Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-03-08-Speech-2-476-000"
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"en.20160308.24.2-476-000"2
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"Mr President, for too long, when we debate Syria in this Chamber, there has been only despair. Before last week, once again, sceptics said that the ceasefire in Syria would not hold and humanitarian assistance would remain undelivered. Thankfully, although there have been incidents to the contrary, the sceptics have been proved wrong. Civilian deaths have fallen by 90% since the truce came into force, according to media reports just this morning. Our task politically this week and in the weeks to follow is to keep trying to turn despair into hope. The High Representative should have the European Parliament’s full support to use the international collaboration that we have achieved to make tentative moves which could turn a temporary ceasefire into a permanent peace.
In the remainder of this speech I apologise both to colleagues and perhaps most of all to those who are suffering in Syria, because I have to refer to a different type of sceptic: those who, I am disgusted to say, are from my own country and are seeking to exploit the tragic flow of refugees from Syria by turning it into a cynical political argument to inflame opposition to my country’s membership of the European Union. Like Boris Johnson, who referred to the sincere compassion for Syrian refugees as ‘Britain-bashers’ moral outrage’ and then repeated the deliberate myth that ‘many of them are arriving in Europe as economic migrants’. Or the leader of UKIP, who by saying that ISIS is using this route to put jihadists on European soil is giving publicity and encouragement to the very people he says he wants to deter. These people are contemptible. They will fail on Syria, just as sceptics about Syria will fail. There is genuine compassion in the European Parliament in the matter of solving this refugee crisis. They will not win. My country will remain a member of the European Union, and European efforts, rather than those of any one country on its own, are needed to respond to the humanitarian crisis that is the tragedy of Syria and to contribute to the peace which is necessary to end this conflict."@en1
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"(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card questions under Rule 162(8))"1
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