We must get tough on Iran, says Shrewsbury MP
A Shropshire MP has warned that the seizure of a British ship by Iran will be just the start of further problems to come unless the Government adopts a tougher line on the regime.
Daniel Kawczynski said western governments had turned a blind eye to Iran’s behaviour for so long that the country was spinning out of control and casually ignoring international law.
Last month Iran seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero and its 23 crew members as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz. But Mr Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said it would be wrong to simply view that as a tit-for-tat retaliation for the UK impounding an Iranian ship off the coast of Gibraltar.
He said: “It goes back much further than that. We have turned a blind eye to Iran’s malign actions throughout the Middle East for so many years that it has given it the green light to completely ignore international laws and the world-based order and do as it pleases.”
Mr Kawczynski said former US president Barack Obama and the European Union had been so eager to strike a deal with Iran to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons that they had turned a blind eye to other activities to destabilise the region.
“We have seen Iran attempting to destabilise the government of Bahrain, a key Gulf ally of the UK and where we have a permanent naval base,” he said.
“We have seen Iran sending troops and weapons to top up the Assad regime of Syria which has brutalised its own population.”
He said Iran continued to fund and equip terror group Hezbollah, and had caused bloodshed in Yemen by funding Houthi rebels, adding: “These are the actions of a country completely out of control and blindly indifferent to the suffering caused by its actions.”
Mr Kawczynski said as the sole European country with a naval base in the Gulf, Britain had a responsibility to ensure it was protected and expanded.
