Westminster Hall

Iran

Mr. Brian Binley (Northampton, South) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. He made a couple of points that I need to take up with him in the bar—no doubt we will do that later.

I had meant to speak about the failed policy of appeasement pursued by the EU3. It is clear that the regime has no intention of halting uranium enrichment, limiting its nuclear programme or, as we saw yesterday, stopping its work on delivery vehicles. I wanted to talk about the escalating crisis in the middle east and the part that the Iranians have played in it, to our detriment, and I wanted to talk about human rights.

My main message is that appeasement has not worked, yet we are proscribing the National Council of Resistance of Iran and, through it, the People’s Mujaheddin Organisation of Iran, which have done much to expose the threat in Iran, are the principal source of information for many western Governments throughout the world, have stated that they do not pursue acts of terrorism—we have agreed with that—do not hold weapons and are totally committed to democracy. The NCRI leader, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, is equally committed to what she calls the third option: no military intervention in Iran and no appeasement, but de-proscription of all those Iranians who have come together in exile to work against the present regime, which has proved so harmful to the Iranian people themselves and which is a threat to world peace.

As I said earlier, the European Court of First Instance annulled the proscription that our Government agreed to in December 2005, but our Government are spearheading a campaign to avoid that annulment and legal decision. What a disgrace it is that our country should try to get out of a properly taken legal decision through treaties that we have properly signed up to. We should be ashamed of ourselves—I certainly am.

I want to ask the Minister three questions. Why are we not recognising the court’s decision, and why are we failing democracy and the legal process in that way? When might we eventually recognise the court’s decision? Finally, why do the Government continue to give comfort to the mullahs, and continue to send messages that are in total opposition to all that we need to achieve in the middle east?