PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Western Sahara - 30 October 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the issue of the Government’s attitude to Western Sahara. For transparency, I am as of this morning co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Morocco, a distinction I share with the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton). I have also enjoyed the kind hospitality of the Moroccan ambassador and the Moroccan Government, which has been duly registered where appropriate. I have a significant Moroccan community in my constituency, of which I am very proud. I am a former trade envoy to Morocco. I am also an ardent admirer of all things Moroccan and have done everything I can in my time here to bring the two kingdoms closer together.

The UK’s outlier position on the status of Morocco’s possession of Western Sahara is the sheet anchor in the UK-Moroccan relationship. That relationship goes back to the 13th century. History matters, particularly in an ancient country such as Morocco. Possession of Western Sahara long predates colonisation by France and Spain and is for Moroccans an existential issue. Any UK Government that seek to partner with Morocco to make the UK more secure in every sense and to grow the economy just cannot afford to allow official inertia to obstruct progress and change. I fear that it is official intransigence that has meant that the UK now finds itself an outlier in international opinion on this matter—in the company, I regret to say, of feral states such as Russia and Iran.

Last month, in response to my written parliamentary question on the UK’s position on Western Sahara, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Hamish Falconer), regurgitated the same response that Sir Humphrey drafted for me when I was doing his job:

“Successive UK governments have regarded the status of the Western Sahara as undetermined.”

If the UK position was inadequate when I was Minister for North Africa and the Middle East, recent developments have made it untenable and incompatible with the UK’s national interest. I hope to persuade the Minister this evening to push back on the lines he is about to read out. In the national interest, and in the interest of our relationship with our good friend the Kingdom of Morocco, I want him to be more successful than I was in resisting the institutional torpor he will have experienced during his first few months in his rather lovely office in King Charles Street, which I miss very much indeed.

First, I commend the right hon. Gentleman for all he is doing in this debate tonight and for all he has done in the past. It is recognised by a great many people, and we thank him for it. Does he agree that the reason why the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office guidance advises against travel to areas such as Western Sahara underlines the help that the people who live there need? Does he also agree that, rather than simply warning against travel, the Government should focus on whether any steps can be taken to help the tens of thousands of people in refugee camps who have no hope at all for the future?

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Of course, the UK does that through the United Nations and the Tindouf camps, but he makes a good point about Foreign Office advice to people seeking to travel to Western Sahara. There is very real potential for Western Sahara to be a vacuum in which the ill-disposed can do what they will. We cannot allow that space to be ungoverned. We need to ensure that there is a jurisdiction there to bring order and ensure that the ill-inclined are not a threat to Morocco, Western Sahara, the wider region and, frankly, ourselves.

The anaemic UK official line has relied on two arguments for doing nothing: first, that recognising Moroccan sovereignty would, in some mysterious way, challenge our sovereignty over the remaining British overseas territories, and secondly, that supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan would upset Algeria, which has a strained relationship with Morocco and supports the Polisario Front’s call for independence for Western Sahara.

There is no evidence that recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara would compromise our wider regional equities in any significant way. We know this because peer nations that have been much more forward-leaning on Moroccan sovereignty have not suffered a backlash from a pragmatic Algiers. The only exception is France, but the Franco-Algerian relationship has been toxic before and since independence in 1962, so it in no way compares with our own relationship or with that of other countries seeking a positive future with both Algiers and Rabat.

I appreciate the Labour party’s difficulty in relation to the Polisario Front. Under previous management, Labour supported the hard-left Polisario Front and would never have accepted the Moroccan autonomy plan, but the Prime Minister has invested much time and political capital in putting as much distance as possible between himself and his predecessor. He might therefore see this as an opportunity.

What would changing our line to match our peers do to the UK’s case for holding on to its remaining overseas territories? The answer lies in the unforced surrender of the Chagos islands, which was a decision of infinitely greater consequence than what I propose would ever be.

In any event, Cambridge professor of international law Marc Weller, in his opinion of April 2024, is crystal clear:

“There are no points where endorsing the position of Morocco on which its autonomy proposal is based would in any sense distract from the UK position concerning title to the Falkland Islands.”

What about Argentina, whose mission to turn the Falkland Islands into the Malvinas has been refuelled by the Foreign Secretary’s Chagos capitulation? Well, it has said:

“The Sahara is indubitably Moroccan.”

