Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
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“We are here to look at, first, what the levels are and, secondly, how intrusive they will be. If we could achieve that and the right decision is made finally by the Minister, that will mean that the situation will be much better and, at the end of the day, that fewer people will lose their lives or become so addicted because of the desperate nature of what they have been doing in darkened rooms and behind closed doors. We want to stop that and to save lives.”
“Many betting shops are encouraged to cross over to FOBTs, or fixed-odds betting terminals, which are now B3s, and to SSBTs, or self-service betting terminals, which allow cash remote betting inside shops. The remote sector has long looked to cross-sell away from horserace betting to betting on other sports. One thing that I want to make absolutely clear is that the gambling companies are not that interested in the success or the future of horseracing per se, but just in how much money they can take out of it. I am desperately keen that the horseracing industry should thrive. I absolutely believe it offers huge prospects for those in rural areas. It is a hugely successful and now global industry, and no one supports it more than I do. I will end this by saying simply that the debate should not be about the absolute purity of no checks.”
“It wants to deal with the behaviour of punters because, as we have heard, the gambling industry makes the vast majority of its money from those who are losing money at a rate of knots. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made an interesting point, which I agreed with: often, those gamblers who have been successful end up being blocked. That information travels across the gambling companies, so a gambler who happens to be moderately or very successful finds themselves taken off the list of all those companies. They are not about openness, freedom and choice; they are the last people to be interested in that. We may be debating this, but they are not, because they do not want to lose money themselves. The important point is that the gambling industry itself has not shown a huge amount of respect for the horseracing industry.”
“My hon. Friend has made his point through me to the Minister, who I am sure will deal with it. I will say that the consultation did not happen overnight—it has been going on for some time—but I accept that others may think that they have not had enough time. In fact, the gambling industry could have made a bigger impact by taking full part, rather than not always wanting to be intruded on by questions. As has happened with the group on many occasions, many chose to stay away. I also make the point that few people will be impacted by the checks. Many of the concerns set out by punters involve the checks that the industry is already carrying out. It intrudes like mad on behaviour—that is the biggest area.”
“I apologise for intervening on the hon. Member, but this has been the case all along and in all the inquiries. The real damage lies in the slots, the fast gambling and the speed of all those chases, not in something that takes about four or five minutes to finish. This is all about the speed of gambling and the incentive to gamble quickly, quietly and in the darkness of one’s own room.”
“Following the notice that has gone to the CMA, I simply ask the Minister whether she would ask the Secretary of State to create a new PIIN on the basis that RedBird IMI has twice disrupted the Government’s efforts to properly scrutinise the purchase. Particularly with the idea of debt being loaded into the purchase, we need a further detailed investigation. I would be grateful if the Minister did that, because this could easily turn into a disaster for this Government.”
“It is hugely new for us to be told that we will not get our questions answered at the Dispatch Box. We are used to that happening anyway, but it is good to be told that it is a waste of our time being here in the first place. To press on with not being answered, I say to the Minister that I and 28 others, across all parties, wrote a letter to her Department specifying that we were all opposed to this potential takeover. We made it clear that we are not opposed to it because we dislike that particular Government—although I have to say that that may well be a feature. Rather, we would oppose it if the French Government wished to buy the newspapers, or even if this Government decided they would control them. We would oppose that on the basis that it would trample right across the idea of freedom of the press.”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Since the first group of British citizens he referred to was named, the British ex-consul general to Hong Kong has also been named in this process. Unless I have missed something, I have not heard the Foreign Office say anything about the naming of its ex-consul general in those terms. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that an ex-employee of the Foreign Office, who represented it in Hong Kong, has been named in a trial, but somehow the Foreign Office has not said a word about it?”
“Does my hon. Friend not also find it peculiar that Britain, which is the co-signatory of the agreement, has not sanctioned any of the officials responsible for the national security law, which he referred to, whereas the United States, which is not a signatory and has no historical link to Hong Kong, has sanctioned 10 of the most senior people? Does that not seem peculiar?”
“We can therefore understand that what he may or will say should almost certainly be expunged, for the simple reason that he was under duress.”
