The comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, on 5 September 2020.
This is very worrying and I don’t really know what it is that is expected to be achieved and I know that for many older listeners it’s very much part of their daily life, getting their paper delivered, and I think it’s just wrong.
The comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, on 4 September 2020.
From the first moment Tony Abbott was proposed for this role on Britain’s Board of Trade, I’ve said we need to judge him not just on his despicable personal history of offensive statements and views, but on his equally dismal professional record as well.
Tony Abbott wilfully destroyed what was left of Australia’s car industry after taking office in 2013, with the calculated withdrawal of government support, and the deliberate goading of overseas investors to quit. A once proud industry employing 200,000 workers was left to die.
We cannot have a man like that in charge of trade talks which will have a direct bearing on the future of British car manufacturing in Sunderland, Solihull, Ellesmere Port, Halewood, Burnaston, Oxford and elsewhere, especially when the industry is already under huge economic pressure.
I’ve been saying for the past week we need to listen to the Australians who know Abbott best, and they are warning us loud and clear: do not let this man do to your car industry what he did to ours.
The comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, on 4 September 2020.
There are two factors that should have immediately disqualified Tony Abbott from this role.
First, his history of offensive statements is so long and repetitive that it speaks to serious defects in his character, which is not one I think should be representing Britain on the world stage.
And second, the fact that he has no experience of detailed trade negotiations, no understanding of Brexit, no belief in climate change, no concern for workers’ rights, and no compunction about killing off Australia’s car industry mean, to my mind, that he has no credentials for this role.
Tony Abbott is therefore the wrong appointment on every level, which begs the more important question of why on earth Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have given him the job.
However, with this shambolic excuse for a government, we may continue to be appalled and disappointed at their serial incompetence, but we should never any longer be surprised.
The comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, on 26 August 2020.
Any way you look at it, this is an absolutely staggering appointment. On a personal level, it is shameful that Boris Johnson thinks this offensive, aggressive, leering, gaffe-prone misogynist is the right person to represent our country overseas.
And on a professional level, this is someone with no hands-on experience of negotiating trade agreements, who denies the climate change that we believe should be at the heart of our trade policy, and who clearly has no concept of the importance of Britain’s trade with the EU.
He was ousted by his own colleagues after just two years in power, and rejected by his own constituents just last year. They are the people who know him best, and wanted rid of him, yet here we are now, hiring him to negotiate our trade deals around the world.
It’s yet more breathtaking incompetence from a government that has turned it into an art-form.
The comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, on 13 August 2020.
We welcome the withdrawal of tariffs on shortbread as well as the temporary reprieve for exports of gin, salmon and blended whisky, but that good news makes it all the more disappointing that punitive tariffs are being maintained on single malt whisky, knitwear, cheese and other key exports.
Coming on the back of this week’s disastrous growth figures, the maintenance of those tariffs represents a double blow for hundreds of vital British businesses, especially in Scotland, and the tens of thousands of workers they employ.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the EU-US dispute, it has nothing to do with the distilleries, farmers, food producers and clothes makers affected by these tariffs, and – at this time of all times – it is an act of economic vandalism for Donald Trump to continue targeting their livelihoods in this way.
The government must provide urgent support to all the firms and workers affected, and redouble its efforts to get these tariffs removed. British exporters can’t afford to wait months for a fully-fledged UK-US free trade deal to come to fruition; they need action against the tariffs that are damaging their business today.
Below is the text of the comments made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, on 7 July 2020.
Even by this Government’s standards, their decision to resume the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen is morally indefensible, justified on the basis that the air strikes that have killed thousands of innocent men, women and children over the past five years somehow do not represent a ‘pattern of non-compliance’ with international law.
And announcing this decision the very day after 20 Saudi officials were rightly placed on the Foreign Office’s Magnitsky sanctions list for their part in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist killed in part for criticising Saudi conduct in the war in Yemen, is at the very least a case of mixed messages, undermining the government’s claim to be human rights defenders.
We have demanded that ministers come to Parliament to explain this decision, and we will continue to fight it over the coming months. Because at a time when millions of Yemeni children are facing the mortal threat of starvation and disease, Britain should be working flat out to bring this terrible war to an end, not selling the arms that continue to fuel it.
Below is the text of the letter written to Liz Truss by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, on 2 June 2020.
