Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green
@MPIainDS • 75,584 subscribers
Conservative MP for Chingford & Woodford Green Promoted by M. Goldie of 105c Station Road, Chingford, E4 7BU.
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Ann embodied something fundamental about this House: the passion and freedom to make our arguments robustly and without fear, and the unique responsibility that we have to the people we represent. The relationship between a Member of Parliament and their constituents is unlike almost anything else. We meet people face to face. We hold surgeries. We go into their homes. If someone is too ill to come and see us, we go and see them. We do so because personal contact with the people we represent is at the heart of our democracy. We must not allow the epitaph of Ann’s terrible murder to be that we withdraw from that responsibility or lose the very thing that makes this place and our democracy so special. But nor can we ignore the increasingly visceral and violent language that is allowed to spread online. The Government, and particularly the Home Secretary, must make it absolutely clear to the social media companies that they have a responsibility to do far more to tackle personal abuse, threats and violent rhetoric. Some of what has been said online following Ann’s murder has been utterly shocking, and we cannot simply pretend that this culture of hatred has no consequences. Ann is not the only Member of Parliament to have been murdered. Jo Cox was murdered. My good friend David Amess was murdered. And the plaques around this Chamber remind us that terrorists have murdered many Members of this House. We must be bold and we must be clear. We will not accept being shut down. We will not accept being prevented from carrying out our duties. And we will not accept being silenced. Because that, I believe, is what Ann would have wanted.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green20,275 Aufrufe • vor 2 Tagen
The first rung of the employment ladder is disappearing. Saturday jobs and first opportunities gave young people more than a wage. They built confidence, taught responsibility and provided the experience needed to get on. Now, Government decisions are making those opportunities harder to find. Higher National Insurance, rising business rates, new employment regulations and soaring energy costs are piling burden after burden onto the businesses that create jobs. Young people are paying the price. The Government cannot keep looking at each decision in isolation while ignoring the cumulative damage it is doing to jobs, businesses and economic growth. The Labour Government has done enough damage. It needs to think again.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green44,241 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
The Prime Minister pledged that he would use all the Government’s might to tackle the shadow fleet tankers passing through British territorial waters. Since then, just one has been seized, while nearly 200 shadow fleet tankers have passed through our waters without action being taken. Is the Government genuinely serious about stopping these tankers? And if it is, will it now revisit its interpretation of UNCLOS, which it repeatedly claims prevents action from being taken to board them? Dan Jarvis MP UK Prime Minister
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green19,500 Aufrufe • vor 9 Tagen
Young people are paying the price for a Labour Government that refuses to recognise the cumulative impact of its decisions. Getting that first foot on the employment ladder is already difficult. Without experience, employers are reluctant to take a risk on young people. Yet the Government has made that decision even harder. Higher National Insurance costs, new employment regulations and increases in the minimum wage have created a triple whammy for employers, squeezing young people out of work. Youth unemployment is rising and too many young people are being denied the opportunity to gain the experience they need to build a career. The Government cannot continue to look at these policies in isolation. It must recognise their combined impact. Without that first job, there is no experience. Without experience, the next job is even harder to find.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green15,795 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
The Labour Party do not seem to have grasped that, by the Prime Minister’s own admission, the United Kingdom is now entitled to take defensive action against the launch of missiles and drones aimed at us. We are, in effect, in precisely the same position as the United States. The Prime Minister said his reason originally for not allowing Fairford or even Diego Garcia to be used, was that would constitute for him a breach of international law, because it would be us condoning an offensive operation. However, he's changed his position on this because of attacks on allies and on a UK base, and that means now that he is authorising the Americans to act in defence by taking out those kind of missiles that would attack us. Surely that now means that the UK Armed Forces, in this case the Royal Air Force, could now be used by the Government in no breach of international law in a defensive action to take out those missiles as well.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green175,424 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