Much of South America also appears to support the autonomy plan or has recanted its previous support for Saharan independence.

Can the right hon. Gentleman adumbrate how the uninhabited Chagos islands are equivalent, in any way, shape or form, to the Falkland Islands?

I most certainly can. It is pretty plain to all who take an interest in these matters that the Argentine Government have their tail up as a result of the capitulation on the Chagos islands. If the hon. Gentleman doubts that the Argentine Government have had a shot in the arm, he should look up the Argentine Foreign Minister’s comments on this subject.

Coming back to Western Sahara, could the right hon. Gentleman explain why the UK Government, or anybody else, should agree to its so-called autonomy within the Moroccan state given Morocco’s appalling human rights record in respect of the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara?

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Morocco stands as a beacon of solidity and decency in a very troubled region—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I am afraid he is incorrect. I want to see Morocco develop alongside its European partners, and I want it to continue improving its human rights record, just as I want every country around the globe to continue improving its human rights record. He who is without sin may cast the first stone.

We need to have a Western Sahara that makes sense and that is not a vacuum in which the ill-disposed can flourish. That is the basis of the only credible plan on the table, as acknowledged by France, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and a great swathe of the middle east. All those countries seem to feel that this is the only way forward.

We have a choice, of course. We could do nothing and just let this issue rumble on for decades, and nothing would happen other than that the people in the Tindouf camps would continue to suffer, but I do not think that is right. I want something done about it, and the Moroccan autonomy plan is the only credible plan on the table.

I congratulate the right hon. Member on securing the debate. He must be aware that there are a large number of Sahrawi people living in refugee camps in Algeria, and there have been for a very long time. He must also be aware that since the departure of the Spanish from Western Sahara, the Sahrawi people have never been given a vote on their future and have never been able to decide on decolonisation. He will also be aware that legal opinion is against Moroccan exploitation of the agricultural, mineral and fish resources of Western Sahara. Is it not time that we got in line with the African Union and others who want to see a peaceful approach to the future, which means giving the Sahrawi people the right to their own self-determination to their place in history? That, surely, is what the decolonisation process should be about.

The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that that would require some sort of referendum or vote. The difficulty has always been defining what the electorate would be. That is why we would be kicking the can down the road for decades and decades. It is an almost insurmountable issue. It seems to France, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and others that the only practical solution is to get behind the only credible plan on the table, which is the Moroccan autonomy plan.

To put it bluntly, I worry that the FCDO has been rumbled. Its reluctance to follow our north Atlantic peer group in recognising Moroccan sovereignty and the autonomy plan has nothing to do with Algeria or the British Overseas Territories. It is simply the consequence of institutional torpor and a languid, left-liberal indifference to the advancement of our national interests, and it will not do.

Emmanuel Macron is in Morocco on a state visit. In a letter to His Majesty King Mohammed earlier this year, he said:

“The present and future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.”

He went on:

“France intends to act consistently with this position at both national and international level.”

Yesterday, President Macron, addressing the Moroccan Parliament, repeated the new French position. The Moroccan press today is reporting that France will be opening a consulate and branch of the Institut Français in Laayoune. It has even identified the building in which it will be housed from next month. The Franco-Moroccan Chamber of Commerce and Industry is already established in Western Sahara. Where are we?

Some 30 countries, primarily African or Arab, already have consulates in Laayoune or Dakhla. France is our friend, but it is also our competition. Changing tack on Western Sahara has been the necessary precondition in taking its relationship with Morocco to the next level. It is hardly surprising that Macron has in his retinue the chief executive officers of 100 French companies.

While the 2019 Morocco-UK association agreement has undoubtedly facilitated bilateral trade, we are nowhere near realising its full potential. The massive Tanger Med port, in the lee of Gibraltar, has been a largely missed opportunity for the UK. Our current stance on Western Sahara now threatens opportunities in Dakhla Atlantic port. Our posture means we cannot, for example, use UK Export Finance in Western Sahara and British International Investment will not engage. If growth for this Government is genuinely beyond the rhetorical, it cannot miss opportunities like Dakhla.