I am writing to ask you as a matter of urgency to address a number of serious questions about the export of riot control equipment to the United States, following a week when people across America have taken to the streets to demand justice for the murder of George Floyd and all the other Black Americans whose lives have been lost as a result of police brutality.
These protesters are calling for the basic human rights of Black people to be respected, for them to go about their daily lives without the threat of police violence, and for all of us to take action to dismantle the structural and institutional practices which entrench racism in our societies.
In cities across America, we have seen law enforcement authorities using excessive force in response to these protests, including against children and members of the media. Donald Trump’s statement yesterday threatened the deployment of the US military to escalate this response, and took place as peaceful protesters were tear-gassed and beaten nearby by federal police.
As you know, it has been the policy of successive governments over the past two decades to refuse licences for the export of arms and equipment that might be used for internal repression in the countries to whom they are being sold. It is therefore an obvious matter of concern if any exports from the UK have been used in the response to the ongoing protests in the United States.
According to your department’s latest Strategic Export Controls: Country Pivot Report, the UK has recently issued licences for the export of a variety of riot control projectiles and equipment to the United States, including anti-riot/ballistic shields, anti-riot guns, components for anti-riot guns, portable riot control electric shock devices, and tear gas/riot control agents.
If there is a risk that any of these riot control projectiles and equipment are being used in the United States against peaceful, unarmed civilians, then the government must act immediately to stop their export. I would be grateful if you could therefore as a matter of urgency:
a. Publish a comprehensive list of all current export licences to the USA of riot control projectiles and equipment, along with all available end-user data to clarify who has purchased these items and for what declared purpose within the last five years; and
b. Suspend all existing licences and halt the issue of any new licences for the export of riot control projectiles and equipment to the United States until you have determined whether any of these items are being used in response to the ongoing protests, or risk being used in the coming days if the US military is deployed as part of that response.
I’m sure you will agree that, at a time when Donald Trump is gearing up to use the US military to crush the legitimate protests taking place across America over the murder of Black civilians, it would be a disgrace for the UK to supply him with the arms and equipment he will use to do so.
If this were any other leader, in any other country in the world, the suspension of any such exports is the least we could expect from the British government in response to their actions, and our historic alliance with the United States is no reason to shirk that responsibility now.
Indeed, because our alliance is above all based on the values we share with the American people, that is all the more reason why we must not supply arms and equipment that Donald Trump is willing to use to attack his own people, in total contravention of those values.
I hope that you will investigate these points and provide me with an urgent response. The British public deserve to know how arms exported by this country are being used across the world, and the American public deserve the right to protest peacefully without the threat of violent repression.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Emily Thornberry MP
Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade
Below is the text of the speech made by Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, in the House of Commons on 20 May 2020.
I beg to move,
That this House recognises that upon leaving the European Union, the UK will need effective legislation to implement agreements with partner countries corresponding to international trade agreements of the European Union in place before the UK’s exit, to implement procurement obligations arising from the UK becoming a member of the Government Procurement Agreement in its own right, to set out the basis of a Trade Remedies Authority to deliver the new UK trade remedies framework, and to establish the powers for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to collect and disclose data on goods and services exporters; but declines to give a Second Reading to the Trade Bill because it fails to set out proper procedures for Parliamentary consultation, scrutiny, debate and approval of future international trade agreements, fails to protect the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty in respect of the implementation of international trade agreements previously negotiated by the European Union and in respect of changes to existing government procurement regulations arising from the UK’s or other countries’ accession to the Government Procurement Agreement, fails to establish sufficient scrutiny procedures to replace those that have pertained while the UK has been a member of the European Union, fails to guarantee that the UK’s current high standards and rights will be protected in future trade agreements, and fails to render the Trade Remedies Authority answerable to Parliament or representative of the full range of stakeholders who should be included in its membership.
In moving this amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, I am conscious that, for many of us, there will be a strong sense of déjà vu: the personnel may have changed, but we have all been here before, with the same Bill, the same amendment, and the same arguments. For once, the Government are correct when they say that nothing has changed. The inescapable truth remains that this Trade Bill, as it currently stands, is a massive missed opportunity for the Government, for this Parliament and for our country.