My message to this Government is simple: show determination and ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Britain must not tolerate those who threaten lives on our shores, and for years the IRGC has threatened people on British soil. Our security services have already foiled around 20 Iranian-linked plots involving sabotage and assassination here in the UK. That should concern every one of us. Yet despite repeated calls across Parliament, the IRGC is still not proscribed. Defence of the realm begins with the defence of our own country. If an organisation is threatening, intimidating and pursuing people here in Britain, we should act. Proscribing the IRGC would give our security services stronger powers to disrupt and stop those responsible.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green116,999 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
This week I have asked a number of times about proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Today I asked the Prime Minister directly, and still, no real answer. Instead, Keir Starmer says the UK’s proscription powers “are not designed for a state organisation.” That sounds less like a reason and more like an excuse for inaction. The IRGC spreads terror, threatens British citizens, targets Iranian dissidents, and fuels antisemitism and extremism, including here in the UK. Other countries have acted. The United States, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have all designated the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. So why won’t this government? Labour should stop hiding behind process, proscribe the IRGC, and protect our citizens, particularly the UK’s Jewish community, who face rising intimidation and hate.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green79,903 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
I say to the Government: no more evasions, no more excuses, and no more terminal inexactitude from that Dispatch Box. The House deserves better. The country expects better. This was an appointment that should never have been made. The Government pushed the Peter Mandelson appointment through anyway, and now they are scrambling for excuses. They say the system failed. It did not. They ignored it. The facts were already in the public domain. The Cabinet Secretary advised them to pause and wait for proper clearance. Sensible advice. Responsible advice. They ignored that too. Instead, they rushed it through, put the King in the firing line, secured agrément, and hoped it would hold. It did not. That is not due process, that is recklessness. And today we learned something even more serious: despite not being cleared, he had access to highly sensitive material. That should concern every Member of this House. So the question is simple: why? Why push this through against the evidence, against advice, and against common sense? The Prime Minister owns this. This was his decision, and it has failed.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green60,888 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Earlier David Lammy claimed he couldn’t answer the question raised at #PMQs because of “operational reasons” from the Met Police. But as Steven Swinford reports in The Times and Sunday Times, there was no operational issue with the release of that information at all. The Justice Secretary appears to have misled the House...
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green134,028 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten
The mark of a bad Bill is obvious: sweeping Henry VIII powers hidden inside something thin and flimsy, handing the Government carte blanche to rewrite it after the event. That is exactly what this was. Now, having pushed it through, the Government is retreating: call it a pause, call it a U-turn. But let’s get to the point, the rights of the Chagossians. This Labour government talks about enabling their return, yet when the Supreme Court ruled that Section 9 of the 2004 Order in Council, denying their right of abode, was unlawful this Government chose to appeal. So which is it? Does the goverment believe the Chagossians have the right to return, or are they determined to keep them out? This is not about process. It is about justice.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green55,025 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
The Prime Minister knew exactly who he was appointing. Mandelson was twice sacked from Cabinet, with well-documented links in the public domain; links to Chinese companies, meetings with President Xi Jinping, meetings with President Vladimir Putin, and a relationship with Oleg Deripaska while overseeing aluminium tariffs as an EU Commissioner. None of this was hidden. So let us not pretend the Prime Minister didn’t know, he did. He knew the risks. He knew the background. And he made the choice anyway. Which leads to the central question: why was the proper review, why was the due process, set aside before that decision was made? Because the truth is this: this was not an oversight. It was a judgement and it was the wrong one.