“Yemen, Yemen, make us proud”…by making us all poorer. And helping Putin and his allies. | Conservative Home

In 2003, Britain sent ground troops into Iraq.  A hundred and seventy-none of our troops were killed, up to a million Iraqis may have died, ISIS rose up from the ashes of the conflict, and Iraq moved into the political orbit of Iran.

In 2013, the Commons voted against military action in Syria.  Over half a million of its population has been killed during the civil war.  Up to seven million have fled.  A million or so are in Europe.  Its fringe parties are prospering.  And Syria’s dictator is winning the war.

Iraq and Syria represent the polarities of choice for British security policy.  We’re damned if we intervene and damned if we don’t.  This is what comes of the interplay between geography and politics.

Which is nicely illustrated by Freedom House’s map of the world.  Countries coloured green are free.  Those in purple are not.  Yellow stands for in between the two.

Europe is entirely green bar six Balkan counties and Ukraine, all of which are yellow.  The Middle East is entirely purple other than Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Kuwait (all of which are also yellow).

Only one country in the Middle East is coloured green on the map: Israel.  What happens when countries that are unfree – in other words, without democratic government, property rights, independent judges, a free press and religious liberty – live near the free?

The answer is that there is a flow of migrants from the first to the second, speeded and worsened by war and conflict.  Islamist extremism is a core exporter of both of those, backing, financing and arming Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

One would therefore have thought that the rights and wrongs of what’s happening in the Red Sea are straightforward enough.  The Houthis are attacked ships of all kinds passing through it.

That’s bad enough as a matter of principle for international order.  It also has specific implications for the British people – namely, a potential revival of market turbulence, shortage-driven price rises, lower living standards and more strikes.

So the natural course for voters of all kinds is to support – or at least not oppose – the missile strikes on the Houthis supported by a coalition of the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea and Britain.

That coalition is backed by a “broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023, as well as the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea”.

Sir Keir Starmer lined up Labour alongside the coalition yesterday.  “I think it is important to look at what Houthis are doing in the Red Sea because those attacks were taking place, they were ramping up and escalating,” he said.

“And sitting back and simply doing nothing in that situation is not an appropriate way to respond.”  Nonetheless, it’s reasonable for Sir Keir, voters, Tory backbenchers, Ministers and others variously to ask in private and public whether the coalition will succeed in its objectives.

What if these missile strikes don’t work and the Houthi attacks continue?  What if further rounds of strikes are ordered and those don’t stop the Houthis either?

For there would be no appetite in any of those coalition countries, after Iraq, for ground troops to be sent into Yemen.  So the Government and others will be pondering the risks of escalation.

But whatever one thinks about how to respond to the Houthis, no-one should actually want them to win.  Or does.  Or so one might think unless seeing footage of Saturday’s latest round of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in central London.

“Yemen, Yemen, make us proud / Turn another ship around,” marchers chanted in their latest contribution to enhancing residents and shoppers’ weekend experience of the capital.

In other words, they were not only chanting for Iran’s tyrants to win, but for ordinary Britons to become poorer – including, presumably, themselves.  Perhaps Gary Lineker would like to join them?

And, since Iran has gradually drawn closer to Russia, just as Russia has to China, they were smiling on the alliance that has at best given cover for, at at worst lined up behind, Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.

One might dismiss them as the minority of a minority. For after all, most critics of Israel won’t have been on the march.  And most of those who were weren’t chanting as above.

But there is more at stake than may meet the eye.  The consensus that Britain is better than, say, Iran – that those countries coloured green on Freedom House’s map are happier, more prosperous and healthier than those coloured purple – seems to be under threat within the state itself.

Consider, for example, Anna Stanley’s recent report in Fathom of a course called “Issues in Countering Terrorism” designed for civil servants and professionals in counter-terrorism.

“All the civil servant participants were given a topic to research and present,” she writes. “One attendee said her brother had been radicalised and fought in Syria for Islamic State (ISIS). ’Phew’, I thought. At least one person here will understand the problems of extremism.”

“Her presentation was about the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, Prevent.  She argued Prevent is inherently racist because it focuses on Islamist extremism. The mere mention of Islamist extremism makes Muslims ‘feel uncomfortable’, she argued.”

At stake here is even more than whether public servants feel they are ultimately accountable to governments we elect or to international legal codes – one of the most fundamental political issues of our times.

Rather, it touches on an issue that goes even deeper: namely, whether national sovereignty or indeed human rights have real value – or if the vision of the world displayed by former presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn instead is the wave of the future.

It’s one in which the West is an oppressor and the rest the oppressed – in which those countries that are free somehow have independent judges and democracy and religious freedom because others don’t.

One doesn’t have to commit oneself to whatever Israel does in Gaza (I’m sceptical of its endgame and indeed whether it has one) to believe that this is to stand justice, sense and truth on their head, as well as Freedom House’s map.

In America, a fightback is under way, and two of those three presidents have resigned.  Here, Parliament has passed the Government’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which is at least a bit of a start.

Asserting the moral superiority of liberal democracy will require a “long march through the institutions” no less determined than the one that has gifted us some of these problems.

In the meantime, Sir Keir will have to work hard to keep his party on the right side of the line – as, broadly speaking, he has since the events of October 7.

Which will require removing the whip from Labour MPs who support attacks on international shipping and our armed forces.  After all, one of the ships on which the Houthis have fired was HMS Diamond.

This weekend, Apsana Begum described the coalition’s actions as “horrifying”, “shameful”, “deplorable” and “beyond unacceptable”. The Government, she complained, was acting “in the interests of international trade” (as though this is a bad thing).

Zarah Sultana has been singing the same song. This is very close to the line.  Of course, both have the right to free speech.  Likewise, Labour has the right to police itself – which includes giving and the whip. And taking it away.