If high-minded Foreign Office officials remain sniffy about grubby trade and commerce, they might be more willing to reflect on the strategic importance of a strong, stable ally at the nexus of the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and what tends to happen in ungoverned spaces, particularly where Russian and Iranian proxies are involved. Happily, the Ministry of Defence has been forging strong working-level relationships with Morocco’s military, properly understanding the growing influence and leadership the country has been applying across the turbulent region in which it sits. The kingdom’s long-standing tradition of tolerance, moderate religious teaching and Sufi influence makes it the foil of extremism and instability in the region and more widely.

The Foreign Office might also eventually wake up to the potential for Morocco to help the Government hit their elusive net zero target and to diversify the grid. On offer is a 4,000 km interconnector sending the power of the Sahara’s reliable sun and wind to south-west England. This it would do through the Xlinks scheme to match in our time the great British engineering triumphs of Brunel and Telford. A country genuinely tooling itself up for growth needs to stop dragging its heels on shovel-ready schemes such as Xlinks.

Morocco, which is shrugging off the colonial yoke, is eager to forge new relationships with European countries with which it has no baggage. That should mean the UK. Morocco wants it to mean the UK, but too often we see the dead hand of British officialdom getting in the way.

Nobody can fail to be impressed by the development that Morocco has made possible in Western Sahara, lifting the condition of the people who live there. Nobody can fail to be impressed by the regional leadership that Rabat has provided in recent years. Nobody can be in any doubt that this ancient kingdom is a welcome bastion of stability, security and decency in Europe’s penumbra, our voisinage.

Even Spain, Morocco’s nearest European neighbour with which it has long-standing territorial issues, has a better line than the UK and, more significantly, one that has evolved in Morocco’s favour from a position of neutrality. It is noteworthy that many of our peers have been on a journey, with language that has typically moved from the Moroccan autonomy plan being a solution, to it being the solution or even the only solution.

This year, Spain has reiterated the revised position that it adopted in April 2022. Thus the autonomy plan is

“the most serious, realistic and credible basis”

for the resolution of the Western Sahara question in its view. Germany has adopted similar language. Then we come to the US. The White House issued this proclamation in 2020:

“The United States affirms, as stated by previous Administrations, its support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory. Therefore, as of today, the United States recognises Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory and reaffirms its support for Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory. The United States believes that an independent Sahrawi state is not a realistic option for resolving the conflict and that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution. We urge the parties to engage in discussions without delay, using Morocco’s autonomy plan as the only framework to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution.”

So, what do I want? I want the UK to stop hiding under the UN’s skirts and to adopt similar language on Western Sahara to our permanent UN Security Council friends, the US and France. If that is too radical for the Foreign Office, we could at least match Spain and Germany. I want the UK to match France toe to toe in establishing cultural and consular presence in Laayoune and Dakhla, facilitating British engagement with commercial opportunities in Western Sahara to our mutual benefit. I want Britain to rekindle one of our oldest diplomatic relationships—more than eight centuries old. What better way to advance plans for a Moroccan state visit to the UK. That is the next obvious step after the association agreement that we signed in Lancaster House. Why has it stalled?

Above all, I want the Foreign Office to wake up to a post-Brexit reality in which we sink or swim depending on our ability to pursue the national interest with pivotally located, like-minded jurisdictions with which we can do business—countries such as Morocco. Or, if the Minister wants, he can swallow the line that he is about to rehearse and leave the fruits of a new era in bilateral relations to our closest continental neighbour.

Be in no doubt that, for Morocco, the UK’s position on Western Sahara is the test of how we value our relationship. As others have evolved their position over time, the UK is out of line and out of date. We will make no further progress until we change it.

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) for securing the debate, and for his service in the Foreign Office and as trade envoy, and for his many years of advocating for a closer relationship between the UK and Morocco, which is an important goal.

I regret that the drafting of my responses to the right hon. Member’s parliamentary questions were described as “anaemic” and “regurgitation”, and I will endeavour to provide a little more zest for him in future. I would, however, say in relation to Foreign Office officials, who got a rather extensive mention in the right hon. Member’s remarks, that they are excellent, hard-working servants of this country, who serve without fear or favour. They advise; Ministers decide. The speech I am about to deliver has, of course, been prepared by the excellent officials of King Charles Street, but it is me and my ministerial colleagues who have decided it, so in future I would hope that the right hon. Member might direct his criticisms of the policy at me rather than my officials.

It is a timely moment to have this debate. The UN Security Council is set this week to adopt a resolution renewing the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO—United Nations mission for the referendum in Western Sahara—for another 12 months. I am also grateful for the contributions to this debate from other Members, many of whom have shown long-standing commitment to the issues. I will try to respond to their points as I go.