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green50,588 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Let me be absolutely clear: the greatest strategic threat we face today is China. It is acting in open defiance of international law, militarising vital sea lanes, threatening its neighbours and preparing for blockades that would choke global trade. The Chagos Islands sit at the heart of those east–west trade routes. At a moment when China is rapidly building a navy that will soon rival the United States, this Labour Government has chosen to give up one of our most critical strategic assets. That is not realism, it is recklessness. Handing Chagos to Mauritius, a country with close ties to Beijing, weakens our security and that of our allies. Worse still, Mauritius has made clear it will not allow nuclear weapons on the islands. Once sovereignty is transferred, that restriction applies in full. The Government’s ambiguity on this point is dangerous. The treaty is rushed, badly drafted and ignores the binding UK–US agreement that requires Chagos to remain under British sovereignty. You cannot quietly trade away a strategic base and hope no one notices. Let me also be clear about the human cost. What was done to the Chagossians in the past was wrong, morally wrong, and we must own that. But this treaty does not put them first. I would rather do a direct deal with the Chagossians themselves: allow them to return, restore their rights, and compensate them properly under continued UK control. If we allow this surrender to go through, we will look back and know that we gave away control of one of the most critical places on earth at the very moment the free world could least afford it.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green78,456 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
The #Chagos Surrender Bill is fundamentally flawed and not in the UK’s national interest. It betrays the Chagossian community by excluding them from meaningful consultation and offers no clarity on their future rights or role. The Labour Government’s legal justification for the deal is weak—there is no binding UNCLOS threat—and its costings are opaque, unreliable, and potentially misleading. The Bill also strips Parliament of oversight, granting sweeping powers to Ministers through Orders in Council. Strategically, it undermines UK security in the Indian Ocean, handing advantage to China, which seeks greater control of key maritime routes through its ties with Mauritius. In short, the Bill is legally unnecessary, financially unsound, democratically unacceptable, and geopolitically dangerous. It is no good for the Government to come back later and say, “I wish we hadn’t done this.” Now is the time to stand up and say that this does not work, it must stop, and the Government must think again.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green94,927 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten
I’ve seen a fair few #Budgets over the years, but this one has been on another level: chaotic, confusing and genuinely dangerous. Let’s be clear this wasn’t “media speculation”. These were informed briefings coming directly from this Labour Government, and the fallout has done real damage to our country’s credibility. The fact that the OBR had to publish its advice publicly, something practically unheard of, shows just how serious the situation is. I’ll ask plainly and with some decency: will the Labour Government: Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, apologise for the mess they’ve made?
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green73,335 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten
Speaking in the Defence Spending debate, I say without hesitation that this is one of the most important debates we will take part in during our time in this House, because it concerns the most fundamental duty of any Government: the defence of the realm. I genuinely believe we face the most dangerous strategic environment since the 1930s. UK Defence spending must rise. During the Cold War we understood the threat. NATO was united. We knew what had to be done. Today, we face a growing threat yet remain dangerously complacent. The parallels with the 1930s are becoming harder to ignore. My father, who fought throughout the Second World War, could never forgive those politicians who failed to recognise the danger gathering before them and left Britain dangerously unprepared. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my life. Today we see the rise of increasingly aggressive authoritarian powers. China stands at the centre of that challenge, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea. While they have invested heavily in military and industrial capability, we have spent too long assuming that peace was permanent. Unlike the 1930s, we no longer possess the industrial capacity that allowed Britain to rapidly rearm. That should concern every Member of this House. Of course we can debate decisions taken by previous governments, but the past cannot be changed. The only question that matters is whether we have learned from it. 3% of GDP during this Parliament should be regarded not as an ambition but as the minimum starting point. Beyond that, we should be setting a clear path towards four and ultimately five per cent. When the Soviet threat intensified, NATO nations stepped up because they understood what was at stake. Strength preserved peace then, and it remains the surest guarantee of peace today. I urge the Government to listen carefully to what has been said in this debate. Listen to those who have spoken from experience. Listen to those who have sacrificed ministerial office because they believe this issue matters. Listen to the growing concern across this House. We are ready to support the measures necessary to strengthen our defences. We are ready to make the difficult choices. We are ready to put the security of our nation first. But what we must never do is repeat the mistakes of the past. For if we fail to prepare for the dangers that are now gathering before us, future generations may ask why we ignored the warnings, and history will not judge us kindly if we do.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green10,848 Aufrufe • vor 22 Tagen