For the past five decades, our trade policies have been set at European level. Indeed, there is not a single Member of this House who was in Parliament the last time the UK set its own trade policies, so, like it or not, this Bill carries an historic significance, and that is what I want to address today. Is this Bill, in its current form, fit to rise to its historic challenge? After five decades, in which we have seen tremendous upheaval in our global economy, does the Bill provide the legislative framework and the bold and far-reaching vision that we need to underpin Britain’s trade policies for several years to come? After five decades, does the Bill ensure that issues such as climate change and human rights, which were barely a consideration the last time the UK set its own trade policies, are now at the heart of our decision-making and central to our relationships overseas? And after five decades, does the Bill give a proper voice to the devolved Administrations, who did not even exist back then, and to all other private, public and civic-sector bodies whose ideas and insights constantly improve our policy-making and remind us that Whitehall does not know best?
Finally, after five decades, does this Bill restore full sovereignty to Parliament over Britain’s trade policies, especially when it comes to the formulation, scrutiny and approval of new trade agreements? Those are the questions I asked myself. As I will explain, the answer that came back, on every front, was a resounding no—even worse, a warning cry that far from restoring the powers of Parliament when it comes to trade policy, this Bill erodes them to nothing.
Let me begin with the first question, namely whether this Bill gives us a legislative framework and a bold new vision for decades of trade policy to come. Here we find ourselves in the strange position of having Ministers themselves tell us that the answer is no. They say that there is nothing of significance in this legislation, and that it is simply a continuity Bill that is designed to maintain the status quo beyond 31 December. I will come back to whether that is right, especially in respect of new trade agreements, but one thing is for sure: there is no bold, long-term vision in this Bill. There is no great legislative framework for the future, and when it comes to the UK shaping its own trade policy after five long decades, this Bill certainly was not worth the wait.
That brings us to the second question, namely to what extent the Bill reflects the necessary and welcome widening of Britain’s trade policy objectives over five decades, and the extent to which it puts at the heart of our future trade agreements the issues of climate change, environmental protection, human rights, workers’ rights, sustainable development and gender equality. Again, we should all be ashamed to say that the answer is: not at all.
I will take just one of those issues, namely human rights. It is disappointing enough that the Government are failing to make it a key priority in negotiating new trade agreements, but what is truly damaging is the Government’s willingness to omit from their rolled-over trade agreements the human rights clauses that are now mandatory in all deals with the EU. If the Government want to refute that, the Minister of State has a simple task when he closes the debate later. He should guarantee that the rolled-over trade agreements that the Government are still trying to negotiate before 31 December with Cameroon and Egypt will both contain clauses enabling the UK to terminate the agreements if those countries continue their horrendous abuse of human rights. Will he ensure that the same policy applies to Turkey, Singapore, South Sudan and every other country with whom we are in negotiation?
The third question was whether the Bill marks a decisive break with the “Whitehall knows best” attitudes that dominated policy making five decades ago, and instead paves the way for Britain’s new trade policies to be formed in a transparent and inclusive way, for example by consulting the elected representatives of our regions and devolved Administrations, benefiting from the expertise of our development and environmental non-governmental organisations, or listening to the concerns of British businesses and their employees. Again, the answer, sadly, is no.
We see that most starkly when it comes to the Bill’s proposals for the membership of the trade remedies authority. That will be a vital body with a vital task, but it will have no guaranteed representation from the UK’s industry bodies and trade unions—the representatives of the people most affected by the unfair practices that the TRA is supposed to prevent. No wonder there are such concerns and suspicions that the Government’s true agenda for the TRA is not to defend Britain against underpriced imports, but somehow to balance the damage they do to domestic producers against the perceived benefits for domestic consumers. That is not the job of the trade remedies authority. That is why we instead need there to be proper representation on the board for the businesses and workers that it has been set up to defend, and why we need the TRA to be accountable to Parliament rather than Government.
That brings me to the final question, which is of the greatest immediate significance: whether, after five decades, this Bill succeeds in restoring parliamentary sovereignty over our country’s trade policies or whether, in fact, the opposite is true, as Members here and in the other place—all formidably led by my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner)—have consistently said over the past two and a half years.
Let us take an example. The Secretary of State is a fan, it would seem, of the Government procurement agreement. As my colleagues have pointed out in the past, no matter how much we agree with the GPA, it is still incredible that the UK can accede to the GPA and MPs have no practical means to stop it; that the UK’s coverage schedules can be sent to the WTO and MPs have no opportunity to approve them; and that changes can be made in the future to the UK’s commitment under the GPA, and MPs will have less chance to scrutinise them than we did when Brussels was in charge and the European Scrutiny Committee was in place. So in an area such as Government procurement, the Bill does not advance parliamentary sovereignty—it does not even leave us standing still. The Bill takes us backwards.
