November 2016 – Page 5

Joint article with Jo Cox Daily Telegraph 11 January 2016

Joint article with Jo Cox Daily Telegraph 11 January 2016

In order to break the siege, you need to first break the silence surrounding it.”

The person who spoke these words was in Yarmouk, a camp in Syria’s capital, Damascus, besieged for two years by the Syrian government, causing a reported 200 people to die of hunger. In nearby Madaya, 40,000 people have been denied any assistance since October. Images of emaciated Syrians – reminiscent of the images we saw in Srebrenica, and we all know how that ended – have emerged over the past week; images of children forced to survive on rotting leaves and water with spices in, their skin stretched thin over their young bones. Their mothers helpless.

As a former aid worker and a close observer of what happened in Bosnia, we are used to seeing suffering. But what is happening in Madaya matches the worst the world has seen in recent years.

The UN estimates that 400,000 people have been systematically denied food, medicine, water in medieval siege conditions in Syria: the real figure is probably nearer to 1 million. Meanwhile the Syrian Government plays grandmothers footsteps with the international community: besiege a city, wait for the political pressure to build, make limited or phony concessions, and then, when everyone has lost interest, continue as before. Last year the UN made 91 requests of the Syrian government to secure humanitarian access across conflict lines. Less than a third of those have been approved. In total, only 13 cross-line convoys were completed.

It is in this context that we should view the UN aid convoy heading for Madaya. Even if the Syrian Government is serious this time about allowing the convoy through, there will be many armed groups on the way who can stop it, or insist on a price for letting it pass – just as happened when the UN did this to relieve starving communities in Bosnia. The UN and the British Government must keep up the pressure and break these sieges and pressure EU partners to join in. Only if we do this can we save the lives of those in Madaya, but also the hundreds of thousands of others in less high-profile hell holes. Negotiating an alternative air route to supplement – or if necessary replace – the land route to get aid to Madaya is a very effective way of keeping that pressure up.

Some argue that flying aid in is too dangerous because this is Syrian air-space and Assad has sophisticated Russian air defence systems. The answer to this is simple. Pressure Russia to agree to the airdrops and get their Syrian friends to do so too. It will be difficult for Russia to refuse in the face of the humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes in Madaya. Who knows in Putin’s push to build international support – he may even want to join in?

We faced the same problems when the US flew life saving air-drops into Srebrenica, where the Serbs also had Russian air defence missiles in place. We didn’t let it stop us then and it shouldn’t now.

Britain is the second largest contributor of humanitarian aid to the UN Syria appeal – something we should be proud of. The Government was also instrumental in getting Security Council backing for the UN to deliver aid across conflict lines and across Syria’s borders to get to all those who need it. The job is not yet done.

The UN ‘welcomed’ Thursday’s announcement that aid would get into Madaya. Humanitarian aid is not a luxury. It is a right, enshrined in international law, reiterated in numerous Security Council Resolutions. The legal mandate is there. Humanitarians must use it. In the unnecessary days of negotiation between the Syrian Government giving permission and the UN trucks moving, more people have died.

Next month, the UK will host a conference on aid for Syrian refugees and protection for those still in Syria. This is an invaluable opportunity to galvanise support for the millions affected by the Syria conflict. That conference will be a sham if it is not able to offer hope for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians living under siege in Syria.

The means are there. The legal case is clear. The humanitarian need is overwhelming. And so is the public support. All that is lacking is the political will.

If we could do it for the starving in besieged Srebrenica and again for the besieged Yassidis in northern Iraq, there should be no reason it cannot be done for those suffering and dying, in besieged Madaya.

There is no time to waste.

Lords reform 27 June 2011 The Times

Lords reform 27 June 2011 The Times

Those who oppose parliamentary reform have used always four arguments. There is no public call for it; it will all end in constitutional collapse; it is vandalism to let the elected into our quiet groves of wisdom – they won’t handle things half as well as we do. And why fix what isn’t broken?

All these arguments were on full display in the Lords last week and will be, no doubt in the Commons debate today.

Its true the public are not clamouring for a democratic Lords. But they have told us clearly enough that they don’t like our way politics is, as the gap between Government and Governed grows wider. We need to respond to that call and the Lords cannot be exempted from this process.