“The second point relates to the naming of those who have worked with us, from Luke de Pulford, Benedict Rogers, IPAC Hong Kong and the Japanese politician Shiori Yamao to Bill Browder, who has never had any contact with Jimmy Lai, so that is astonishing. I will not go into the details, as I am sure that will come out later on. The reality is that these people have been named on the basis of spurious links, and that is a problem. Thanks to The Washington Post , we know now that Andy Li, one of the individuals who is to give testimony—against Jimmy Lai, sadly—did voluntary work for IPAC on building a website. The Washington Post has been very clear about his mistreatment in Shenzhen prison, including credible allegations of torture.”
“I intervened on that, but it is worth stressing again. I simply cannot understand why, after the former British consul general was named, the Foreign Office has said nothing about this individual, nor has it said to China that it had no right to do that, as he was going about his lawful business as a diplomat. Nothing has been said by the Foreign Office. I have even asked the Foreign Secretary to come out and say something strong in defence of the employee—the consul general—but we have had no statement or attack on the Chinese Government about him being named in this case. I find that astonishing. I urge the Minister to make it clear now that the Chinese Government have no right to do as they have.”
“The Chinese Government shifted its policy around and claimed that he held dual nationality. Up until the last two or three weeks, the British Government went along with the Chinese charade of calling him a dual citizen. He has never been a dual citizen. He was proud of his British passport. He stayed in Hong Kong rather than fleeing, proud, as he said, that he would have the protections of his British passport. Sadly, he was badly let down. I just want to underline what my hon. Friend said on that. I want to talk about the human rights abuses in Hong Kong, particularly what has happened in the last few weeks. The naming of British citizens as co-conspirators marks the first time that the Hong Kong authorities have sought to incriminate foreign nationals under the national security law.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I will certainly pay attention to your time limit. So much has already been said. In the past that would not stop us repeating it, but I will underline it rather than repeat it. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has made an excellent contribution. I want to make two or three points. I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. It seems rather depressing that we have been here so many times in this Chamber and the main Chamber to debate this subject. It is worth underlining my hon. Friend’s point that in all the debates until today we have struggled to get the British Government to recognise that Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. He has never held a Chinese passport and arrived in Hong Kong as a minor.”
“I would be grateful if the Government did that now, after all the arbitrary detentions and the final attempt to get Jimmy Lai named as a British citizen, which at last we have done. This is a terrible problem. China is determined to take on the rest of the democratic world. It believes its form of government and its abuses are the right way to run a country. It is now in league with North Korea, Russia, and Iran. We see its hand and those of its allies undermining democracy and peace all over the world now. If we do not face up to that and recognise that it is just the beginning of what we will have to deal with, that will be an abject failure of British foreign policy.”
“I want to say one thing very clearly: we have banged on and on about the failure in Hong Kong, the terrible abuses, and the British judges now working under the ridiculous farrago of the national security law but pretending that common law somehow still rules. Other countries have done far more to make things clear. America has even issued a booklet to all its businesses to say that, now that the national security law is here, the English common law that now exists in Hong Kong will no longer protect them in any way. We have done nothing on that. I have urged the Government to tell British businesses to be very careful when they do business through Hong Kong, but we have not done that yet.”
“Finally, will the Minister state clearly that, if Interpol came under pressure from the Chinese Government to do something under Interpol’s rules in relation to the British citizens China has named—to require their presence, or to require the British Government or others to secure them themselves pending any expedition arrangements, or to do whatever China wishes—the British Government would refuse any co-operation whatsoever with Interpol, because those citizens were named incorrectly? I would like that to be clear, because many of them are now worried that if the British Government do not make that clear, here and now, they may face other pressures that would be insurmountable and unsupportable. In line with what you said, Mr Twigg, I will come to a close and let others speak.”
“I will be grateful if the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, makes it very clear whether that is correct. Have we now an official policy that there will be no further pressure on China over sanctions of officials, or is that untrue and incorrect? I would be grateful if she made that very clear to us all. The other element, which is wholly relevant and a real problem, is whether the Government have made representations with regard to the mistreatment of the witnesses in this case, leading also to torture. Have they made any representations at all about the way they have been treated, other than the statement made by the Minister for Security with regard to the naming of British citizens?”