Let us look at a more contentious area: new trade agreements. The Government have tried to convince us that, because the Bill only seeks to provide the basis to roll over existing agreements, we do not have to worry about the almost complete absence of accompanying parliamentary scrutiny or approval. But the reality is that in many cases there are or will be major differences between the UK’s third country agreement and the EU equivalent it is opposed to replicate.
Let us look at some of the examples we have seen. We have agreements with five countries in a trade bloc where the UK only covers three. We have EU agreements with mandatory clauses on human rights that the UK has agreed to drop. We have an EU agreement with Turkey based on a customs union, which the UK has explicitly rejected. We have an EU agreement with Japan, which both the Secretary of State and her Japanese counterpart have said our bilateral deal should go beyond, and that will doubtless be true of the Canada deal as well.
In short, we will end up with several major new trade deals all significantly different from their EU equivalents, but all subject to the same minimal amount of parliamentary scrutiny and approval, as proposed in the Trade Bill. That is not a restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. That is not anywhere near the gold standard of parliamentary consultation, scrutiny and approval of trade deals that we see in Australia or the United States. That is not therefore what I would call taking back control.
In conclusion, I believe that this Trade Bill offers a historic opportunity, but that opportunity has so far been missed. Instead of a bold, strategic vision for the future of our trade policy, we have a stopgap piece of legislation that even Ministers are trying to talk down. Instead of issues such as climate change and human rights being put at the heart of our trade policy, they have been ignored or consciously dropped. Instead of opening our trade policy to the expertise of others, the Government are denying them even a seat at the table. And instead of restoring Parliament’s sovereignty over trade policy, this Bill leaves MPs even more powerless than before. That is why I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to support the Opposition’s amendment. After five decades, let us spend the time and effort we need to get this historic Bill right.
Below is the text of the speech made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 17 March 2020.
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We hear what he says on freight, but could he give us any guidance on what is “essential travel” when it comes to people? Does it include people coming home? This is a time of immense concern for tens of thousands of British nationals stranded abroad; they are not just dealing with the stress of trying to get accurate information and make their way home, but doing so facing the ever-present fear of infection.
I was contacted yesterday by Tom, one of the 65 British nationals in Cusco, Peru, which has announced a 15-day state of emergency, with its borders closed and the army enforcing a quarantine. Tom’s flight to Britain today has been cancelled and his calls to our embassy in Lima have not been answered. Why is that? Because the embassy itself has decided to close down for 15 days, just when its services were needed most. The Secretary of State said in his statement that our
“consular teams are working around the clock to provide the best…information available to UK nationals”;
well, I am afraid that that simply is not the case in Tom’s experience. He says:
“We have received no advice or assistance…we are all extremely concerned at being stranded here.”
Across the world, there are tens of thousands of British nationals in the same position as Thomas, and all have the same message for the British Government: “Help bring us home”. As far as they are concerned, their travel is essential and it is no use telling them to rely on advice from the Governments in the countries from which they are travelling when, inevitably, they will be the least of those countries’ concerns. Nor is it any use telling them to rely on the instructions of their travel operators, which, all too often in recent weeks, have been at odds with the official FCO travel advice and are driven by the fear of insurance claims and bankruptcy, not by the needs of our citizens.
The Government cannot keep passing the buck to others, especially when it comes to repatriation. Yes, it is difficult, and yes, it is expensive, but that is the nature of the crisis that we face. In his response, can the Secretary of State directly address Tom and his compatriots in Peru and all the other British nationals around the world currently in the same position, and tell them what he is doing to help bring them home?
Will the Secretary of State reassure us today that the Foreign Office will learn the lessons from this fiasco by asking itself some very basic questions? First, why were there no clear protocols in place for evacuation and repatriation in the event of an outbreak such as this? If those protocols were in place, why were they not followed? Secondly, why has official travel advice from the FCO been so slow to match what is happening on the ground? This weekend, we had tour operators going door to door in French ski resorts, telling British families to leave immediately, while the Foreign Office website said that there were no restrictions on travel. Thirdly and most basically, as Tom’s case in Peru illustrates, will the Foreign Secretary determine why the levels of consular support have been so out of step with the levels of global demand?
