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For the Record Page 77

by David Cameron


  That made us safer at home too. The more square miles the terrorists seized, the more recruits they could attract, the more money they could steal and the more attacks they could plot. But as their territory began to shrink, so ISIS propaganda also began to dwindle, and by the time the fighting to liberate Raqqa began it had disappeared from Syria almost entirely.

  Britain can take great pride in our part in that. We were slower to join our allies in attacking ISIS in Syria than I would have liked, but what we did was part of a clear plan.

  Overseas, that meant avoiding putting Western troops on the ground where possible, taking time to understand the situation, working with and through allies. This was what I called ‘smart intervention’. It aimed to avoid the radicalisation and backlash at home that had been unintended consequences of earlier interventions. It may have been our third foray in Iraq in three decades, but this time, according to the MoD, there was no evidence that any civilians had been killed by our strikes.

  At home it meant smarter, targeted measures rather than giant gestures and blanket bans. In 2015, seven major plots were foiled in twelve months. By the end of 2016, 250,000 items of terrorist material had been removed from the internet. In 2017, 150 people had their passports removed. Twenty-five groups were proscribed.

  The most significant shift – the cornerstone of this liberal Conservative approach – was the recognition that non-violent extremism is a gateway to violent extremism. Under earlier governments, ministers and officials would routinely engage with groups who stopped short of endorsing violence but whose world view was part of the problem. Now we call them out.

  Likewise, while in the recent past some practices had been tolerated out of some misplaced cultural sensitivity, forced marriage was now banned and the law against FGM strengthened. And while previous governments had shied away from asking that British values should be actively promoted in our schools, now teachers were actively promoting democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and freedom of speech and religion.

  A final area where governments of all colours – including the one I led – were guilty of inconsistency was in their approach to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). This organisation was founded in 1920s Egypt in opposition to secularisation, Westernisation and nationalism. It had affiliates and supporters all over the world, from supposedly moderate, democratic Islamists like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK Party in Turkey to violent groups like Hamas in Palestine. In between was any number of political groupings and affiliated bodies, including some constituent parts of the Muslim Council of Britain.

  The UK government’s approach to the MB was deeply confused. Some departments wanted to shun it, others wanted to reach out to its affiliates, and parts of the Foreign Office believed we needed to engage with it, since its affiliated political parties were winning elections in parts of the Middle East, like that of Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi in 2012.

  Other parts of the FCO, particularly those responsible for relations with the Gulf kingdoms, wanted us to condemn the MB altogether. Some of our closest allies in the region saw it as the principal source of the extremism and violence with which we were dealing. Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of UAE, repeatedly told me that ‘Al-Qaeda and ISIS are the plants; the Brotherhood is the seed from which they have grown.’

  No one seemed able to give me a straight answer about the nature of the organisation we were dealing with. Meanwhile, our approach seemed to be undermining our work at home and angering our friends abroad. So I ordered an investigation in 2014. John Jenkins, our distinguished former ambassador to Saudia Arabia, agreed to carry it out along with the Home Office’s Charles Farr.

  The report discovered that while the group didn’t formally endorse violence, it praised bombers in Israel, its senior figures justified attacks against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it accepted Hamas as part of the organisation. The conclusion was clear and compelling: ‘Aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security.’

  I accepted the unequivocal findings of the report, and set in train the necessary actions, for instance continuing to refuse visas to MB members who promoted extremism and intensifying our scrutiny of the group and its affiliates.

  By the end of 2015 we had made vital progress in the struggle against Islamist extremism. A stronger legal framework at home. A growing alliance of like-minded countries abroad. Action against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. Much clearer thinking about the struggle in which we were engaged.

  After another speech I gave on the subject at Mansion House, I received a letter praising my approach from Tony Blair. He said: ‘The violence is horrific, but it is only a symptom of the wider challenge.’ That challenge, he said, was the interpretation of a religion.

  He was right – and because of that, because we are dealing with an ideology, and one that is entrenched, it is a struggle that will last decades and not years. There will be steps forward but also steps backward. We would soon see that starkly. Because even after the so-called caliphate was dismembered, in 2017 Britain was to endure repeated terror attacks. Indeed, it would rank alongside 2005, 1988 and 1972 as one of the deadliest years at the hands of terrorism in our history.

  44

  Trouble Ahead

  There was a chilling familiarity to the photo of the small Syrian boy washed up on a beach in Turkey, which shook the world in early September 2015. It was the way he lay face-down on the shoreline, in his little blue shorts and red top. As a quadriplegic, Ivan would sometimes wriggle and flip onto his front like that. I recognised that helplessness. I also recognised the awfulness of the second picture, of a policeman carrying the body up the beach. It took me back to February 2009, St Mary’s Hospital, and the indescribable sorrow of holding a lifeless child in your arms.

  Humans are moved by images of suffering partly because we see in the victims the people we love. We know that the only reason we are here and they are there is luck. Sometimes, such pictures are so powerful – napalm-burned children in Vietnam, skeletal prisoners at Belsen – that they not only capture a crisis, they help change the course of history. So it was with the photograph of three-year-old Alan Kurdi.