“I simply note that the US Government, who have no real historical links with Hong Kong, have sanctioned a significant number of people, whereas the reality is that we have sanctioned nobody in Hong Kong—none of the officials who we know have trashed the Sino-British agreement and upturned the whole idea of democracy, and are persecuting peaceful democracy campaigners. All that, yet there are still no sanctions in place for any of the officials who exercised that power and continue to do so. I now wish to ask a question of the Minister. I say this very carefully: I have heard that the UK Government may be going further backwards on this matter, and that it may now be British Government policy that the Foreign Office of the UK Government has taken the decision neither to nominate nor to further sanction any Chinese officials.”
“I completely agree. The hon. Gentleman knows well that the Chinese Government have been oppressive of Christian Churches and the Falun Gong, and we know what is going on with the genocide among the Uyghur, a Muslim Turkic group. All of this is dangerous. I come back to the simple question that I put to the Catholic Church: what is its arrangement with the Chinese Government, which it has refused to publish, and why, as a senior Christian Church, did it not offer more protections to the other Christian Churches? That is a big question, which the Vatican could answer by publishing its agreement, which it refuses to do. I know that the Minister will not want to speculate about sanctions.”
“In his concluding remarks, will the Minister please address this issue? It is more than high time. This is a cross-party issue; I know that those on the Opposition Front Bench have called for it. We have to face this. The IRGC must now be proscribed and the banks of Iran shut down in the UK. The IRGC can no longer continue to use the UK as a base for further operations. I congratulate the Government on their decision on Hizb ut-Tahrir, but we should go a lot further. We need to protect our citizens.”
“Most people do not understand what “From the river to the sea” means, notwithstanding the fact that Hassan Nasrallah made it very clear that the chant means clearing the Jews out of Palestine, and Israel being gone. It is as simple as that. He said that that is what it means, yet people chant it and the Metropolitan police still does not seem to understand that it is an aggressive, antisemitic chant. I have a Jewish sister-in-law who told me the other day that she has never felt more under threat and less safe in this country in her whole life. What a statement to make in this United Kingdom, which upholds freedom of speech and the rule of law—that a Jewish person now feels desperately under threat just getting up and going to work in the morning. That is simply not right and we need to deal with it. Who is behind all this? The IRGC.”
“Don’t we think the American Government are quite capable of finding ways to engage Iran if they have to?” They then said, “Well, of course we would lose our ability to influence Iran.” I asked them, “Exactly what influence have we had over Iran in the last five years?” They said, “The release of hostages.” I said, “No, you didn’t. You paid for those big time, and they were hostage-taking for that.” We have no influence over Iran. Iran is dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of that threat around the world. With two Iranian banks sitting in the City of London, we know how the money is transferred to support some of these organisations, creating some of the nonsense on the marches.”
“Executions, incarcerations and abuse are taking place, as we heard yesterday in a report delivered here in the House of Commons. What do the Government plan to do about the IRGC? America has asked the British Government to proscribe it, and we simply have not yet responded. I asked a nameless individual who is involved with this, and with the Government, why they have not proscribed the IRGC. They said, “It keeps a back channel for us to get America through to Iran.” I said, “What? We now have to act as a back channel for the Americans?”
“My personal view is very clear: Iran is linked to Russia, and what is going on takes the attention off Russia and divides America’s ability to supply arms and weaponry. It creates a major debate, which is going on in the United States at the moment, about giving supplies to the Ukrainians to defend themselves, and it also takes the attention away from China’s aggression towards Taiwan. Iran is part of the axis of authoritarianism which also includes China, North Korea, Russia, and now Syria and others in the middle east. Iran is very dangerous, and the IRGC is the arm of the Iranian Government. Not only is Iran behind all the attacks, but it continues to persecute Christians to a degree that we simply cannot understand.”
