Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure, Dr Allin-Khan, to serve with you in the Chair for this vital debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) on securing it. It is a sad fact of life in Parliament that we have not debated this issue enough, including on the Floor of the House of Commons, because the death toll in Sudan dwarfs anything else that is going on around the world at the moment, despite the amount of time that we spend discussing issues other than this one. I absolutely agree with the figures that the hon. Lady cited about the terrible death toll in Sudan, which is something in the order of 400,000, yet I suspect that even that is an underestimate. If it is, perhaps between 1 million and 1.5 million people in Sudan have been killed or wounded just in the direct conflict. Then, of course, there are all the people who have been displaced; she also gave those figures and I absolutely agree with them, too. Today, I will focus on following the money, because it seems to me that if we were to stop the money, we would stop the war. In particular, I will focus on the role of the UAE in all of this, which I think is an abomination. Frankly, the UAE’s Administration is a disgraceful one anyway, and I will go on to say why. It is now absolutely clear, from the work of the prominent human rights organisations and many media outlets that have conducted investigations into RSF fighters, that those fighters are using weapons supplied by the UAE. If not manufactured in the UAE, the weapons are certainly re-exported to them on a regular basis and in vast numbers, along with ammunition. Furthermore, Colombian mercenaries have arrived in Sudan, who were no doubt recruited from an organisation that is very close to the leadership of the UAE. In September 2025, the Government of Sudan estimated that the number of Colombian mercenaries in Sudan was getting on for 500, but other estimates suggest that the real number is between 1,500 and 2,000, and growing. We believe that that is the direct result of what has been happening in the UAE. The Global Security Services Group is the organisation contracted to hire those people, and it is also involved in the supply of weapons. The GSSG is owned by an Emirati businessman, Mohamed Hamdan Alzaabi, who has business interests in security firms jointly with Ahmed Mohamed Al Hameeri, the secretary-general of the UAE’s Presidential Court. The links to what is going on in Sudan have been very clearly established. GSSG continues to be closely tied to the Government of the UAE. Its website states that it is the preferred security provider for the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Presidential Affairs, and there is evidence that two military bases in Abu Dhabi were used as training facilities for mercenaries—the list goes on. My question to the UK Government is this: why in heaven’s name are we not sanctioning key operatives in the UAE now? I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions and reparation, and I say that it is high time that we imposed sanctions on those key UAE operatives. We can also look at the links back to Sheikh Mansour, who has well-documented ties with the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and has even been described as Hamdan Dagalo’s closest ally in the UAE. In March 2023, Premier League clubs, apparently unanimously, that they would not allow individuals involved in human rights abuses to own clubs, yet Mansour is still in charge of Manchester City. The question is, why, and why are the Government so determined not to pursue these individuals? I suspect that the reason involves a lot of money in investments and the ownership of football teams, but that should not stop the Government from pursuing these people, because the UAE would be very suspect in that. Even if that were not enough, the UAE is involved in the most appalling abuse. British citizen Ryan Cornelius has spent 18 years incarcerated, even though the UN has claimed that that is completely wrong and unjudicial and that he should be released. The Abu Dhabi bank has continued to pursue him, and he has not seen his family for close on 19 years now. He is a British citizen, but how often have representatives of successive Governments, when they have visited the UAE, named him or said anything about him? The answer is “Very rarely.” All they do is tokenistically raise the issue and move on, as they pursue more money. We know that Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaibani, who is the chair of the Dubai Islamic bank and head of the Dubai Ruler’s Court, is responsible for Ryan’s detention for 18 years and is very close to the leadership of UAE. It is time that we cracked down on this organisation and showed it to be the pariah that it is. It is behind all that is going on in Sudan and the abuses of British citizens who should be released. Unless the Government are prepared to step up, sanction key individuals, and prevent them from owning football teams, investing in the United Kingdom and enjoying their shopping trips here, we will not be the nation that we should be.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Death of Ann Widdecombe · Hansard source

  More

  Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio. Sadly, later that day, just after lunch, I discovered that it was not just sad but a tragedy—a tragedy that a phenomenal woman, and a former Member of this House, should have been murdered in her own home for reasons we know not what. The news allowed me to think back to this woman who was a force of nature. She was impossible to argue with, because she never accepted that she was losing the argument, until finally she was able to turn it 180 degrees and make you feel guilty that you had even dared to argue with her. A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me. It is rather ironic that she went over to Reform. I thought to myself, “Now there’s somebody who takes collective responsibility more seriously than she even had to.” It was rather remarkable. Ann was a remarkable woman in many, many ways. I got to know her during shadow Cabinet, when we would debate and argue. She argued as robustly in shadow Cabinet as she did across the Dispatch Box. Whether you were Labour or Conservative, if you disagreed with her, you were the enemy—you got used to it. It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us. Another thing she embodied, and completely demonstrated, was our unique responsibility to our constituents and the nature of the personal contact we make with them, which I do not think is replicated almost anywhere else. We go into their homes. I do not ask for security when I go into someone’s home. We go to see them if they are too ill to come and see us. We all do that, and we do not want to lose it. We do not want the epitaph of her terrible murder to be that we withdrew from the nature of who we are and what makes this place so great. We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me. We must get on top of that, because it is the root of violence and death. It is not only Ann who was murdered. It is not only Jo Cox and my good friend David Amess who were murdered. As the rack of shields in the Chamber shows, terrorists have murdered many in our party. If we want to stop that, we have to be bold and we have to be clear. We will not accept being shut down, stopped from performing our duties or silenced in any way, because that is what Ann would have approved of.