Iraq & the Middle East - George Galloway's Speech in Parliament

Note from Sam: I usually do not simply "cut and paste" anything into this site. However, this is such an important speech that I will not contaminate it with my editing or paraphrasing. Why we do not see more people getting up on their feet and saying the same, I do not know. When we pay the price for this government's mad foreign policy, it will be of course young working class service personnel who will act as our bankers and currency exchange - god help them.

"When I was his warm-up act, I used to describe the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) as the best Foreign Secretary we never had, and his speech this evening showed why. Indeed, an alternative Administration of all the talents became clear on the Labour Benches, including the right hon. Gentleman's friends the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), and the hon. Members for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). How much stronger the Labour party's position would be in the opinion polls today if those were the men sitting around the Cabinet table, rather than the men and women who are. What a contrast there was between those shafts of light and the myopia displayed by the Foreign Secretary. So rose-tinted were her glasses that she had even spotted the first elections in Saudi Arabia. As one who follows events in the Arab world closely, I must tell the House that I missed the first elections in Saudi Arabia, probably 24 Jan 2007 : Column 1498 the un-freest, most undemocratic and most anti-democratic country on earth. So keen was the Foreign Secretary to describe the success of Anglo-American policy in the Arab world that she prayed in aid a grant to the youth parliament in Bahrain. But those were not the most foolish of the things that the Foreign Secretary said in her long speech. She talked about supporting the Government and people of Lebanon. Well, let us split that proposition. She was not much help to the Government of Lebanon when its Prime Minister was weeping on television and begging for a ceasefire, and when the British and American Governments alone in the world were refusing, indeed blocking, any attempts to demand an immediate cessation of the Israeli bombardment. Worse, she was not much help to the Government or the people of Lebanon when British airports were being used for the trans-shipment of American weapons to Israel that were raining down death and destruction on the very people of Lebanon whom she now claims to stand beside. But, of course, that was code for saying that she does not support the 1 million demonstrators in the square in Beirut who are demanding democracy. The Foreign Secretary describes the Government of Lebanon as a democratic Government. If the Minister will listen, I can educate him. There is no democratic Government in Lebanon. The Minister should know that. If there were a democracy in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah would be the President, because he would get the most votes. But of course he cannot be the President, because you have to be a Christian to be the President, and you have to be a Sunni to be the Prime Minister, and you have to be a Shi'ite to be the Speaker. What they have in Lebanon is precisely the opposite of democracy. It is a sectarian building-block Government that they have in Lebanon, and moreover one based on a census that is more than 50 years out of date. If those 1 million demonstrators had been in Ukraine or Belarus or Georgia, they would be described as the orange revolution, or given some other epithet—perhaps even "the cedar revolution". So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she talked about the peace process in Palestine and refused to condemn the theft, as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put it—he used the word—of $900 million, stolen from the Palestinian Authority. The right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), without a hint of irony, advanced the extraordinary proposition that we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, while we can steal the money of the Palestinian Administration in the occupied territories because the people voted for a Government whom Olmert, Bush and Blair did not like. So myopic was the Foreign Secretary's view that she prayed in aid an opinion poll from Basra which told us that the people had every confidence in the police—we had to send the British in to blow up a police station and kill umpteen Iraqi policemen because we said that they were about to massacre the prisoners in their jails. The Foreign Secretary prayed in aid the Iraqi Government—a virtual Government—saying that, more importantly, the Iraqi Government do not consider that they have a civil war. Of course they do not, because there is no Iraqi Government. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put it, we have installed a gang of warlords in power in Baghdad, the 24 Jan 2007 : Column 1499 heads of competing militias, some of them at war with our own soldiers in the south of Iraq. It is not a Government, but Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" that we have put in charge in Baghdad. That is not my concept. That is the concept of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton. So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she had her finger out and wagging at Iran, warning it of what it must do, or must not do in terms of nuclear weapons. She is the Foreign Secretary of a Government who are about to spend £75 billion on our own nuclear weapons, who declare themselves the best friend of Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty, and who say nothing about Pakistan, a military dictatorship acquiring nuclear weapons. It would make you laugh if it did not make you cry. Most serious of all was the extent to which the Foreign Secretary sought to lull us to sleep walk into a coming conflict with Iran. Invited by one of her colleagues to describe, as the former Foreign Secretary had, an attack on Iran as inconceivable, she refused, preferring instead the formulation that no one is contemplating it. But they are contemplating it. Israel has a war plan carefully worked out to do it. As we know from the journalism of Seymour Hersh, the greatest of all American journalists, who brought us the stories from Vietnam, American generals have to the nth degree worked out an attack upon Iran. The Foreign Secretary says that we stand by our soldiers. We stand by them so much that we pay them so little. We had to give them a Christmas bonus to make up their wages. Their families are claiming means-tested benefits and living in houses that you would not put a dangerous dog in. We send them, ill clad, ill equipped, ill armed, without armour, on a pack of lies into war after war after war. Let me invite the House to contemplate this and see if I am as right about this as I was about Iraq four years ago. If a finger is raised against Iran by Israel or the United States, the first people to pay the price will be the 7,000 young men and women of the British armed forces that we have stationed in the south of Iraq, where Iran, thanks to us, is now top dog. If Members want to know what that will look like, think about the film "Zulu", but without the happy ending. That is how irresponsible our Government are. They are part of an axis that is contemplating a war against a country that we have made powerful in a place where we have our soldiers standing in a thin red line in the sand. For the moment, the trial of Tony Blair merely takes place on Channel 4 television. The day will come, and it is coming soon, when a real trial of Tony Blair will take place in a real court."