“Right now, Iran is directly involved in what is going on in the Red sea to try to shut down the free world’s business arrangements and affect the cost of goods. Another part of it is that Iran was quite clearly involved in the attacks that took place in October on peaceful Israeli citizens and others, the murders and the hostage taking. How does it benefit from this? Iran knew that Israel would have to respond. That was exactly what the whole plan was: to launch a vile attack, murder enough Jews and make sure that Israeli territory was invaded, so that Israel was bound to attack. I am not going to spend time debating exactly how far Israel should have gone or any of that, which is a separate issue.”
“When the Foreign Secretary says to Iran that it has some responsibility for this, as I think he did quite recently, Iran’s response is, “Mind your own business and leave that alone.” It is still supplying the Houthis with weapons and, if we do not get our action right, they could shut down the Red sea for all trade. When I was approached by somebody who had been protesting, I asked, “Are you aware of what is going on here?” They said, “What does it matter? These people in Israel are persecuting the Palestinians in Gaza, so they’re right to do this.” I replied, “So you don’t mind massive inflation hikes and huge extra costs. You don’t mind the fact that trade cannot travel down the shorter route and all the other considerations.” They just looked at me blankly, because they had not understood what we were talking about.”
“An astonishing number of executions is now taking place, under cover of what is going on in Gaza. It is quite appalling. We know that the IRGC is behind Hezbollah. It directs, it arms and it makes sure that Hezbollah acts as its arm in Lebanon and beyond. It is attacking Israel right now to keep Israeli forces tied up in northern Israel for tactical reasons. The second part is that we are now engaged in trying to protect our shipping in the Red sea. Who is supplying the Houthi rebels—the terrorists—with arms and direction? It is Iran, which has upped its supply of rockets to the Houthis.”
“I want to come to the other bit here, which is to do with the IRGC. I will not spend too long on this, but I want to make this point, because these organisations are linked. We are proscribing an organisation that is dangerous, vile, antisemitic and abusive, but there is another organisation whose fingers extend into all these organisations around the world and here in the UK: the IRGC. It makes possible much of what goes on in terms of the attitudes towards antisemitism, the attacks on people in a democracy, and the misogyny and homophobia within these organisations. It is not just one element; it is complete. We know now that, since the attacks in October, Iran has accelerated its executions of those who have protested against the current regime.”
“It has also supported other groups in their attacks on Israel, as has been said already. Hizb ut-Tahrir celebrated the October murders and the taking of hostages, and it has encouraged terrorism globally, but it has also provided excuses for some of the nonsense being said at the moment on some of the marches. People do not seem to understand what the organisation is saying. I support my hon. Friend’s call to make sure that its online activities are sought out and shut down, and that those involved in them are prosecuted under the criminal code. That is critical, so I welcome my Government’s decision to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir. It is worth bearing in mind—I want to come back to this in a second—that, as my hon. Friend said earlier, there are 79 terrorist organisations proscribed here in the UK, and this will now add to that.”
“Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and my right hon. Friend the Minister have already made clear. Antisemitism is at the core of its whole being. It is not an organisation that is passingly antisemitic; antisemitism is its core belief. Let us be clear that the killing of Jews is a priority for Hizb ut-Tahrir, and its activities here in the UK, as a result of the protection it is no longer to have, have influenced a lot of people who do not really understand what is going on in the middle east and who settle on the idea that Hizb ut-Tahrir is somehow espousing the views of a people who are persecuted abroad. It is not; Hizb ut-Tahrir is talking about the persecution and eventual eradication of the Jewish people. Hizb ut-Tahrir is antisemitic and racist, as my hon. Friend said.”
“I rise to support the Government. The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue, but it is always good when it happens. I continue to welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to his position. Both of us, of course, have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, and I may touch on this in a second. The proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir is overdue because it has been well known for quite some time here that the UK has been at the centre of operations. I am always concerned about how long it sometimes takes us in the UK to openly recognise that there are forces at work within this United Kingdom, using our freedoms and our judicial system to protect themselves while they promote the most ghastly behaviour and attitudes. After all, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organisation, as my hon.”
“I have seen Ministers come and go at the Dispatch Box who are told one thing by HMRC, leave their position and then come back and say, “I did not know half of the stuff that was going on.” I simply say that there is a problem with HMRC.”
