Murnaghan Interview with Diane Abbott, Shadow International Development Secretary, 15.11.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: After Friday’s attacks on Paris, attention here is beginning to turn to the UK’s involvement in Syria and whether a parliamentary vote about air strikes should be put back on the table.  Speaking this morning the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said the government won’t go to the House of Commons again without political consensus.  I am joined now by the Shadow International Development Secretary, Diane Abbot, a very good morning to you.  Surely it is now time for Labour to get its policy on Syria, on attacks on Syria, sorted out.  Young people murdered in cold blood on the streets of Paris, the French saying well it would be appreciated if one of our key allies helped us out in Syria, surely Britain has to respond.  

DIANE ABBOTT: Let me just say that first of all we have to think about the people of Paris.  Londoners all remember how we felt after 7/7 and this was ten times worse so that massacre is almost too horrific to contemplate.  As far as Labour’s policy in relation to Syria, we actually discussed this at party conference and we have a policy.  We can only agree to bomb in Syria first of all if there is a UN resolution and also, and this is my particular concern, if there is a plan to deal with the refugees that will result from further military action.   

DM: But nothing changes?  I mean party conference was well before the attacks on Paris, this is – and I hate using the phrase but it is a game changer is it not?  

DIANE ABBOTT: Yes, it is a game changer in that it makes the need to resolve the civil war in Syria even more urgent than it was and that’s part of Labour party’s policy, that we put the need for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war right at the top of the agenda.  

DM: But we have been putting a need for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war since  it started in 2011.

DIANE ABBOTT: Well that’s easy to say but …

DM: Exactly, that’s what I’m saying to you, it’s easy to say.  

DIANE ABBOTT: Well we now have the talks in Vienna which are quite hopeful and without resolution of the civil war in Syria the killing will go on.  You have to have a comprehensive military and diplomatic solution.  

DM:  No one would say it would be a solution, Britain joining in the air strikes on ISIL in Syria, but even if it’s just a gesture why not join one of our key allies?  I’ve had the French Ambassador to the United Kingdom saying it would be appreciated if one of our key allies stood shoulder to shoulder with us in this military action.  

DIANE ABBOTT: The Shadow Foreign Secretary was on earlier and he said that bombing on its own won’t solve anything.  The Labour party …

DM: I think everyone appreciates that but nevertheless they have murdered, ISIL have murdered scores of people, many of them young people going about their Friday night business, doing nothing more illegal than enjoying themselves on a Friday night, murdered in cold blood.  ISIL exist in numbers in Iraq and Syria, we are bombing them in Iraq, why not Syria?

DIANE ABBOTT: Defeating ISIL is top of the Labour party’s foreign policy agenda, it is top of Her Majesty’s government’s foreign policy agenda but when it comes to defeating ISIL it is not about dogma, it’s not about gestures, it’s about what works and in the end you have to resolve the civil war in Syria.  

DM: That’s it, we just resolve the civil war in Syria by saying it.  

DIANE ABBOTT: No, no, no, that’s not it …

DM: But the point is, you heard President Hollande say it’s a war, we have to be merciless, that was his phrase, merciless in our response.  Isn’t part of that mercilessness not trying to kill as many of them as you possibly can where and when they occur?

DIANE ABBOTT: Part of that mercilessness is defeating ISIS.  You heard the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee say that you have got to have a comprehensive military strategy and you’ve got to have a diplomatic strategy and you’ve also got to know what you’re going to do with the refugees and above all in some ways it has to be done within the framework of the rule of law.  

DM: You mentioned refugees, what do you make of that information coming from the Greek authorities that one if not two of the attackers passed through Greece as part of that huge wave of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees?  

DIANE ABBOTT: My view has always been that the EU as a whole, including the UK, have to put more resources into Greece and Italy so they can properly disperse, contain and disperse these refugees.  What’s happening.   

DM: Proper vetting but do you really think a terrorist is going to say when questioned, oh actually I’m on my way to attack Paris?

DIANE ABBOTT: No, I don’t think that but I think this idea that we are just waving people across borders is not the thing to do.  We need to give poor Greece and Italy the resources so that they can do a proper job in vetting and dispersing these refugees.   

DM: Just lastly, implications for the Investigatory Powers Bill, I know that Labour is looking very carefully at it.  I had Lord Carlile on who used to oversee anti-terror legislation saying we have got to get on with it, we’ve got to get this into law quickly, there is nothing to fear from the law abiding population, we need, the security services need this information that would be garnered through the operation of this law.

DIANE ABBOTT: We have to get on with it but it has to go through the parliamentary process and we’ll be scrutinising it in committee.  We are glad there is now judicial involvement in the process, in principle we support what the government is trying to do but we would be failing our duty as opposition if we didn’t scrutinise it properly in committee.  

DM: Okay, so 2016 is soon enough then?

DIANE ABBOTT: We have to do it as soon as possible but you are surely not saying that the legislation shouldn’t be scrutinised properly in parliament?  

DM: Well Lord Carlile is saying that it can be scrutinised as quickly as possible and that it could be on the statute book a lot sooner but that we need it because the threat is clear and present.  

DIANE ABBOTT: It’s always a mistake to short circuit processes of parliamentary scrutiny.

DM: Okay, Diane Abbott, thank you very much indeed, the Shadow International Development Secretary there.