What the constitutional armageddonists say they are frightened of, meanwhile is that elected Lords would challenge the primacy of the Commons. I don’t want to see that either. But why should it? There are 61 elected second Chambers around the world. In none has election of the second chamber led to threatening the primacy of the first. Is Britain’s constitution really so weak that it would risk collapse if its second chamber was elected, like the overwhelming majority of others worldwide? Those who extol the magical virtues of an unwritten constitution, cannot then say that nothing may ever change unless the consequences are written down!

As for wisdom versus democracy, well I concede; there is a reservoir of expertise in the Lords. But it is not evenly spread, unique, or, much of it, up to date either. Most of it exists on the cross benches. So if some find simple democracy too radical, maybe we should preserve this 20% provided they are independently appointed. That would be uncomfortable for those who think democracy best. But if that’s the price for an overwhelmingly elected Lords, then I, for one, would swallow it.

Then there’s the charge that a democratic Lords would mean a more political Lords (perish the thought!). As though it wasn’t political already! There are 201 ex-MPs who have humped their politics the short distance from the green benches in the Commons to the red ones in the Lords – not counting those who are there because they have filled Party coffers. The overwhelming majority of those who attend the Lords are there for political reasons and have a political job to do. We are – all of us – political placemen (or women), put there by a system of patronage, in the hands of those in power. I thought that went out with Stuart Kings!

Our second Chamber is too important to be a retirement home for ex-MPs passed their sell-by date (myself included), when it could be properly democratically elected.

The House of Lords is already political. How could it be otherwise? The question is whether its politicians are put there by the powerful – or the people.

The Lords should have two functions. The first is to be a revising Chamber. This it does well.

The second should to act as part of our system of checks and balances, to stand up to an over mighty executive, backed by an overwhelming majority in the Commons, when they try to do foolish things like the Poll Tax – or launching us into an illegal war. This we do, hardly at all. How can we? We are the Government’s creature.

The very first thing a new Government does is appoint enough new peers to create a majority for itself in the Lords, which replicates the one it has just won in the Commons! Which means we are all too frequently reduced to a reflection which magnifies the power of the Executive, rather than a counter balance which, subject to the Commons’ ultimate authority, checks it. We may have a bicameral system when it comes to the small thing of amending legislation. But when it comes to the big thing – acting as a check on the executive – ours is no more than a mono-cameral system with a bungalow annexe.

Last week Labour old warhorses in the Lords ignored their manifesto commitment to an elected Chamber and once again joined backwoodsmen of the Tory right to block radical change.

There is a chance for a great reform here. In the end, it may all depend on whether Labour in the Commons is prepared, to put its money where its manifesto was. If it doesn’t, then, we may lose another chance for change. Then we will know that, once again, Labour just cannot be trusted with reform.

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Lords reform 25 Aug 2014

Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced yet more appointments to the Lords. The Liberal Democrat peers were appointed on the pledge ‘to abolish themselves’.

The Lords has two functions. To revise and to hold the Executive to account. The first it does quite well, the second it does not at all – how can it when it is a creature of the Executive; when it is deliberately overloaded with new Peers to give the Government of the day a hand me down majority whose job is not to challenge them, but to push through what they want.

The Lords is wholly undemocratic and will never have the legitimacy it needs for a healthy democracy until this is changed .

Every party in their manifestos hints at reform or abolition of the second chamber, but the Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to it. So today we recommit our party – and its new Peers – to working actively for the reform of the House of Lords and ideally its abolition in favour of an elected second chamber. We urge the other parties to join us in this effort.

There is a simple reason for this and it is called democracy; the people’s laws should only be made by those whom the people have elected. They should not be made by cronies appointed by the Prime Minister.

We Lib Dems wanted reform in the last parliament. But, in the Lords, Tory backwoodsmen helped by labour deadbeats scuppered it. The argument was that there was no public call for reform then. Well there is now!

Now is the time to try again.This time, we call on them to join us and make our second chamber fit for purpose as part of a modern democratic system, not a medieval relic from a bygone age. The Liberal Democrats stand ready to work with anyone, in any party, to create a wholly, or at the very least, mainly elected second chamber. Our new Peers in the Lords will add weight to our voice and our ability to make this happen.

The Lords was already the largest legislative assembly in the world outside of China and costs taxpayers around £100million a year to run – even before yesterday’s announcement. There are 56 two-chamber Parliaments in the world. The overwhelming majority are properly elected. Britain, in the dubious company of Belize, Burkina Faso, Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the disgraceful exceptions.