Approving the decision for a Chinese mega-embassy at Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London is strategically reckless and a terrible decision. Residents’ legal challenges will almost certainly expose the extent of government involvement behind the scenes. All the evidence points one way: ministers have positioned themselves to approve this embassy to protect trade relations with China, while turning a blind eye to its record. This site will host hundreds more so-called “diplomats”, secure underground facilities, and expanded intelligence capacity. Wherever this happens globally, pressure, intimidation and risk increase. We already see Chinese dissidents in the UK facing threats and bounties after Hong Kong’s takeover and the imposition of the National Security Law. China conducts cyber-attacks, uses forced labour, undermines international rules, threatens Taiwan, and expands foreign interference — yet the government refuses to place it in the highest tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme. This cannot be hidden, and it cannot be justified. Granting this embassy is a disastrous decision for security, sovereignty and trust.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green56,259 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
Speaking in the Chamber today on the Official Secrets Act, I raised deep concern over the decision to drop charges against two individuals accused of espionage for China. As someone sanctioned and targeted by the Chinese Government, I was briefed at the outset that this was a “slam-dunk” prosecution — they were clear that they had met every single requirement within the Official Secrets Act about passing secure information to the Chinese intelligence agency that would be “directly or indirectly" useful to the Chinese state. That is very clear. It cannot, therefore, be for a lack of evidence that this has been dropped by the CPS, so why has the case been abandoned? The issue lies in how the Act defines an “enemy”. After the China audit, the Labour Government had the chance to put China in the same upper tier as Russia, North Korea and Iran — but chose not to. Ministers call China a “challenge”, not a threat. That position is indefensible. The Minister speaks of threats, but he does not say that China is a threat; he says it is a “challenge”, which is a ludicrous position to take. This decision has let down Parliament and, indeed, Mr Speaker himself, who stood up for Members targeted by Beijing. Until China is recognised for what it is — a persistent threat to individuals and states — our national security will remain compromised, and our reputation weakened as a strong state against terrorism.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green80,556 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten
Speaking in the Security update - Officials Secrets Act Case: The 2002 and 2003 integrated reviews were very clear. All the officials and the security services called and said that China was a significant threat. That was sufficient to give to the CPS, not even by ministers but by officials. The question is: why wasn’t it? But the question I really wanted to ask today concerns this absurdity about the role, or lack of role, of the National Security Adviser. The government says he wasn’t involved in any matters of substance — but isn’t it the role of the National Security Adviser to be involved in all matters of substance when it comes to national security? So, what’s the point of a National Security Adviser who does not involve themselves in matters of national security, as in this case? Instead, we are meant to believe that the Deputy National Security Adviser is allowed, in this case, to involve themselves in substantial matters of national security, but not apparently discuss these substantial matters of national security with the National Security Adviser. This does seem to be an absolute matter of substantial absurdity.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green70,473 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten
Rather than engaging in what sounds like a sort of tautological tap dance around the issue, will the Minister simply be honest with the House? If we are involved, what is the Government’s plan to secure the Strait of Hormuz, and what British assets will be deployed to ensure freedom of navigation through that critical route? The difficulty here is that this Government said it would not be involved in this conflict, yet within a day it allowed the US to operate from British bases. Whether Ministers like it or not, that decision effectively brings the UK into the war. Given that reality, I find it hard to understand the Government’s reluctance to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. The Strait of Hormuz is already central to this conflict and is one of the most vital shipping routes in the world.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green35,146 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Cyclists who kill people face life in prison, the Transport Secretary has announced as he promised to introduce the same punishments as those for dangerous drivers. Those who injure people while cycling dangerously could face jail terms of up to five years. Victims minister Laura Ferris announced in the Commons that the government would back an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which I put forward today. In the next few weeks it will be redrafted and re-introduced in the House of Lords.
Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green145,398 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren