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cover of episode Emily Thornberry: Trump's positives, sanctioning Israel and working with China

Emily Thornberry: Trump's positives, sanctioning Israel and working with China

2025/4/9
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To the Middle East now and more than 50,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began. That's according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

For this special edition of Battlelines, I'm joined in the studio by Labour MP Emily Thornberry. Her father, Cedric, was a senior official in the United Nations' first peacekeeping force in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s, before rising to be the UN's Assistant Secretary-General. Emily trained as a human rights barrister before being elected as MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 2005, a seat she's held ever since. She has served as Shadow Foreign Secretary, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade and Shadow Attorney-General.

When Labour came to power last July, she was passed over for a cabinet position, but she was elected chair of the International Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2024. She is also now officially a Dame after being appointed a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her political and public service in this year's New Year's Honours. Emily, welcome to Battlelines. Can you start by giving us a brief sense of what your job involves? What does your diary feature other than this interview today? So,

So, yes, so elected by the House and your power and authority really comes from representing the whole House. And I work with a team on a select committee, nearly all of whom are new.

And they reflect the composition of Parliament itself. So we've got a couple of Tories, a couple of Liberals, and then all the others are Labour. Only three of us have got any experience in Parliament, really, and certainly only three of us got experience on committees. And so everybody else kind of comes to it completely fresh. And we are the mainstay.

most hardworking, highest performing of all of the committees. So today I've been in parliament asking questions about Donald Trump's sanctions. And then I met up with some Lebanese MPs and some people with interest in Lebanon with some of the committee. And we talked about what's going on at the

We have a little room where we meet ambassadors, where we have flags. So my meeting with the Lebanese, we had a British flag and a Lebanese flag whilst we met, which was kind of cool. And then I'm here now doing this. So that was today. But yesterday would have been kind of completely different again. I was at the bar before I was an MP and it was the same then. You'd wake up in the morning and think, which court am I going to? What case am I doing?

And I like it like that. I don't like routine, really. Well, you work on a lot of issues and the Foreign Affairs Committee is conducting inquiries into lots of different subjects. We'll try to cover as much as we can in the half an hour that we've got you. One of the issues close to your heart is the treatment of British citizens who've been detained abroad. You were involved in the release of British Iranians Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri from prison in Tehran. And you've said openly that the Foreign Office should do more to help its own people.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy first pledged to create a new special envoy for arbitrary detention back in November 2023 before Labour were elected. And he told you in a letter in January that the appointment would be announced soon. When is soon and what's the delay? Who knows? But I also don't want it to just be one person.

Because I had a really interesting conversation with the Americans about it and what it is that they do. You know, they have an office in the U.S. State Department where they have 35 to 40 people. And I'm not suggesting we have anything as big as that. But what they do is they just look after people who've been unlawfully detained.

And they have a definition of who's been unlawfully detained. And they have a number of criteria that need to be met. And then the Secretary of State decides, right, this person is an unlawfully detained American. We're going to set this organization onto this. And they will then immediately ring the family. They will be available at all times. They have psychologists. They have people to support the family. They give the family all information. And they go for it. And they bring in other departments. They...

They think laterally and creatively. So who knows the people in the upper echelons of, I don't know, Ethiopian society? You know, how might they know them and get to speak to them that way? Or do we put sanctions on the jailer of this particular person? And there are just, there are lots of different ways that they act and they are,

And they are sort of slightly outside of the home office and a foreign office in a way so that they're playing hard cop. And whilst the ambassador has to continue with relationships with the Ethiopian government, let's say. We can take a concrete example. Peter and Barbie Reynolds detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Craig and Lindsay Foreman jailed in Iran. Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong. Havan Anton Orr being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. I mean, are you saying all of that support that you mentioned that the Americans have a team to provide, that's not happening?

Yeah, it's not in the same way. I'm thinking, I keep talking about Ethiopia because I think of my constituent, Andy Sege.

And I campaigned for him for several years. And it was as if they had kind of the foreign officer just hit a brick wall and didn't know what to do next. And it was like it was like the official state was one thing. But then there was another another organization that was sort of outside of parliament or the or the politicians who also seem to have a very deep influence on the country. And nobody seemed to know how to get around that.