RIP Freedom of Information Act 2000

What is it with this government?

We were told that introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would do away with anyone hiding what they would do in our name. Indeed, we are told by the Information Commissioner that “[f]rom the Data Protection Act to the Freedom of Information Act, we regulate and enforce the access to and use of personal information.”

What better accountability could we wish for in a modern democracy – control of and access to the information needed to scrutinise those using our data or making decisions in our name.

Well, forget it! We are now told that there are to be rules introduced to limit the costs spent on providing the information we are entitled to.

In addition, the costs will include time spent assessing the costs and the list of rules that apply when calculating the overall cost. There are rules about rules, rules about who can ask for information and whether simply asking the same question asked by someone else is considered acting in tandem thus depriving you of the opportunity to ask in the first place.

The fact is that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 has been a great success and has uncovered details that have embarrassed those in power by exposing matters that they wished never to see the light of day.

It is this that they hate and now they want to hobble anyone using it to get an answer. They say it is to save £100 million, but this is a joke as the same people want to spend 10's of £Billions looking at us, down to uncovering where we buy our knickers.

Why is it that they have all the funding they want to look at us, and we are denied a fraction of that in order that we can scrutinise them?

The Price of Privacy

The government's proposals to allow cross departmental dissemination of personal private data is a breach of our right to privacy.

Time and time again we are told that it is for our good, but the reality is that soon we will have no privacy left as every civil servant will be able to peruse details that will be unrelated to their professional needs, simply because access will be there.

Potentially they may want to monitor the individual for reasons other than serving their needs and whilst some think this unlikely, such open access would allow this. This is so as the IT approach to collecting this data will be riddled with error, open to abuse and will fail me and every other citizen who will pay billions in tax for the disservice.

What a price to pay for so little in terms of value for the citizen

I remember David Blunkett as Home Secretary proposing that emails should be accessed by, amongst others, the local fire authority. This was a disgrace then, but here we are again with a sledgehammer to crack a nut approach.

I recall back then asking a colleague who could not see the wrong in this, because she had “nothing to hide”, if she would object to a lowly clerk at the fire authority reading an email she had sent concerning a visit to her GP dealing with her medical treatment. She replied she would object and I pointed out that as she had nothing to hide, and by her own 'logic', she could not protest. She quickly changed her mind.

Essentially there is no difference in what I discussed back then, and what we face today. One of the other objections I have is that the public are not being told what these measures will mean to them, just as my colleague back then did not appreciate the impact of Blunkett's proposals because he did not publish them fully.

We as citizens endure scrutiny on a scale unimagined less than a generation ago. It permeates every interface with government. It involves a trade-off of the right to privacy, with the demand for access to your privacy, in order that you can access services.

An example of this is that if you want to renew your passport, you are obliged to allow your personal data to be disseminated to both public and private sector organisations in the UK. The only way you can control this, is to not renew. That is a direct assault on your rights that you are unable to resist, if you simply wish to exercise your right to travel. This is wrong.

I do not think that I can put it any better than Shami Chakrabarti who recently said “...when absolute rules like the prohibition on torture are compromised by our political rulers, how much harder to defend more subtle and qualified rights like the presumption of privacy from the chilling slogan politics of "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".”

