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North Africa and the Near and Middle East

I have no doubt that whenever I speak in the Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone is watching. Egypt has also been the most stalwart of the allies that this country and the entirety of the west have had in the middle east for a number of years. It is a country that has a refined economy that is capable of providing the economic motor for north Africa and the Arab states. It is of course the bread basket of that region and is capable of providing a great deal of food, which is necessary in so many of these impoverished countries and regions. For that reason it is extremely important that the revolution that began earlier this year in Egypt is sustained and that the democracy that we have seen growing is fostered not only by this country but by our allies in the western world and the European Union. There is this fear, certainly in my mind, that were the revolution in Egypt to fail, the rest of the Arab world might run the risk of sinking back into some form of authoritarianism, even were it not the authoritarianism that we witnessed under the Mubarak regime. When the revolution took place, there was of course great hope. I spoke about it earlier in the year. A number of Members on both sides of the House have said quite rightly that it is not for us to impose our model of democracy on either Egypt or any of the other countries passing through the Arab spring. When the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took power and the Prime Minister travelled to Cairo after Mubarak's fall, there was great hope that the sweeping reforms that were promised would be delivered in short order and that there would be a swift return to stability within the country and a prompt transition to elected civilian rule. It is a matter of regret, I think, on both sides of the House, that that has not happened as quickly as we would have liked. There has been an absence of a clear political plan and of the bold reforms that are necessary to deliver democracy in Egypt—as they are necessary to deliver democracy in the rest of the region. Most worryingly of all, the economy has faltered, which appears to have led to the current ream of protests that have again resurrected themselves in Egypt. The Supreme Council and the generals are obstructing the necessary economic reforms, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) mentioned earlier. That has deterred international investment in Egypt and, most worryingly, it has let the country slide further into debt—the sort of debt that we in the west know all too much about. The timetable for democracy has been unnecessarily stretched out, from months to years. The generals have hinted that they expect to retain a dominant role, entirely failing to understand or reflect the spirit of change that led to those momentous events in Tahrir square earlier in the year. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was overhasty and undemocratic in bringing forward the amendments to the constitution proposed in the al-Selmy proposals. Trying to slip in additional pre-emptive clauses to protect the privileges and powers of the armed forces and trying to keep the defence budget a secret is simply not acceptable in a modern, democratic society. The discipline that the army reimposed on protesters—for example, using military tribunals and the emergency laws first passed in the 1950s and first used in the 1960s—has naturally led those who wanted democracy in Egypt to return to the streets to protest against the lack of progress towards the reforms necessary to secure the sort of democracy that we have in this country. Those protests have recently resulted in appalling loss of life. Thousands have returned to the streets again not least, as I have mentioned, because of the state of the economy in Egypt, but the response from those who seem to be isolated from their people has been too little, too late: the offers to hold presidential elections by the end of June, to free political prisoners and to allow impartial investigation of the obvious abuses by the security forces that have been documented in the media have been wholly inadequate. It remains to be seen whether the democratic exercise to which the Egyptian people have for the first time been given the right today will calm matters and return peace to the streets of Egypt. That is to be hoped for, given not only the recent unrest but the loss of life last week. The path to democracy is never easy, however, and we should commend Field Marshall Tantawi and those responsible for ruling Egypt since the revolution on their reiteration of the army's determination to leave power eventually. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary indicated, however, we should encourage them to do so as quickly as possible. The recent moves have gone some way to meeting the popular demands of the Egyptian people. No doubt that is why the Muslim Brotherhood expressed cautious support for some of the recent announcements by Field Marshall Tantawi and SCAF. As several speakers have said, we should not tell those whom we are encouraging to exercise their democratic rights what sort of Government they need to elect. If we are honest about democracy, we must live with whatever Government are elected, whether in Egypt or anywhere else. If there is fear in the House about the Muslim Brotherhood taking power in Egypt, as I suspect that it will—no doubt in coalition, which is something of which I am not a great fan, but there we are—that is not something of which the House, the Government or the British people should be afraid. Other speakers have pointed out that the exercise of power by Islamists who take power through the ballot box deprives al-Qaeda of the oxygen that it has always had, which is its argument that there is no route to Islamist control of middle east countries and Arab states without violent revolution. That is why we do not need to be afraid of these events—indeed, they indicate that we should support those Governments who will take power in due course whether in Egypt or anywhere else. Whether in Egypt, Syria or elsewhere, the army and those institutions that have hitherto assumed that it is their automatic right to govern should retreat from politics and leave it to politicians elected by the people. Furthermore, military tribunals and emergency laws must be abolished, the legacy in the middle east of failed democracy—so much the fault of the west—must, perhaps for the first time, be cast aside and those who inhabit the Arab states must for the first time have the opportunity to exercise the rights that we take for granted.