We send our soldiers abroad to fight (and sometimes die) for democracy. But we do not yet even have it fully in our own Parliament.

The time to put this right is now. To delay further in the face of recent abuses would be an affront to our democracy and to our country.

The Lords reform Mail on Sunday 9 July 2012

Mail on Sunday 9 July 2012

The case for reforming the House of Lords is simple enough.

In a democracy those who make the people’s laws should be the people’s representatives. Not appointees of the Prime Minister; or the descendants of the male favourites of past Kings; or those of the female ones they went to bed with.

We send our young soldiers to other people’s countries to die for democracy – and kill for it too. Yet we haven’t got it in our own country. With the rest of the world on the streets calling for democracy, we Lords can’t be bunkered down in our golden Chamber, resisting it.

More than 50% of these appointed peers come from London and the South East, while only 25% of the people do. How can we take decisions for the whole country when we only represent a tiny portion of it? There are seven times more peers aged over 90 than under 40. At 71, I am a positive stripling! How can such a gerontocracy represent our whole vibrant nation? And once a Lord forever a Lord. At present you can never be removed. Even if you cheat or go to jail. How can we help bring new standards to politics, when we can’t even kick out the criminals in our own numbers?

We are not just facing an economic crisis. We are also facing a political one. The people have completely lost confidence in the politicians – and with good reason. The gap between government and governed has grown dangerously wide. If we will not refresh our democracy we could see it under threat. How can the Lords be excluded from that process?

Why dysfunctional? Because the Lords has two jobs to do. Revise the laws that come from the Commons and hold the Government to account. The first we do well. The second we do not at all. We are graciously permitted to go round with a golden poop-scoop clearing up the legislative mess left by the House of Commons Elephant at the other end of the corridor. But when it comes to holding the Executive to account we are wholly incapable of doing it. How can we hold the Government to account, when we are the creatures of its patronage? If the Lords had been able to do this job properly, we would probably never have had the Poll Tax or, I fancy, the Iraq war either. Lord Hailsham famously warned of the dangers of an “elected dictatorship” in the House of Commons. If ever there was a time for a strong democratically based second Chamber to buttress our democracy, it is now.

Whatever view you take of the Cameron/Clegg proposals nobody can seriously call them ‘ill-considered’. They were preceded by a Royal Commission, four White Papers and three Joint Committees. If this is so “ill-considered”, how come every Party called for it in their manifestos at the last election? (Labour, now cynically inventing reasons to scupper the Bill to make trouble for the Government, have believed in it for decades).

The Cameron/Clegg reform Bill does not “trash” the Lords, as some claim; it retains the best of what we have now and discards the worst. The new more democratic “Lords” will remain different from the Commons; they will be more separated from the short termism of a five year electoral cycle; less likely to cow-tow to the whips and the media. But the Commons will remain more powerful and able to get its way if it insists. Which means more democracy, but no deadlock; more power to scrutinise, but no power to paralyse. That’s proper democracy in action, not a sham based on an ancient gilded anachronism that should have gone long, long ago.

Some write of the “amazing expertise” in the existing Lords. They are right to do so: we have some very eminent, independent figures there. But they are far outnumbered by the retired, the rejected, the defeated and the sometimes down right dead-beat from the House of Commons. For them (us) and for the many who became Lords not because of their public service, but because they bank-rolled a political Party, the Lords is indeed a most comfortable and convenient retirement home. But is that a reason to keep it? Of course some of those ex-MPs can be experts too. But that’s not why they were put there. My colleague Alex Carlile, who wrote in this paper last Sunday, is not a Lord because he is a great legal eagle (which he undoubtedly is), but because he is a former Liberal Democrat MP. I should know. I recommended him for a peerage in the first place.

And that expertise will not, as he claimed last week, be ‘lost’ in the new “Lords”. Quite the contrary. The present Lords has some 80 active ‘crossbench’ experts amongst our 800 appointees. The new “Lords” will have 90 appointed experts out of 450. You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to see that the influence of non-party “experts” on Lords decisions will not go down in future, it will go up!

Alex also argued that the reformed Lords will be “decided in the tribal atmosphere of party committees”. Actually the electoral system proposed will actively discourage this and leave the ultimate choice to the voters. And that’s the point. At present the voters don’t get a choice at all; its only the Prime Minister’s choice that counts.