I do not need to tell this Chamber of the complexity of the issues. The UN has maintained, through MINURSO, a presence in Western Sahara since 1991. Successive personal envoys and special representatives to the UN Secretary-General have steered both the activities of MINURSO and a UN-led process aimed at achieving a resolution to the disputed territory. The UK strongly supports MINURSO’s activities, and we welcome its ongoing de-mining and observer operations in Western Sahara. To that end, the UK has consistently supported UN Security Council resolutions concerning MINURSO, including most recently resolution 2703 in October 2023, which extended the mandate for 12 months.

The UK position remains to support the UN-led efforts to reach a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution that will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. This is in line with the position taken by successive UK Governments and UN Security Council resolutions. A solution agreed by all parties would contribute significantly to regional security and prosperity, and have the potential to unlock wide economic possibilities and benefits for those communities directly affected by this long-standing dispute—and of course for the UK, as the right hon. Member alluded to. It is for the parties to agree resolution, but the UN needs our support in its efforts to find a pragmatic solution. This is why we encourage others to support the UN-led process, and I thank successive British ambassadors and officials who work in the region for their contributions to this effort.

The UK’s position is in line with our status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a key contributor to other UN peacekeeping missions. This position also reflects our core national interests, and it is based on our political judgment of how best to protect them. The right hon. Member referred to a paper by a notable legal scholar, but he will understand that it is for Ministers of this Government to make a judgment about how to protect our core national interests and which political judgments lay behind them. We believe it is important that we support the principle of self-determination, which gives people the right to decide their own future, as enshrined in the UN Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara.

I thank the Minister for reaffirming his commitment to self-determination, and for not going down the road of partition nor indeed of incorporation within the Moroccan state, as the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) seems to want. The Minister could go one stage further and follow the EU example, which would be the case were we still within the EU, and say that the provision of resources and trade with Western Sahara should only be undertaken if it is to the benefit of the indigenous people there, rather than to the benefit of the Kingdom of Morocco.

We are studying the legal judgment to which my hon. Friend refers closely. Our position has not been to oppose economic activity in Western Sahara, but that it must benefit the Sahrawi people. We will continue to engage with our international partners, as the House would expect, including the European Union, our fellow Security Council members, regional stakeholders and indeed the UN itself in support of its efforts.

In the Minister’s engagement with other European countries and other members of the United Nations, I hope that he will have respect for international legal opinion concerning the exploitation of minerals, agricultural products and fisheries from Western Sahara, and the plight of the Sahrawi people, many of whom have been in refugee camps for almost 30 years and deserve the right to decide their own future in their own country.

The right hon. Member is right to refer to the humanitarian situation facing the Sahrawi refugees. I think other Members referred to the camps in the Tindouf wilayah. We consistently support both UN Security Council resolutions that highlight the Sahrawi people face, and we contribute through the UN to support the refugee camps. My officials last visited those camps in November 2023.

I was pleased last month to meet Staffan de Mistura, the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy for Western Sahara, and our meeting was an opportunity to discuss both his mandate and that of MINURSO. I was able to reiterate the UK’s full support for the UN-led process. The situation in the Tindouf refugee camps, to which the right hon. Member just referred, remains challenging, and we are working with various UN agencies and bodies to provide vital humanitarian support. The circumstances have been made more dire by recent heavy flooding in the region, as colleagues will be aware. The situation remains of great concern to the UK, and we continue to closely monitor developments, including through visits by Foreign Office officials.

Members have referred to the Moroccan autonomy plan, which was first announced in 2007. We have chosen not to comment publicly on the plan, which is not a judgment on its merits or otherwise. However, I assure the House that the UK would warmly welcome any solution to the dispute that is able to secure the support of all parties. While we enjoy constructive dialogue with our partners on a wide range of issues, including Western Sahara, I say to the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire that their foreign policy decisions are ultimately for them to make, in their own individual assessments and interests, as ours are for us.

The UK strongly believes that the UN is the best way to solve this long-standing dispute by delivering a solution that is agreeable to all parties. We will continue to give the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy our support, encourage constructive engagement with the political process, and monitor progress. That remains the best way to deliver a sustainable, just, secure and prosperous future for the people of Western Sahara and the wider region.

Question put and agreed to.