And yet these people quite often have been trained in Britain. So if they've been to Sandhurst, people will know them. So I'm just saying, just be creative. Just put at the forefront of your mind that you need to get these people released. And you need to give an organisation or an individual a backup team that...

has license to do anything legal, but just be creative and just think in a different way of how we put pressure on them. And then as I say, then the ambassador can continue with a good relationship with a particular country. And also what we do is we make sure that government departments are coordinated. So there are people who have been arbitrarily detained

We think in Egypt. And yet at the time when we're complaining about that, you know, we're having trade fairs. So you're really putting out mixed messages. And so there needs to be much more coordination. It needs to be much clearer that this is a priority. I mean, obviously, there are more Brits traveling. And also there are more countries that don't really...

seem to pay quite so much credence to the rule of law as one would want to. So people travel to places and they just don't realise that if they do behave in a particular way or the way that it is is ambiguous, they could get into a lot of trouble. And then there are other people who just simply get snatched for no sensible reason at all. And we need to get them out. Let's move on to Ukraine-Russia.

One of the areas that the UK is trying to exercise influence is in the negotiations. And you think that the UK should take a leading role in this. You've also said that we need to be realistic about land and how that will feature into the negotiations. What do you think Ukraine should be giving up? Oh, I don't know. I mean, it's going to need to be open to negotiations. And we have to take our lead from the Ukrainians. But what's important is that they have a country which is properly independent of Russia.

and is sovereign. That, for me, is the most important thing. There may be, and there has been in the past, you know, when a conflict finishes, there are frozen borders and no one accepts, you know, that certain land has been taken by an aggressor. And we may end up with some of that. But most important of all is that Ukraine continues to exist as a sovereign state because that's what Putin wants. Putin wants to take that.

Do you think Starmer's coalition of the willing is viable, a credible way to back up some of those borders to make Ukraine a sovereign state? Well, we've got a long way to go. We don't know yet what's going to happen next. And at the moment, Putin is still doing sort of yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but, you know, so we've got a long way to go. I mean, we do need to play a proper role in it. And we have done until now. And we need to continue to do so. And so when there is a peace, we're

We need to be there. I do think we need to have American backup because I don't think anything else would work properly. And I think that we need to seize the 300 billion euros that is in the bank accounts in Britain, but most of it in Europe, because that is Russian state money. And that Russia, those Russian state assets should be taken for the rebuilding of Ukraine. And I really don't understand why. That's what I was going to ask you about. OK. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't understand it. I mean, there's international law which lines up on both sides. I appreciate that. You know, you can put forward an argument either way, but you can, I believe, completely lawfully with political will do it. And that will change the conversation. That will stop Putin going, yeah, but no, but, won't it? But, you know, we need to spend that money. You cannot go into another country for no reason and smash it up. You know, we need to make sure that that's established pretty clearly, you know, politically and legally. If you do that, your assets can be seized.

Because the UK recently said that those frozen assets include around £25 billion frozen due to UK sanctions. What's to stop us from just going ahead and giving those to Ukraine? Yeah, yeah. So it gets a bit complicated. So there's the assets owned by Russians. There's the assets owned by Russians who are oligarchs and very close to Putin and who might be running, I don't know, something which might be assisting the Ukrainian war. If that's right, then you can seize those, but you can't just seize the assets of a Russian.

And then there are Russian state assets, which I believe that you can use under another legal criteria, which is that you're using it in order to rebuild, in order to pay reparations, in order to ensure that the country is rebuilt properly. So there's different things. So just because it's been frozen by sanctions doesn't mean we can't access it.

So then the question is, how much state assets have we got? And I don't know what the answer to that is. I mean, I have been putting in written parliamentary questions. I'm looking at my members of staff to see if they can indicate whether we've had the answer. I don't think we have. You know, so we're still we're on the verge of getting answers, I hope, about that, because I think, you know, we need to. We need to. I mean, even if I knew that.

it would only be a tiny proportion of the total amount. And I think what we need to do is work with others. We're in an alliance, right? So we work with the Europeans and we say, you know, our argument is that we can seize, you know, we believe that you agree with us, you know, let's go for it. Let's do coordinated action. Let's seize those assets.

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One of the big areas that the Foreign Affairs Committee has been working on is Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. I just want to start by asking about the UK's relationship with Israel, obviously a longtime ally of the UK. Last year, shortly after coming into power, Labour chose to resume funding for UNRWA, very controversial for Israel, of course. The Palestinian aid agency has been banned in Israel due to terror allegations. Labour then suspended around 30 arms export licenses, not enough to be military significant, but enough to send a clear signal.