“I will try not to repeat everything that has been said, but it is very difficult not to. One thing relevant to this debate that I discovered in government, and that I have constantly observed, is that HMRC is a very peculiar Department. HMRC is unaccountable; it is the only Department that does not publish accounts every year, so there is no scrutiny of moneys lost or failed to be gained. HMRC acts independently, with many civil servants going on radio and television, not reliant on Ministers to take the responsibility for them. That has been one of the biggest problems: the backdrop to this issue is that HMRC operates almost with impunity.”
“Absolutely, which brings me back to the point I was just making. I mean no insult to the civil servants, who work very hard; it is simply that the culture of HMRC is one of impunity. It does not behave like many other Government Departments. We have problems with other Departments—I ran one, so I know what that is all about—but HMRC acts very differently from them, and ultimately it is protected by the Treasury. That is where one of the biggest problems arises, and it is why it is so difficult to get any information out of HMRC, because even the Ministers who are in charge of it seem unable to command or direct it to provide that information. I make that observation from having worked in government.”
“I agree. I did not intend my speech to head off down this track, but I will observe that it has now become clear that HMRC is unable to find any legal basis to justify its claim that it has to pursue individuals, but not those who promoted the schemes. HMRC has tried to deny that for some time, but it has now become very clear; even its head, the permanent secretary, has stated that “In recent months I have repeatedly tried to obtain legal analysis to understand the strength of our claim with very little success. For yesterday’s hearing we were initially given a summary of avoidance wins, some of which seemed to have nothing to do” with the schemes. I simply say that HMRC still cannot justify the legal basis for pursuing individuals and not going after those who promoted the schemes.”
“It is very clear now, and I hope the Minister agrees, that we are long past the point where we need to start recognising that this is not the way for any Government Department to behave when dealing with an issue such as this that has clearly created a huge problem. My constituents and many others who have faced this issue should not be pursued in a way that treats them from the start as a criminal, rather than as somebody involved in something that HMRC never said was illegal at the time, but is now pretending that it is. I hope the Government will now recognise that we do not want to see a repeat of what happened with the Post Office scandal as a result of HMRC’s bad behaviour.”
“As we have discovered, HMRC has no legal basis for doing that, so the whole thing has become a terrible mess. I congratulate those who brought forward this debate, because there is so much more here that needs to be said. I just want to conclude by saying that this has been going on for too long, with laws changed retrospectively, denials about what HMRC was doing, bullying and intimidation, and a failure to come clean about the processes engaged in all of this. It is so familiar; as the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said, we are in the middle of the problem over the Post Office, and we see the same things in that process. We have been seeing the same denials, protections and pretences with the loan charge for a long time.”
“HMRC got to see elements of the report before it was even published, which is astonishing to me as we were given a clear understanding that it was to be independent. There is much more that needs to be done, and that review is by no means the end of it. I was surprised when my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who was the Minister at the time, said: “We…have plans under way to crack down further on the promoters of these avoidance schemes.” It turns out that he did not. Why is a Minister allowed to stand at the Dispatch Box to make a statement drafted by civil servants, which we then find out is not right? He was not right: HMRC was going after the individuals, not those who promoted the schemes.”
“All these people deserve a process that is better, fairer, open and reasonable and that goes after those who originally promoted the schemes. These people were under the impression—as was the case—that the schemes were quite legal. The important point is that HMRC conjured up a retrospective process to deal with this, which is appalling. Historically, that has not been done—you deal with where you were at the beginning—but HMRC felt it had lost a whole load of taxation and did not want to blame itself. What it did was to go after those individuals, threaten them and cajole them. An inquiry took place, but it now appears that the Morse review was not entirely independent. I gave some evidence, as many did, to the original inquiry, and I assumed at the beginning that it was completely independent. In fact, it turns out that it was not.”
“Gareth Lloyd says that “Facing and now paying the loan charge has meant years of stress with a constant stream of demands and letters from HMRC…when I should have been enjoying watching my young family grow up I’ve been constantly at fear of potentially losing our home.” Joe Green says “Nine years of worry, nine years of anxiety, nine years of not knowing what to expect from HMRC other than continual bullying tactics to try and extort monies from me” with threats. Karen Duberry says that she was “Shocked and alarmed when I learnt of the loan charge. I felt alone, scared, threatened and worried for me and my family…The mental stress on me and my family has been immense”. We know that because at the far extreme of these cases, people have committed suicide, but there are many other problems between the extremes.”
