Extract from Commons Urgent Question on Venezuela Mike Gapes
(Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op):...The economic collapse, as the
Minister says, is a direct result of the corrupt, incompetent,
kleptocratic regime of Nicolás Maduro. The Democratic Unity
Roundtable coalition won the National Assembly elections in
November 2015. It is a centre-left alliance, including two
Socialist International member parties, the Popular Will and A New
Era. It won 112 out of 167 seats, and that should have led to
the...Request free trial
Extract from Commons
Urgent Question on Venezuela
(Ilford South)
(Lab/Co-op):...The economic collapse, as the Minister
says, is a direct result of the corrupt, incompetent, kleptocratic
regime of Nicolás Maduro. The Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition
won the National Assembly elections in November 2015. It is a
centre-left alliance, including two Socialist International member
parties, the Popular Will and A New Era. It won 112 out of 167
seats, and that should have led to the end of 16 years of PSUV
rule, but it did not. Maduro refused to co-operate and doubled down
on his repression, and the country continued its economic collapse.
The rigged presidential re-election has rightly been criticised by
international observers. The decision by National Assembly
president Juan Guaidó to be declared interim President is
correct—it is a game-changer. So far, as has been said, that has
been recognised internationally by many countries, and to that
list, I add Australia and Israel, which have also done so
recently...
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Extracts from Lords
debate on Brexit: Parliamentary Approval of the Outcome of
Negotiations with the European Union
(Con):...There is the additional reality that a hard,
sealed border is in practice impossible. In Ireland, under Mr
Willie Whitelaw almost half a century ago, I and my colleagues
tried to close the border with military and customs posts to stop
the Provisionals and their weapons coming up from Dundalk. It made
not the slightest difference. All that happened was that a number
of young soldiers and brave customs officials got murdered. You
would need a wall across Ireland, like in Mexico
or Israel, to make a hard border, which no
one wants anyway...
(Con):...We keep
hearing that this is a “failure of statesmanship” on a level with
Suez. Apparently, Colonel Nasser wrote a page a day for each of the
country leaders involved in the Suez crisis—Britain, France,
America and Israel—to try to understand how that day
had gone from their point of view. It worked very well, did it not?
Shall we try that with Chancellor Merkel and President Macron? They
had only one interest and one strategy—no detail required. The view
was, “We don’t really care whether Britain comes or goes. All we
care about is that they don’t set a precedent for anyone else.
Therefore, our strategy is tough terms. The tough-terms strategy
will have one of two good results. Either Britain accepts the tough
terms—that will teach the rest of them—or it says, ‘These terms are
tough. We’d better stay’”. Either way, for France and Germany tough
terms was a no-lose bet, which they have executed to
perfection...
(LD):...When was appointed Prime Minister, she
made an idealistic speech about healing the nation’s divisions, but
she then pandered to the nativist elements in her own party,
labelling those who opposed leaving the European Union “citizens of
nowhere”—this from the leader of a party which receives large
donations from financiers with offshore businesses and which has
accepted contributions from Russians resident in Britain, but who
nevertheless stoops to labelling those British citizens who believe
in European and international co-operation as having divided
loyalties. That is how English Protestants labelled Catholics 350
years ago and nationalists labelled Jews...
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