If we don’t reform, then the number of Lords could well rise from 800 to over 1000! All of whom can draw their untaxed allowance of £300 a day – for life. Cost? £18.7m and counting. More than double what it was a decade ago. And set to double again in the next decade. Everyone else is having to trim; the Lords is getting fatter and fatter.

Some say our priority now should be the economy. And so it should. But Parliament can do more than one thing at a time. When Britain’s young men were storming the beaches of Normandy, fighting for our very existence, the Commons was debating the post war education system. If that crisis could not stop us making this country fitter for the future, why should this one?

Others ask “why reform now?”

Because we have to refresh our democracy to put politics in touch with the people again. Because the Lords can’t be exempt from that. Because the Lords can’t do its job of holding the Government to account while we are its creature, rather than the people’s servants. Because while everyone else is having to cut, the Lords, already bloated with Members, is only set to get fatter. Above all, because in a nation proud of its democracy we should be ashamed that part of our “Mother” of Parliaments remains an undemocratic left-over from a by-gone age.

I came into the Lords to see it become a chamber created by the will of the people, not the patronage of the politicians. Next week the Commons will get its chance to do this. They should take it. This is the people’s business which has been delayed too long.

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London Elections 24 April 2012

The left does not have to hold its nose and vote for Ken – Ashdown

I understand why many voters on the progressive wing of politics are struggling with voting for Ken Livingstone.

His campaign been sad, bad, desperate and divisive.

He has just one big idea – a 7% cut in tube fares. A perfectly decent policy at a time when fares have risen remorselessly for years on end, but the problem is he can’t do it and he knows it.

TfL knows it too, having worked out that if they implemented such a cut the money would run out and in three years time your fares would have to be hiked up by an eye-watering 38% on top of inflation.

Ken’s been around a long time, He’s done some good things in the past and and he’s learned a trick or two along the way. One is how to play “dog whistle” politics – sending out subliminal messages which most people can’t hear, but calls in the people you want to hear.

Ken Livingstone knows exactly what he is doing when he describes the Conservative Party as ‘riddled’ with homosexuals. He knows what he is doing when he connects Judaism and wealth.

I do not believe for a second that Ken Livingstone is an anti-Semite or a homophobe – he has a proud record of fighting for gay rights – but he knows what gallery he is playing to.

Some people say this is disreputable. Perhaps it is. But its certainly sad, bad, desperate and divisive. Londoners deserve better and voters proud of their progressive credentials are right to think twice about backing him. And that’s without even going into the row about his personal tax arrangements.

You must not interpret this as an endorsement of Boris Johnson. These might be the heady days of coalition but I cannot and will not ever recommend voting for a Conservative.

I believe the people of London are fed up with choosing between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. I believe the appetite is there for change and the opportunity is there for a credible, progressive candidate like Brian Paddick to win.

Whether you share my view or not, this election presents you with an opportunity to make a positive choice, not just to cast a vote for the lesser of two evils.

Last May, many of you will have voted in favour of using the alternative vote system. It is a form of this system that we use to elect your Mayor.

You can cast your first vote positively for the person you would most like to see in charge of London. If that person does not receive enough support then your second preference vote will count instead.

If you want to prevent Boris Johnson winning you can vote against him twice, with both your heart and your head.

And if the thought of backing Ken Livingstone and his brand of opportunistic and divisive politics leaves you cold, you can cast your first preference vote for Brian Paddick instead.

In Brian Paddick we have a liberal progressive of the utmost integrity who has dedicated his life to public service and bringing Londoners together.

From social house building and targeting fare cuts on the low paid to tackling racism in the police and giving young people a positive alternative to gangs, he has the ideas to bring some social justice to the capital.

Those of you who consider yourself on the left do not have to hold your nose and vote for Ken. Not when Brian Paddick offers such a positive alternative.

Little England Guardian 2 Nov 2012

Little England

The Little Englanders seem set to get their Little England.

Three factors push powerfully towards this outcome. The dynamic towards deeper integration south of the Channel; towards separatism north of the border. And towards growing isolationism in English opinion.

Of course the move towards deeper integration of the Euro Seventeen is far from certain. There are big hurdles to overcome; the agreement of their peoples and the scepticism of the markets to mention but two. It could all still easily fail. If it does then the following, does not follow – but the collapse of the Euro and perhaps the European Union as we know it, probably does. With incalculable damage from which semi-detached Britain will not be excluded.

If however the Seventeen can make it work – and that is the Government’s assumption – then the Seventeen will have their own President, their own bureaucracy and their own interests to pursue.

Then there will be a two speed Europe with Britain in the outer ring, heading fast for the exit.

Then the Seventeen will inevitably caucus to advantage their own interests and disadvantage others – why should they not? How far they will go we do not know, but it would be surprising if they did not, for instance prefer to promote Frankfurt over the City of London. Mr Cameron assures us he will not let this happen; but would he please tell us how?

How, too will he “repatriate substantial powers” from the EU if, as seems very likely, the rest (or most of them) say No? What will he do then? He can talk the talk today, but how will he walk the walk tomorrow? And even if some crumbs are allowed to fall his way, these will never be enough to satisfy the ravenous Eurosceptic beast on his back benches, whose might has now increased enormously and whose stomach is rumbling for more. They and UKIP are the clear winners of the last few weeks.

Unless the Prime Minister can face them down – and I am not convinced he has either the will or means to do so – then we are firmly launched on a dynamic which moves the Tory Party from grumbling about the EU to a permanent state of anger at being “ignored” by it.

Future EU summits will not help the process. The night before the Seventeen did their deal, Mr Cameron dined with the Poles and the Swedes. I hope he enjoyed it – there will be lots more dinner parties like that in the future. More brave words before summits about “fighting Britain’s corner”; more disappointment afterwards when we realise that, apart from perhaps one or two from the outer ring, almost the only person in Britain’s corner, is Britain.

But the difference is that most of those on the periphery would like to get into the core. Tory England wants to get as far away from it as possible.

I say England because this is not true north of the border. There, another dynamic is now gathering pace – and its running strongly towards separation. If Mr Salmond can hold his referendum on his terms and time-scale, there is a good chance he will win it unless we are careful. Then it will be firmly in Scotland’s interest, as a small independent nation to accept what Britain has rejected. Full engagement in the EU and joining Ireland as a full member of the Euro.

Euro to the west of us; Euro to the east of us; Euro to north of us; Euro to the south; England splendidly isolated, splendidly alone and, as always of course, splendidly right!

Switzerland, with nuclear weapons

None of this is inevitable. None of it is planned. None of it will be intended. But all of it becomes more and more likely if we do not act to reverse the dynamic in our country. It is not just the future of the Coalition which is at stake. As Nick Clegg has said, it’s the whole country.

No-one is saying that the EU does not need deep reform. But the best way to achieve that is to be engaged and positive, not semi-detached and shouting insults. There are things that need to be done to ensure the EU interferes less and concentrates more on the things that matter to give us a larger voice in an increasingly inhospitable world. But these will not be achieved by a smash and grab raid to “repatriate powers” that is bound to fail.

Those who fight against the growing mood of isolationism in England are fighting against the odds, I grant. But to remain silent at this moment is to accept isolation by default. And for this country, whose history has been engagement, that would not just be a disaster, it would also be a tragedy.

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The Times Libya 22 March 2011

The Times Libya 22 March 2011

Here are three uncomfortable truths which we need to get used to about the international operation in Libya.

First, unless we are very lucky, this will not end tidily. One of the truths about war is that, once launched, tidiness and predictability are frequently the first casualty. Bosnia is still untidy. So is Kosovo. So is East Timor. So is Sierra Leone. So for that matter – still – is Northern Ireland.

After the first Gulf war in 1991, the international coalition had liberated Kuwait. But they were left in a very untidy place, in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was still in power, there was de facto independence for Kurdestan in the north and a no fly zone that had to be sustained for 12 years to stop him slaughtering his people. Does that mean we shouldn’t have liberated Kuwait? Of course not.

The right question here is not, will there be a tidy outcome? but would it have been worse if we hadn’t done it?

And the answer to that – with Libya, as with Kuwait in 1991 – is unquestionably, yes. The alternative would have been the brutal crushing of free citizens, a slaughter of Arabs on a grand scale by a leader who, in his own words promised “no mercy”, the triumph of a tyrant and a check on the Arab Spring from which we all, and the Arab peoples in particular, have so much to gain.

I suspect that the end point of this will look a bit like the end of the Gulf war in 1991. International law will have been upheld. But a tyrant will remain in place, at least for the short term. Some Libyans will be free from mortal danger and able to make their own choices. Others will not. We may well then just have to wait and see whether the citizens of Gaddafi-land are prepared to live their lives without the freedoms of their fellow Libyans next door. That is not a perfect outcome – or a neat one. But it will better than things would otherwise have been and – for a bit at least – we may have to be satisfied with that. If, as in post 1991 Iraq, we have to maintain a no fly zone for as long as it takes until the situation is resolved, then that’s not going to be comfortable – or for that matter cheap – either. But as someone once said, if you think keeping the peace is expensive, try returning to war.

In Libya, however, one thing is not the same as Iraq in 1991.The enterprise to which we have set our hand, is only legal if what happens next is left exclusively to the people of Libya themselves to resolve. The UN Resolution makes it clear that this action is about protecting the Arabs of Libya, not pursuing western policy in the region.

Which leads us to the second uncomfortable truth.

People keep on asking, what’s the end game?

The blunt answer is, we don’t know.

Because the answer to that question is not in our hands. It’s for Libyans to frame their own end game, not us. Our job is limited to preserving their freedom to do so. That won’t be comfortable either. But it may prove easier than what we tried in Iraq and Afghanistan; forming up as a western cowboy’s posse to use force to pursue our policies and our armies to design other people’s governments. That approach has not, to put it mildly, been a great success.

If, in our increasingly dangerous and interconnected world, we are to succeed in developing an enduring framework of international law buttressed by the ability to assemble the wide international support necessary to enforce it, then this is the way its going to have to be in the future and we had better get used to that.

The third uncomfortable truth is about Gadaffi. Are we entitled to target him? Is regime change a legitimate aim?

Everyone, led by Jeremy Paxman, wants a straight answer to this. But it is not in our interest to give one. It is not helpful in war to tell your enemy what you are not going to do. Sorry, Jeremy, but his is one area where opaqueness has a purpose. It is no part of our job to help Mr Gaddafi sleep safer in his bed at night than he ought to.

As it happens – but whisper it quietly please – regime change, however achieved, is not at the moment, covered under Resolution 1973. But that may not always be the case. Resolution 1973 is dedicated to protecting Libyans and nothing else. But what if, to take the extreme example, Muamar Gaddafi were to put himself at the head of an armoured column which begins a new slaughter? Would he be immune form attack then? Clearly not.

We are dealing with a dynamic situation, not a fixed one.

Mr Gaddafi, unrestrained by law or any civilized code of behaviour, has all the flexibility he needs for action. I see no wisdom in making statements now which may limit ours in circumstances we cannot predict.

Four things take precedence over all others now. To keep our focus on the safety of Libyan Arabs. To keep Mr Gaddaffi guessing. To remain strictly within the legal limits of the UN Resolution. And to do whatever is necessary to hold the international coalition together, especially when it comes to the Arab League and regional support.

All other things, however uncomfortable, are secondary.

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Libya News of the World 20 March 2012

The international community is right to take action in Libya. As was the case in Bosnia I have no doubt that the risks of taking action are far less than the risks of taking none.

Failure to act would allow a tyrant to win, send a message that we were not prepared to help protect people and enormously decrease the chances of a genuine democratic Arab world emerging.

I am not pretending for a moment that this is without risk.

The wise thing Gaddafi can do is to call an immediate and genuine ceasefire. The foolish thing would be to continue his attack on Benghazi. He will not win. Benghazi has a million people who are determined to hang onto their freedom and Gaddafi has only about 4,000 troops.

If he continues to kill his own civilians we must be prepared to stop him whatever it takes, including, if necessary using our air power to prevent him using his heavy weapons and tanks against them. The UN Security Council Resolution gives us the right to do that and we should prepared to use it if we have to.

Another danger is that Gaddafi divides the country in two and says to the international community ‘what are you going to do now?’

People have made comparisons with Iraq. The difference here is that you have a clear revolt against an existing government by people who want freedom. This time it is about what the Arabs want, not what the West wants. And this time we have got an international agreement under international law.

What we have seen in recent days is America being prepared to stand back and let others take the lead. We also see a British government that has confidence and a clear vision on foreign policy. Mr Cameron should take credit. He led. Others have followed.

We are also seeing a new international community emerging which can take tough decisions at the Security Council.

Sadly it is Europe, Brtiain and France excepted, which has been the disapaointment. Yet Europe has more to gain from the Arab Spring succeeding, rather than failing. If it does the threat of al Qaeda and Jihadism will be on its way out and we will have progressive states on Europe’s boundaries.

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Libya – No fly zones FT 4 March 2011

Libya – No fly zones FT 4 March 2011

Commenting on Libya the other day, ex-British Prime Minister John Major said “Events alter opinions”. He was right and he should know.

At the start of the Bosnian War very few were calling for military intervention (and John Major’s government was strenuously resisting it). By the end of the war, almost no-one wasn’t.

What changed the situation was events – and specifically Srebrenica and the infamous mortar bomb massacre in Sarajevo’s Markale market. The problem is that between the two, around a quarter of a million people were killed, two million driven from their homes, the United Nations was humiliated and international rhetoric was shown to be sham.

There is a second parallel with today. In 1991 we were told that the Yugoslav crises would prove “The hour of Europe” had arrived. It hadn’t. Europe proved itself divided and impotent, even though the Balkan wars were in our backyard.

It is difficult not feel a wearisome sense of déjà vu watching European leaders on Friday saying something needed to be done in Libya, but failing completely to say what.

Libya is not our backyard. But what happens there and in the other countries of the Maghreb matter to us Europeans very much. If those who have overturned dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt (and hopefully Libya) in this “Arab spring” can create effective, broadly secular democratic republics on the model of Turkey, Europe’s crucial relationship with its southern (and oil-providing) neighbours will be fundamentally altered to the advantage of both. If they fail, then dictatorships will inevitably follow – and very likely extremist Islamist ones. The nature of our neighbourhood is being decided on the dusty streets of Libya’s towns and that matters to us very much indeed.

But now – again – time is not on our side. Muammer Gaddafi’s indiscriminate use of overwhelming force against his people – in flagrant contravention of his international obligation to protect them – is now having an effect. To do nothing is to acquiesce to the crushing of a people, which will almost certainly be accompanied – if it has not been already – by horrors which amount to crimes against humanity.

So what should we do? What can we do?

The answer is a lot in the long term – assistance, aid, trade, maybe visa liberalisation for new Arab democracies as they emerge.

But for Libya, there won’t be a long term unless we can do something quickly to stop Col Gaddafi slaughtering his people’s aspirations and killing many of them in the process.

It is clear that diplomatic pleading will not persuade him to halt or leave – the most impotent moment of the European summit on Friday was when leaders called on him to go, knowing he would do no such thing.

Of the other options available to us, only one makes sense and that is a no fly zone. Could it lead to us being drawn in further? possibly. Is that a risk? Certainly. But, as with Bosnia, we must calculate not just the risks of action, but also the risks of inaction. Here too, the risks of standing by and doing nothing are greater than those which will be incurred by a careful, graduated and proportionate response designed to assert the primacy of international law and enable the people of Libya to make their own choice about their government.

Thanks to the lead given by London and Paris we may assume the military preparations for a no-fly zone are broadly in place. We await only the right conditions to impose one.

First and most important there has to be a clear call from Libyans. This action must be at their initiation, not ours. They have already made this call.

The second is Arab regional support – perhaps even a regional face. The Arab League’s support for a no fly zone is remarkable and important. There now needs to be a diplomatic campaign to bring other Arab nations in.

It would be help this if Western leaders changed their language. To call for a no-fly zone as part of a revolution in favour of democracy not only sounds hypocritical given our past support for the region’s dictators, but is also very unlikely to attract the support of the those Arab nations who are neither democratic themselves, or very keen to become so soon. The case for action here needs to be framed around the urgent need to protect the ordinary Arabs of Libya and nothing else.

Third, the imposition of a no-fly zone will need at least the acquiescence, if not the active support, of the Security Council. The days when West could play fast and loose with the need for explicit UN legitimacy ended with Iraq and the new shift of power in the world.

There are currently discussions in train for a resolution to be put before the Security Council for the imposition of a no fly zone. It will be difficult of course to get China’s and Russia’s support, but not I hope impossible as the world continues to witness Col Gaddafi’s bloody progress in the desert. Given what is at stake for us, the right response of European leaders should not be to suck their teeth in indecision as they did last week, but to back this resolution and say they stand ready to enact it immediately if agreed.

Libya – The Times 25 Aug

Libya Article The Times 25 Aug

“If you love sausages and respect the law, take care to watch neither of them being made”. There are worse starting points than Mark Twain’s aphorism for those trying to understand what’s happening in Libya.