  This wasn’t the only image that represented the largest mass movement of people in Europe since the Second World War – a crisis that would prove one of my biggest tests as prime minister and that would contribute to the vote that would end my time in the job.

  Flimsy dinghies bowing under the weight of hundreds of people. Derelict trawlers crammed with thousands. These images crept into the global consciousness as more and more boats set off from north Africa for Spain and Italy.

  People have long crossed the Mediterranean to reach the safety and opportunities of western Europe. But it was a convergence of the Syrian exodus, poverty and failure in the Balkans, upheaval in the Middle East, war and corruption in Africa and violence in Asia that was driving up numbers in the 2010s.

  In 2013 a boat was wrecked off the Italian island of Lampedusa; 360 of those on board died. Italy felt compelled to set up a maritime mission to rescue others and target the people-smugglers, but still migrants kept making the perilous voyage. In 2014, 170,000 travelled across the centre of the Mediterranean to Europe. In 2015 the figure was 150,000. Nearly 4,000 souls drowned that year.

  As the dangers of this journey became more apparent, migrants took to travelling by the western Balkans route across Turkey. Photographs of people crossing to a Greek island, carrying everything they could, cramming into lorries in Macedonia or Serbia, piling onto boiling-hot trains in Hungary and Croatia, became familiar. In 2014, 43,000 migrants had travelled this route. In 2015 this increased to 764,000.

  There was a further image that captured the crisis, and this was much closer to home. For years people have tried to enter Britain illegally through the Channel Tunnel,
and as the mass movement continued, a camp sprang up in Calais for those most determined to get to our country. At its height, 5,000 people were living in the so-called ‘Jungle’. The pictures dominated the front pages in Britain throughout the summer of 2015 – and came with warnings that, since ISIS was at its peak, terrorists could be among their ranks.

  The situation produced turmoil in Europe. The continent was finally coming through the worst financial crisis since the war, and was now facing the worst post-war migrant crisis too. And those who arrived were only the tip of the iceberg, representing just 3 per cent of displaced Syrians.

  The fact that so many wished to come demonstrated the great strength of Europe: a continent that was prosperous and at peace was a beacon for the world’s troubled people. Yet at the same time it demonstrated the inherent flaws in the EU. We had a Eurozone financial crisis in part because you can’t have sustainable monetary union without fiscal union. And now we were having a migrant crisis, largely because you can’t tear down internal borders without a solid external border.

  The failure was also politically dangerous for Britain – and for me. EU leaders wouldn’t have much time for my renegotiation talks at this time of crisis. Nor would they have much sympathy with our qualms about free movement of EU citizens between EU countries when they were facing an influx of refugees from outside. And with concerns about immigration as high as ever, images of an inundated Europe – and UKIP making hay with that – could prove hugely detrimental to my goal to win the referendum.

  The perception that Britain would be overrun was not just exaggerated, but totally misplaced. Yes, some of those crossing the Mediterranean might see our country as their ultimate destination. They knew it was one of the most welcoming, one of the easiest in which to find work, and above all, one where they would find their own kith and kin (almost every nationality has a home in Britain).

  But geography makes that final journey difficult: we are an island. Politics makes it even harder: we aren’t in the Schengen no-borders zone. It is difficult to measure flows of illegal immigration, but the number applying for asylum is a useful proxy, as that is the way many illegal migrants seek to regularise their status once they have arrived. In 2015, only 3 per cent of Europe’s asylum applications were to the UK. At under 40,000, that was nowhere near our 84,000 peak in 2002. So if the crisis demonstrated the flaws of the EU, it also demonstrated the advantages Britain had of being in the EU while having an opt-out from the no-borders zone – our special status.

  The British approach was very much about treating the causes rather than just the symptoms. And our big decisions on aid and defence spending enabled us to do just that.

  For example, we were able to take some immediate action in the Mediterranean – which I saw as both a moral duty and an imperative for national security. We despatched Royal Navy ships to assist with the rescue efforts. HMS Bulwark, HMS Enterprise and HMS Richmond saved hundreds of lives. We helped tackle the people-smugglers, gathering intelligence, destroying their boats and arresting those behind the trade.

  And we were also able to address the serious problem in Calais. On one single day, 150 migrants took advantage of strikes by French ferry workers to try to get through. The total number wasn’t huge, but it was important that we signal both to those seeking entry and to people living in Britain that a border is a border. Not to have responded would have been an invitation to thousands more to try the same route.

  It wasn’t just our island status or our opt-out from Schengen that we were able to use to sort the situation. Our robust deal with France meant our border guards were in Calais, not Dover. These ‘juxtaposed border controls’, skilfully negotiated by the last Conservative and Labour governments, enabled us to work even closer with the French to toughen the border on their side of the Channel.

