"In my 16 years in the House of Commons, I have not known an issue that has united Members of Parliament from both Houses, and from across the political spectrum, as much as this one [deproscription of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran]"
NCRI – Excerpts of speech by Mr. Andrew Mackinlay, a Labour member of the British Parliament in a parliamentary debate on Monday that led to deproscription of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) in UK:
I am proud to be one of the 35 people referred to in the case of Lord Alton and others. Others in that 35 are in the Chamber tonight. I deliberately say that I am proud because it was a unique group of people. It was a unique group of people and included my honorable Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who shares my satisfaction at having been part of the campaign to have that grave injustice, as we saw it, remedied. It is worth reminding the House that among those people were Lord Waddington, a former Conservative Home Secretary; Lord Russell-Johnston, from the Liberal party; a former national agent of the Labour party, who is now in the House of Lords; Lord Archer, who was Attorney-General in James Callaghan’s Government; a former Scottish Law Officer; a Conservative Lord; and the former leader of the Labour peers, Lord Corbett. Those people banded together, feeling that there was a need to persuade the Government to lift the proscription on their own initiative and, if they did not do so, to pursue it through the courts.
I regret that successive Ministers could not be persuaded to look at the matter impartially -I use that word deliberately, because the Government have foolishly and recklessly been motivated by the desire to appease the unappeasable, namely the regime in Tehran. The Government have not executed their obligations in law or the obligations dictated by common justice that require them to consider the evidence when deciding whether to continue the proscription of the [People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran] PMOI.
This continued proscription has been at the bidding and request – the demand – of the Tehran regime, without any evidence having been produced to justify it. That is not my view, but that of POAC, of the High Court and of the Court of Appeal. After all, the POAC [Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission] decision states that
“The only belief that a reasonable decision maker could have honestly entertained, whether as at September 2006 or thereafter, is that the PMOI [MEK] no longer satisfies any of the criteria necessary for the maintenance of their proscription.”
That is the position. I have already drawn the House’s attention to the fact that during both the POAC hearing and the Court of Appeal deliberations, there were days of closed session when special advocates were appointed to consider the secret evidence produced by the British Government. The Lord Chief Justice spent that time considering the documents and listening to the case from the Government’s special counsel and concluded that that had only served to reinforce his view that the Secretary of State had acted in a “perverse” manner. I asked a lawyer what that signified. He said, “Saying that people are ‘perverse’ is the nearest the Lord Chief Justice comes to being rude.” Such was the uniqueness of the occasion.
I will be signalling to Tehran tonight that the British House of Commons unanimously passed an order lifting the PMOI [MEK] from proscription. There will not be a Division; it will be a unanimous decision in the House of Commons. I welcome that, but it needs to be reiterated. The United Kingdom embassy in Tehran also has to note that that will be the position tonight after we have concluded our deliberations.
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds also said that, under European Union rules, the fact that the United Kingdom had proscribed the organisation meant, ipso facto, that the whole EU had done so. The corollary of this evening’s unanimous vote will surely be that the British Government will communicate to the EU that the House of Commons and the other place have unanimously decided that the proscription should be lifted, and will invite the EU to reassess its position. That would be the sensible and fair outcome of the debate.
In conclusion, it is important to reiterate that the people in Camp Ashraf hold no weapons. They are under repeated attack and in serious danger. To use a simple phrase, they are taking these blows on the chin. They are turning the other cheek. We know that the source of these attacks is in Iran. It is bewildering to many Members that the Secretary of State for Defence has indicated, with great candour, that some of the ordinance used against British armed forces and coalition forces has its roots in Iran, implicitly with the full knowledge and consent of the Iranian regime.
It is a matter of fact that the people in Ashraf have protected person status under the fourth Geneva convention, and I believe that there are moral obligations on coalition forces, of which we are part, to see that those people are protected.
In my 16 years in the House of Commons, I have not known an issue that has united Members of Parliament from both Houses, and from across the political spectrum, as much as this one. We saw the action of the British Government as foolish and not in the long-term best interests of the UK. It was unfair and perverse. I hope that tonight, we have given the Government the opportunity to pause and reflect in order to remedy the wrong that they have perpetrated against those people. I am proud to have been part of the campaign to bring about the order, which will be passed unanimously by the House of Commons.