The overthrow of Gaddafi has been messy and is very likely to get more so. For those used to watching armoured columns streaming in triumphant order across the desert to depose a dictator and pull down his statues, it doesn’t look very impressive.

But this is what the future probably looks like. Better get used to it.

Like it or not, the ramshackle Libyan rebel army are, with support of the NATO based coalition, creating a new way of intervening and giving strength to a new strand of international law.

Farewell Gladstonian Liberal Intervention with its foreign gunboats; hello People’s Liberal Intervention with its raybans, t-shirts and hastily converted pick-ups.

Of course Libya isn’t over yet. The last days of Muamar Gadaffi could be just as messy as the long days that led to his downfall. He is more than mad enough – and self-declared martyr enough – to do something very foolish at the end.

But even if, as we hope, the battle ends soon and cleanly, the peace that follows is likely to be just as confused and chaotic as the conflict which preceded it. How could it be otherwise? We have intervened this time to prevent a massacre and let the Libyan people shape their own peace, rather than to seek to impose ours – something which, by the way we ourselves weren’t very good at.

So, as we watch the Libyan National Transition Council struggle to build a Government (security should be its first priority), it would be in order to remember with humility that when we tried to do the same thing in Baghdad we didn’t exactly make a roaring success of it – nor in Kabul either, come to think of it. Nor indeed, in many places where we have tried to create a western peace after a foreign conflict.

We should, of course now do all that we can to help the Libyan rebels bring about order and government in their country. But we will need to do so with understanding and patience. Better for the mistakes that will inevitably be made to be local and regional ones, than our mistakes which they have to pay for, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1997, before the Kosovo war started, I was in the little Albanian villages south of Pristina being bombarded by the main battle units of the Serb army. The following day I met one of the Serb artillery commanders and found that he was more worried about being indicted by the then infant Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, than he was of being bombed by NATO. The point about law, is that it exists not just to deliver justice after the event, but also to govern behaviour beforehand. Post-Kosovo, the World Summit of 2005 gave form to a new international legal concept – The Responsibility to Protect (R2P for short). This asserted that, under international law, there ought to be an obligation (note “ought” and “obligation”) on a Government to protect its people, not abuse them. Many of us thought R2P would never be more than a piece of well meaning rhetoric. But Libya has given R2P both form and precedent.

How the concept of R2P is carried forward post-Libya will also not be smooth or free of contradictions. R2P will be applied with force in places where it can be – Libya for example; but not be so applied in others, where it can’t be – Syria probably. But then this was true of classic Liberal Interventionism too. We did it in Iraq and Afghanistan because we could, but not in Chechnya or Zimbabwe, because we couldn’t. In the untidy age ahead, one of our mantras when it comes to intervention is likely to be “Just because you can’t do everything, does not mean you shouldn’t do anything.”

In this way, international law is no different from most other bodies of jurisprudence. These do not spring from a single pen or a single piece of paper; they evolve over time confusingly, inelegantly and often in contradictory fashion. Libya has placed us slap bang in the middle of that messy process – better get used to it.

Many of us, me including, feared that, after the Iraq debacle, the multilateral system might never be able to be used again for good ends. But it has been – and triumphantly.

So now, thanks to Libya, we have three international interventions options to choose from.

We could abandon the notion of intervention altogether, recognizing that we can’t make a success of it and shouldn’t try. In this case the next turbulent decades will be much more dangerous, as power shifts in a world which is increasingly instable and interdependent and increasingly equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

Or we could continue to intervene as in Iraq and Afghanistan; exclusively western coalitions; massive western troop deployments; a cavalier attitude to international law; shock and awe; a quick victory; followed by the long, slow, flawed attempt to impose our systems on their countries at the point of a bayonet.

Now Libya has offered us a third alternative.

Support R2P with force where its possible. Find other means where it isn’t. Assemble a coalition wider than the west. Obtain the backing of international law. Accept this means constraints on military action during the conflict and on our ability to influence the outcome afterwards. Measure success by the horrors we prevent, rather than the elegance of the outcome. Recognise the importance of the regional powers. Act, not to impose our will, but to give the local population the freedom to exercise theirs. Understand that this may well be disorderly – and perhaps sometimes worse. And remember that it hasn’t been much less so when we have tried to do it ourselves.

Will this be comfortable to watch? No. But it’s probably as good as we’ll get. Better get used to it.

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