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Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), particularly when he has given me rather more time than I thought I would get for my speech. It was also a particular honour to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) who has raised this matter more than anyone else in the House. Indeed, he has raised it on countless occasions in order to bring justice and fairness to bear. This victory is his, along with a few others. I am not sure what the 35 of us will be called in future; the ““Chicago Seven”” was an interesting epithet, but we will just take it as one of those victories that was well deserved and long overdue. It was with some disappointment that I heard my right hon. Friend the Minister say what he said; he could have been more magnanimous. As the hon. Member for Southend, West said, he was somewhat churlish. In a sense, it is surprising that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, had to bail the Government out somewhat by saying, ““There must have been some justification. We don't know what it is, but there must have been something because of the case that those people kept putting across.”” The reality is that the writing had been on the wall for some years and it would have been much better to accept the judgment of POAC rather than going through to the Court of Appeal. The Government would then not have received the admonition of the Lord Chief Justice, whose words were carefully chosen. I do not know what it has all been about. If there was such strong evidence for the proscription, I would have thought we would have heard it by now, but all the evidence has been to the contrary. It has been a question of when, not if, the de-proscription would take place. I pay tribute to the NCRI. Talk about a democratic campaign: we cannot go out of a tube station, attend a political party or go into Central Lobby without being lobbied by those people. That is what we call politics in this country. They have done it democratically. They have lobbied many of us on numerous occasions to get their point of view across. One would have thought that if there was a contrary point of view, one would have heard it and felt threatened in this country by the gestures of the PMOI. One would have thought that one would have heard what was happening in Iran. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) says—one has to consider balance and take account of the fact that when there is a democratic Iran there will not necessarily be one particular party in the ascendancy. We do not know. All I know is that without the PMOI and the NCRI in this country, we would probably have not, in the wider field of things, heard about Natanz and the reprocessing. We owe them an obligation for the fact that they spilled the beans on the Iranian regime to make it absolutely clear that what was going on there was reprehensible, and the rest of the world has followed suit and taken action against the Iranian regime. We hear today that there is a possibility of even stronger sanctions, but without those who took an enormous personal risk in going inside Iran and saying what was going on in reality, we would not know all that and we do know it. We should acknowledge that and hold up our hands in admiration for those who take such risks. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will say somewhat more magnanimously that the right decision has now been arrived at, notwithstanding the caveats that always have to be put in place. I hope also that he will at least disown the report in today's edition of The Times. If that is spinning, it is most unhelpful. We may have to be careful that we are not seen to be too much in bed with one opposition group, but at the same time we should make it absolutely clear that we do not in any way support the regime in Tehran. If that regime thinks that it can lean on a Government here or a Government elsewhere in the EU, or indeed if it feels that it can get its way in the United States, where the proscription stays in place, that is wrong and it needs to be said that it is wrong. I am pleased that we have arrived at this decision and sorry that it has taken so long.