And then when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant towards the end of last year for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, the government said it would fulfill its legal obligations if it had to sort of work around. I recently spoke to an Israeli source close to opposition leader Yair Lapid, and they described this triple whammy of decisions as the most unhelpful three things that the UK could possibly do.

Is this the most strained that the UK's relationship with Israel has ever been? Can we get back from it? Well, I don't think that they're the most unhelpful things. I think it's quite a lot of other things we could do that would be quite unhelpful. Such as? Oh, like recognition of Palestine, like stopping all arms sales to Israel. Do you think we should do those things? Now, listen, I mean, there are some things I think that we should get on and do, some things I don't think so. So let's kind of let's unpick it all.

And first of all, you know, I think it's right that we adhere to international law because I say I'm old fashioned and I think you should abide by the law. And so, you know, we are we one of the countries that helped to set up the International Criminal Court. And for heaven's sake, if we don't stand by them, then who will? So I think we should do that. And secondly, I think that when we have stopped selling arms to Israel, what we've done is we've stopped selling the arms to Israel that could be used in Gaza.

because it could be that those arms are being used for breaches of international law. And if there is a danger that they might be, then we should stop selling them to. And again, that's just international law. And the fact that the previous government didn't see that is a matter for them. But, you know, we're clear about that.

The third thing, UNRWA. There was an investigation into UNRWA. And the reason that the Israelis knew, obviously, was because also UNRWA was under an obligation to give the Israelis the names of everybody who was working for UNRWA. So this has not been done in secret. And it was a mistake. But the most important thing to say about UNRWA is that the people who educate the children are

of Palestinians is UNRWA, whether that's in Jordan or whether it's in Israel or whether it's in the West Bank or whether it's, you know, wherever. UNRWA does that work and UNRWA was established at the same time as Israel was in order to look after the interests of the Palestinians whilst the international community was supposed to be setting up a Palestinian state. And all these years later, it hasn't happened.

Is this the most strained that the UK's relationship has been with Israel? I know you've recently had a run in of sorts with Sharon Haskell, the deputy foreign minister, for secretly, not secretly recording you during a meeting in the Knesset. I think that we have a far right government in Israel that is behaving in a pretty outrageous way.

And I think that it's all we can do is point out that we just don't agree with what they're doing. And if we're not listened to, then we have to think about what else can we do to stop them? Because if their objective, which understandably it is,

fundamentally is to ensure that they are secure as a country. We want to help them do that. And we believe that the only way you can make the country secure is by ensuring that you have a peace across the region, that Israel is recognized and has a proper relationship with all its neighbors. And that will only happen if there is a two-state solution established in that area. No one is going anywhere. The Palestinians live there. The Israelis live there. It's going to be very difficult for there to be a

largely Jewish democratic state, if it's the whole of the area, because there are more Palestinians than anyone else.

And so if the Israelis want to have a largely Jewish democratic state, which they do, you need to have two states. And what's more, the Palestinians deserve to have their own nation. And it's just been taking too long. And at the moment, with this far right government, they are, I think, accelerating the number of buildings and communities which they're building on the West Bank and taking over Palestinian land.

They are now claiming that they're going to seize parts of Gaza as well. If they do that, there won't be, there will be no chance of a two-state solution. That's leaving aside the 40 or 50,000 deaths of Palestinians that has happened since the appalling

appalling attack on Israel when so many people were killed and hostages were taken. So we need to make it clear, and I really try to make it clear to the Israelis, that if they want security, they cannot do it by simply trying to dominate the Palestinians. It just won't work. They need to find a place where they can be at peace, and that does mean

Coming to an agreement, a settlement across the area with with the Palestinians and their neighbors where they hold, where they look out for each other, where they it's a tough neighborhood. They need to be looking after one another. And I and Israel cannot just keep imposing itself and its will on the area and not expect there to be trouble because they will continue to be until there is a final agreement.