“I am conscious of time. If my right hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, others have to speak, and I am going to try to stick to Madam Deputy Speaker’s prescription. I apologise to him. I will quickly raise the cases of three of my constituents —Gareth Lloyd, Joe Green and Karen Duberry—all of whom have been facing terrible impositions. I am sure many colleagues have seen similar cases.”
“A simple point occurs to me: the real similarity between the Horizon programme and this situation is that those who were prosecuted under Horizon and put in jail and so on had it put about by the Post Office that they were greedy people who had stolen money, so the public at first did not have any sympathy. Similarly, in this matter, HMRC has basically said that they were greedy people evading tax that other people then had to pick up and pay. The public still have not picked up on that. These people were not doing that—that is the key point—and breaking through that will get public support for something to change.”
“I get all of that and my right hon. Friend is right, but there is a peculiarity about HMRC, with its powers and lack of accountability. It does not publish accounts, and Ministers come and go; they do not really run that Department. That really is the issue. Bad as it might be elsewhere, it is astonishingly bad now because of HMRC’s behaviour.”
“I fully support my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I welcome both his statement about the action he took on the Houthi and the other part of the statement about Ukraine, because we must support Ukraine and its future. On the reality of the Houthi, we know that Iran has supported, has supplied and continues to direct the Houthi in their attacks; it supported and directed Hamas in their brutal attacks in October; and it has armed and directs Hezbollah on a regular basis and tells them what to do, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We understand all that, so why are we still reluctant to proscribe the IRGC, which is responsible for so much of the co-ordination of that work? There are still two Iranian banks in the City of London feeding money to those terrible organisations.”
“(Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what steps he is taking to support Jimmy Lai during his trial and if he will call for his immediate and unconditional release.”
“Will the Government now sanction John Lee and others responsible for Hong Kong’s national security law? After all, the US has sanctioned 10 people and we have sanctioned none. Are the UK Government considering how to allow Hong Kong asylum applications to switch to British National (Overseas) applications to save all the heartache? As we approach Christmas, Mr Speaker, this brave and devoted Christian will—”
“We must be on our toes and realise that their target is democracy itself. Given that, will the Government reconsider their words in the integrated review and reinstate the idea that China is a systemic threat, not just to us but to the very values that we seek? I must tell the Government that an individual already known to me and some others is being used in the persecution of Jimmy Lai. We know that he has been tortured to give evidence, so, clearly, his evidence cannot be relied on. In the light of that, will the Government give a commitment today that if and when UK or other citizens are targeted through the evidence at Jimmy Lai’s trial, concrete actions will be taken to protect them, and that we will do so by working with our allies, including the US, Japan, and others in Europe? This is a very serious issue and it may yet erupt.”
“I recall that at the time of its signing, the ambassador in Beijing, Percy Cradock, said of China’s leaders that they may be “thuggish dictators” but that they were “men of their word” and could be “trusted to do what they promise”. How history always shows us wrong. We cannot trust thuggish dictators, and they have trashed the Sino-British agreement without so much as a by-your-leave. Instead, we now have political persecution, destruction of press freedoms, forced confessions and the targeting of foreign nationals as a matter of course. The national security law is the key, because it has been stripping away their rights, and particularly those of Jimmy Lai, who faces a lifetime in prison. A new axis of totalitarian states has formed, including China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and Syria.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her response. Jimmy Lai is and has always been a full British citizen and he has never held a Chinese passport, and therefore he should have been publicly recognised by the Government some time ago. However, I welcome the change in rhetoric by the Foreign Secretary, who said today that “Jimmy Lai is a British citizen” and called on the Chinese Government to release him. I am pleased that there seems to have been a shift in policy. Notwithstanding that, I and hon. Friends have raised the issue of his citizenship with the Foreign Office to no avail, until now. At the heart of the issue lies the Sino-British agreement.”