  We have all read thrillers about terrorists driving into the tunnel and blowing it up, and thought the idea fanciful. But just because you assume the basic elements of security are taken care of doesn’t mean they are. I discovered that there wasn’t proper CCTV or lighting through the whole length of the tunnel, nor a combined operations room. As so often, I found that the most important thing to do as prime minister is to ask some of the most basic, often even the dumbest, questions. As a result we installed more fencing, floodlights, CCTV and sniffer dogs – and made Eurotunnel increase their security.

  But beyond this, I knew that a whole new approach was needed. To deal with the issue of mass migration you need proper borders and a proper policy – one that deals sensitively with refugees, but also reflects public opinion. The EU didn’t have either of these. The existing policy was inconsistent, in that it encouraged more migration, with the result that more lives were lost. Moreover, it didn’t have public support, being deeply controversial all across Europe.

  I wanted to use our platform in the EU to help shape the continent’s response, and made our case at numerous European Council meetings on the subject.

  First, I argued, we had to recognise the drivers of this mass migration. The main one, of course, was the war in Syria, since that was where the largest number of migrants came from. I was adamant that we had to keep the pressure on Assad. There could be no lasting peace in the country with the tyrant in power. But in the meantime we should keep up our support for the camps in neighbouring countries. And while Britain was more than doing its bit as the second-biggest humanitarian aid donor, others were not. Part of the reason so many refugees were coming to Europe was that they couldn’t work in the camps, and their money was running out. What’s more, the amount of money per family for food each day had been cut, because the World Food Programme had a funding shortfall of two-fifths (that was because others didn’t donate, though Britain did).

  If we kept people safe, well-fed, healthy and educated, we could stop them making the perilous journey to Europe – and keep them in the region, close to the homes to which they could, hopefully, one day return.

  Second, we had to do more to stop the problem at its source. The fact was that many of the migrants were coming from Africa, the wider Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and the Balkans. The top five countries of origin for those entering Italy were Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Gambia and Somalia. Many more were escaping broken or fragile states like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. In 2014 the top three countries of origin for refugees arriving in the EU were Syria, Afghanistan and Kosovo.

  That meant continuing our humanitarian aid for refugees from ISIS and our assistance for reconstruction efforts when ISIS was chased away. It meant supporting the Afghan government’s efforts to bring a measure of stability to the country. It also meant trying to develop compacts with African countries that said we would increase development aid if they took responsibility, implemented proper border controls and accepted people back. It meant ensuring that no country was overlooked in our quest to mend state fragility.

  Third, we had to break the thriving business model of the people-smugglers. Desperate migrants were paying more than £3,000 each to board unsafe vessels. Often they were willing to do so because of what they saw on social media, which was that the majority of people made it, Europe wouldn’t turn them away, and once they had reached Europe, they could continue onwards to the country of their choice. We had to do something difficult: be willing to turn the boats back.

  In European Council meetings I frequently cited the example of Australia. A few years earlier they had ended an influx of immigrants by taking a hard line. They towed back boats; they made it clear that people arriving by boat wouldn’t be able to settle in Australia. In the words of Tony Abbott, stop the boats and you stop the deaths.

  I also cited the Canary Islands, which had had huge problems with the level of migration from west Africa a decade earlier. The Spanish government invested heavily in maritime patrols and radar systems, did deals with the countries from which the migrants were coming, and – even better than turning bo
ats away – stopped them leaving in the first place.

  Fourth, we had to recognise that the problem wasn’t just people arriving on Europe’s periphery; it was them continuing onwards after that.

  The EU’s Dublin Regulation requires governments to process asylum applications in the first EU country the seekers reach. The purpose of asylum is to find safety; and once you’re in Europe, you’re safe. But people who arrived in Italy, Greece or Hungary didn’t want to stay there. Most wanted to push on to Austria, Germany, Sweden or Britain, where the hope of jobs and benefits was greater.

  And the governments of the arrival countries were encouraging this. The Italians and Greeks were exploiting the right Schengen gave them to receive migrants and palm them straight off onto their neighbours. If they were obliged to keep the people who came in, I thought, surely they would do far more to help control the situation. So that was part of my proposed solution to this chaos: either Schengen had to be suspended, or Dublin had to be enforced. In both cases there had to be proper processes to register people wherever they arrived.

  Fifth, enforcing Dublin was only part of a direct policy to strengthen Europe’s external borders. It wasn’t an impossible task. I frequently backed up the Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borisov as, at EU Council after EU Council, he made the basic point that Bulgaria had both a sea and a land border with Turkey, but by properly protecting its borders, and through hard work and sensible bilateral deals, it had managed to keep illegal migration to a minimum. Why did Greece consistently fail to do the same thing?

  I repeatedly pushed these five arguments with our European allies. The problem was, they looked at the images – the boats, the trains, the Jungle – but didn’t see the bigger picture. They didn’t see the need to stop the problem at its source, and instead focused almost entirely on what to do with those who had already arrived. As a result, the crisis built, and by the time of the European Council in June 2015, relations were the worst-tempered I’d ever seen.

 

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