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Christians in Iraq

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his strong stance on this issue, which is fundamental to our appreciation of where Iraq now stands after the war. I think I am right in saying that he was against the war, but some of us who were in favour of it—I do not resile from my views at that time—have been dismayed at the way in which certain events have developed since. We were told afterwards by the then Prime Minister, President Bush and so on that the war was a step towards democracy in Iraq, and an enormous number of people turned out for democratic elections, but as so often in countries with a Muslim attitude to constitutional matters, we are sometimes, but not always, bound to ask ourselves what such democracy amounts to. There are lessons to be learned in our own country about some of the things that are said about our affairs and our constitutional arrangements. Above all—I am speaking in the mother of Parliaments—we have an obligation to stand strongly by the protection of minorities. If our democracy is to be taken as a beacon for the rest of the world, and if we are contributing to constitutional change in countries where we have an interest and some influence—the United States has a similar obligation—it is essential that we stand by the principles that we would apply in this country. It is with the deepest concern that I have watched what is happening to the Christian minority, and all minorities in Iraq. We must be clear about that. We cannot have a standard for democracy and insist on principle, but then say that it applies only to specific people and not to others. It is precisely because of the harrowing details of what has happened to Christians that I focus on that, which is what this debate is about, but without prejudice to my concern for other people. I go further and say that if it was a Christian country and we were exercising the sort of discrimination that has taken place historically—for example, during the French wars of religion, and so on—we would be bound to take a similar view today: that we have progressed and that modern democracy, which we now claim for its virtues of stable societies throughout the world, must be demonstrated by determination to maintain the standards that we expect to protect minorities, including Christians.