There is a terrible wrong being done here and the foundation for that wrong was set by this government's willingness to ignore the rights of people for short-term political gain. We should all resist the rush toward a “Big Brother” society, if indeed we are not there already.

The loss of all that dosh - sad innit!

Tony Blair has said dropping a fraud probe into a Saudi arms deal was not a "personal whim" but based on "the judgement of our entire system".

Mr Blair needs to come up with something big now that there are reports that MI6 (who he has fallen out with) have refused to endorse his claim the probe into Saudi bribes would harm the UK's national interest, as opposed to worries about the loss of all that dosh.

It looks like Blair has nobody to back him up. If M16 do not know what would harm the UK's national interest, then who does?

The destruction caused by his intervention, of the separation of powers between law maker and law enforcer that is essential in a free democratic society, has come back to haunt Blair.

What price will we all pay for his abuse of our constitution (you know, the one that exists, so we are told)?

Iraqi MP Mohammed Al Deeni - a true democrat

The Iraqi MP who exposed prisoner abuse, including torture, rape and murder was refused entry into Britain on 10 January 2007. His visa application was turned down by British embassy in Jordan. Embassy officials declined to give their reasons to the British parliamentarians who had invited him.

Mohammed Al Deeni, an independent member of the parliament frequently described by British ministers as the most democratic in Iraqi history, wanted to address a meeting in the House of Commons as part of his ongoing efforts to highlight human rights abuses in Iraqi jails. He has in the past paid for his stand when 10 cousins were murdered in cold blood after being seized from a minibus following a meeting with him.

What sort of democracy are we that allows people such as Al Deen to fight for what we say we stand for, but on the other hand refuse him entry to Britain when what he has exposed in that fight embarrasses us?

He has paid dearly and we undervalue his sacrifice.

If you have the money, then why not?

Ruth Kelly's decision to purchase educational provision from the private sector for her son who has special educational needs is yet another sign of New Labour hypocrisy.

One of the Kelly's justifications for this decision is that she wants the best for her child, but in reality which parents do not want the best for their children? I know I do.

The fact is that she is getting it because she has the money whilst the vast majority of ordinary working people do not because they have no money to spare. This is a travesty. Why can they not get it? Is one of the reasons being what she knows already, that is, the help doesn't exist in the state system either partially or at all?

I interestingly heard a mother on the radio the other day who stated that to appeal the decision of her local education authority who would not statement her child, she had to attend a tribunal and pay for her own expert witnesses.

She won and succeeded in getting what her child needed despite the resistance of the purse holder. Her child had the same problems as the Kelly child. In both cases, this is something a parent would do their best to address.

She went on to say that what had annoyed her was not that Ms Kelly had done what she had, but that she had not gone through the experience that the lady had to endure herself, and as such will never be able to appreciate what it was like.

I cannot see how this Minister can now sit in judgment of anyone who has to battle through the system that we all have to use in order to get what is best for our children - or our parents, or our disabled relatives, or hospital treatment, or access to resources of any kind - when she went as far as she did to avoid this burden.

It is hypocrisy at the highest level. Kelly and this government know it is so.

Saddam Looking in a Mirror?

The pictures of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein being heckled and verbally taunted as he was about to be executed were horrible.

I know there are those who will plead the right of those animals present to behave as they did, citing the terrible deaths suffered (possibly by their own kin) by innocent Iraqi's in the past, but this was worse.

It was worse because the death of Saddam was meant to show that there is a new Iraq, free of barbarism (though one must wonder if hanging is not a form), run by democratic and decent folk – step forward the hecklers!

Bush and Blair are responsible for their cronies and butt kissers who they put into positions of responsibility acting in every way as badly as Saddam.

What a mob of gangsters (both in the coalition and Iraqi government)!

Proletariat 0, Bourgeoisie 1

How come the former world boxing champion "Prince" Naseem Hamed has been stripped of his MBE following his 15-month prison sentence for dangerous driving, and Lord Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (created Life Peer by Major in 1997), is not stripped of his title?

What is going on?

It seems that there is one rule for those in power and another for the rest of us.

Of course what Naseem did was appalling, but this is not the issue. We need to have confidence that the building blocks of the institutions of government cannot be used and abused by criminals with impunity.

It's about time we had a written constitution that gets rid of this ridiculous situation.