 1939 and, again, on the rights of the Falkland islanders to self-determination in 1982. | |
| We allow our nation’s abiding commitment to global peace and security, economic progress and democratic traditions to slip away at our peril. We cannot not be interested in foreign affairs. We cannot not like foreigners. We are, whether we like it or not, responsible for each other. |