When the dust settles on this crisis, as we all hope it eventually will, we will reflect on what has been a chronic failure of global leadership and co-ordination in which our own Government has sadly been a part. Instead of every country working together to agree best practice and apply common standards on testing, tracking, travel restrictions, quarantines, self-isolation and social distancing, we have instead seen a global free-for-all, with every country going it alone. Instead of the international community coming together to pool its experience and work together to develop a vaccine and a cure, we have again seen individual companies and countries working in silos. We have also seen a shameful attempt by Donald Trump to buy the German company that is in the lead when it comes to discovering a vaccine, not just to steal the glory of the vaccine for himself, but to hoard it for the Americans alone. The challenges posed by the coronavirus are fearful enough for the world without our leaders compounding them through their incompetence or their inaction. That is exactly what we have seen when it comes to this Government’s approach to repatriation, but it is part of a pattern that goes far beyond that one issue and far beyond our one country.
Will the Secretary of State undertake today that, as well as fixing the immediate issues that we face with the coronavirus, not least around repatriations, Britain will lead the way in ensuring that these outbreaks will be better managed in future?
Below is the text of the speech made by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 14 January 2020.
I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement. For all of us who regard the Iran nuclear deal as one of the crowning diplomatic achievements of this century and a path towards progress with Iran on other issues of concern, it is deeply distressing to see Iran join the United States in openly flouting the terms of the deal, as the Foreign Secretary has described.
I firmly agree with the action that has been taken today alongside our European partners. I welcome every word of the joint statement issued at the weekend by Britain, France and Germany in relation to the JCPOA. I agree with their commitment to uphold the nuclear non-proliferation regime. I agree with their determination to ensure that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon. I agree with their conclusion that the JCPOA plays a key role in those objectives. I would have been stronger in my wording. Although I agree with their “regret” and “concern”, I would have said “revulsion” and “condemnation” over the Trump Administration’s attempted sabotage of the JCPOA and their re-imposition of sanctions on Iran.
I agree with the E3’s attempts to preserve the agreement despite the actions of Donald Trump and the reciprocal actions of the Iranian regime, to which the Foreign Secretary referred in his statement. I also agree that Iran must be obliged to return to full compliance with its side of the agreement. That was a sensible and balanced statement on the JCPOA, stressing the international unity around the importance of retaining and restoring it, and accepting that both sides have breached it in terms and that neither has any justification for doing so.
That is what makes it all the more remarkable that this morning we heard from one of the signatories to that statement—our very own Prime Minister—telling “BBC Breakfast” the following:
“the problem with the JCPOA is basically—this is the crucial thing, this is why there is tension—from the American perspective it’s a flawed agreement, it expires, plus it was negotiated by President Obama…from their point of view it has many many faults. Well, if we’re going to get rid of it let’s replace it—and let’s replace it with the Trump deal. That’s what we need to see…that would be a great way forward. President Trump is a great dealmaker by his own account, and by many others…Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the Trump deal instead.”
In the space of two or three days, the Prime Minister has gone from signing a joint statement with France and Germany calling for the retention and restoration of the JCPOA, to calling for it to be scrapped and replaced by some mythical Trump deal. The Foreign Secretary did not refer to any of that in his statement, and we could be forgiven for thinking that he and the Prime Minister are not exactly on the same page, but perhaps in his response he could answer some questions about the Prime Minister’s remarks.
First, will the Foreign Secretary confirm that in his discussions with his American counterparts, they have said that one of the problems with the JCPOA is that, to quote the Prime Minister,
“it was negotiated by President Obama”?
We all suspect that that is Trump the toddler’s main issue with it, but can the Secretary of State confirm that the Prime Minister was correct?
Secondly, can the Foreign Secretary tell us how this supposed alternative Trump deal, which the Prime Minister is so enthusiastic about, differs from the current JCPOA—or, like his mythical middle eastern peace plan and his mythical deal with the North Koreans on nuclear weapons, is it simply another Trump fantasy?
Thirdly, can the Foreign Secretary tell us why on earth Iran would accept a new deal negotiated with Donald Trump, with new conditions attached, when he has shown his readiness to tear up the existing deal and move the goalposts in terms of what it should cover?
Finally, based on what the Prime Minister said this morning, are we now to understand that—despite everything the Foreign Secretary said in his statement just now and everything contained in the joint statement at the weekend—it is now the official policy of the UK Government to replace the JCPOA and get a Trump deal instead, and that that would represent a “great way forward”? If that is not official Government policy, why did the Prime Minister say it, and why is he walking all over the Foreign Secretary’s patch?