You mentioned what more the UK should be doing. And you've spoken in the House of Commons about how if our current approach continues to fail, there needs to be a plan B. Yes. I mean, things are not good. UNICEF says 15,000 children have been killed since the war began. The remaining hostages still haven't been released. Talks have stalled. No aid has entered Gaza in a month. The World Food Programme has closed all its bakeries. And as you mentioned, Israel is now moving to occupy 25% of the strip to form a new security barrier. Isn't it time to say that it's failed? And then what is the plan B? What do you think it should be?

I'm not sure. I mean, I hear lots of things and I just wonder, I just want to know that we're considering them properly.

I think the first is, when are we going to recognize Palestine? Will there be any Palestine left to recognize? We say that we're going to do it as part of a peace process. Well, does that mean we just sit back and watch? We condemn. Do you think we should follow Ireland and Spain and recognize Palestine? I think that time is coming where we need to. But we need to do it with friends. We need to do it with the French. There are a number of other countries who are sitting back and waiting.

But I don't think it's just that, because I think that's a little bit of a gesture. I think what we need to have is more than that. Remember that, you know, we can use hard power if we want to in that. You know, I remember Margaret Thatcher held back on the sale of all arms to Israel at one stage in conjunction with others. I mean, it's something we should consider. I think we should. But but really what we need to do more important than anything else.

is be working with other countries that have perhaps more influence than we do. Not to say that we don't have influence, but we don't have as much as, let's say, the Americans or the Saudi Arabians in this region. I think, you know, there is an Arab peace plan, which is on the table. I think that we need to add ourselves to it, along with the French and, you know, a number of others. And we need to be talking to the Americans and saying, look, guys,

Your ideas don't make sense. Give us a chance to go away and see if we can sort out a peace together and then we would like you to help us put pressure on the Israelis to accept, finally, that the only way forward is two states.

Trump's supposed to be announcing his West Bank plan imminently. Yeah, well, we've been waiting for that for some time now. Maybe we'll keep waiting. But given the huge spike in settler violence and the fact that the IDF is admitting that it's struggling to police it, do you think it's time for the UK to impose more sanctions?

Yeah, I mean, there's a number of people. I think there's a number of people we should be sanctioning. I think we should sanction some of the most extreme people within the Israeli government at the moment. Such as? Such as Smotrich, such as Ben-Gavir, people in charge of policing, people in charge of settlements. I think we should be sanctioning violent settlers. But my committee was in the West Bank recently and said,

You know, meeting 10-year-old girls who've been told by settlers that unless their family moves away, their daddy's going to be killed. It's just completely unacceptable. It's completely unacceptable. And people talk openly in Israel about taking the West Bank, about annexing it.

And the international community knows that that is the plan of the most extreme. I'm not saying that this government represents the whole of Israel because it absolutely doesn't. You know, there are many Israelis who are profoundly worried about the direction of this particular government and do not support it. But that's who we're having to deal with at the moment. And they are going far too far. And the question is, how do we put the brakes on this? Because we can't just keep sitting back and wringing our hands. We just can't.

Let's talk a bit about Trump. You obliquely referenced his population voluntary transfer plan there as something that probably won't work. And you've been very openly critical of him in the past, obviously, variously described him as a bully, a sexual predator, a racist. You said you didn't want him to win the 2024 election, but he's the president. We have to work with him. What do you make of his second term so far? We're speaking a day after Liberation Day. Well, it's...

I feel a little bit deja vu. I feel, you know, during his first presidency, you'd wake up in the morning and think, I better check the news and see what he's done overnight. You know, this sort of worry about the unpredictability of the leader of the Western world is, it's very worrying because you just don't know what he's going to do from day to day. And you have to, we have to respond to it. And so, yes, it's extremely difficult and difficult.

And the world is only finely balanced. And having a president behave in the way that he does, it can undermine it. I mean, there are positives. There are positives. I'd love to hear them. And the positive I have is it is possible for, to say to, let's say, President Trump, you know, if you did help to put pressure on the Israelis, if you did help,

You could have the power. You could show more power than 12 presidents put together. They've all none of them have been strong enough to do this. But you could you could put pressure on the Israelis and say to them, there's no other way. You have to agree to two states and the British and the French and the Saudis and the you know, everybody have put together a plan. And I agree with it. This is the only way to go forward. We're doing this.

And you know what, President Trump, the Norwegians are standing behind the door and they've got a peace prize for you. I mean, actually, there are some things that could happen with a president like President Trump. I mean, there are other very destructive things, but there are some positives. And I think you have to think about where do your interests allied with his and where can you work with him and use those. And that can work to everybody's advantage. That's what we should be doing.

You've described the UK as a middle-ranking power with influence. Do you think we're giving up some of that influence by ceding the Chagos Islands? No.

I mean, I don't really understand the point of all of this. I tell you what I really care about. I mean, I do care about the fact that there are islands in the middle of the Pacific where, for not very good reasons, there has been no one living apart from people on the base. And so there are some islands that have rats, but most of the islands don't. And they are absolutely in virginal, pristine condition like nowhere else in the world.

And there is vegetation there. There's wildlife there, which is just extraordinary. The seas around the Chagos Islands are teeming with fish because it's been a marine conservation area for 20 years. It is like nowhere else. And I do want that to remain like that. And I do want us to be able to continue to use the base along with the Americans. So those are my priorities. I don't really care about anything else.

So if you've been appointed Attorney General and you were in Lord Hamer's position, would you have given the same advice that they should follow the ICJ ruling, even though it was non-binding? Yeah, I mean, I think that you should stick to international law, you know, call me old fashioned. You know, so I think that, but we did need to do, we did need to come to a deal whereby we could continue to use the base. But we also have an absolute obligation to...

To protect the wildlife which is there, to make sure that, I mean, there are trawlers around the Chagos Islands outside the exclusion zone just waiting for the tuna to come because it is teeming with life. Now, I appreciate this isn't something which is on the Conservatives' agenda, but it's on my agenda. And I really do want to make sure that those islands continue to be, as I say, absolutely wonderful and nothing else like it.

I'm not sure he's pressing ahead with it.

I think he might have written a letter. But I think that it's quite simple when it comes to China. I think you take the security advice. Whatever the security advice is, that's what you abide by over and above everything else. So you do that first. So no super embassy for Beijing in your eyes? It depends what the security advice is. Doesn't sound good. Let's end on a broader note. The geopolitical landscape that we've all grown up in is shifting under our feet.

The Foreign Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into the government's China audit, which was announced late last year. The US has long been focused on pivoting towards the Indo-Pacific and turning away from Europe, and we're seeing that happen very concretely before our eyes under Trump. Given the more proximate and immediate risk posed by Russia, is it time for us to take a more realistic attitude towards China and build a partnership of sorts and focus on the threat within Europe?

I think there are certainly things that we can do with China. I mean, listen, we get most of our stuff from China. So, I mean, let's be realistic. You know, they're not going anywhere. But I mean, I think when it comes to the most important thing, the most important challenge that the world has to face, which is climate change, you can't do that without the Chinese. So we start with that. And much more work needs to be done in relation to that. We need to work with the Chinese on that.

I am concerned in more general terms about other areas such as Africa, where we have got a long history and many friends. And I worry that we are turning away from Africa and that the vacuum that we leave is being filled by the Chinese. I think there are times when we compete with the Chinese and that's fine. But there's certainly times when we can cooperate with them. But also when we disagree, we shouldn't be mealy-mouthed about it.

Are you pleased with the overall general direction of your party's foreign policy so far? I'm pleased that we're sticking to international law. I mean, again, it's kind of that's a pretty good first step. I think that Keir has played an absolute blinder with Trump, without a doubt. And I've said so to him.

I think that it has been of huge importance not just to Britain but you know to so many countries I was in Poland last month in a security conference and in meeting people from the Baltic states and the Nordic states and from Eastern Europe who was just so grateful that we've been able to turn it round from a horrible row in the White House where everything seemed to be falling to pieces and it seems to have been pulled back together now who knows what the future holds and

but at least it was pulled back from the brink. And let's hope that we continue to stick together because, you know, the war that is being fought in Ukraine is, the Ukrainians are fighting it for everybody and have done so incredibly well. And we need to continue supporting them and being strong. Emily Thornberry, thanks very much for joining us on Battle Lines. Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant.

If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battle Lines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it really helps others find the show. To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin. The executive producer is Louisa Wells.

In the Easter story, the word cross appears 11 times, crucify appears 23 times, yet one word appears even more, love. This Easter season, let's remember the love that Jesus Christ showed us when He suffered, died, and was resurrected. To get inspiration about how you can feel His greater love this Easter, visit easter.churchofjesuschrist.org.

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