Richard Spring MP: Strong business relations have been integrated into the Party

Richard Spring MP is Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party (Business Relations) and Co-Chairman of Conservative City Circle. Click here to see his blog.

When Labour came into office, they sought to portray themselves as replacing the Conservatives as the natural party of business.  Indeed we witnessed sections of the business and financial community transfer their support to the Labour Party.  In the past, business contact with the Conservative Party had been seen by some to be too diffuse.

To remedy this, a major listening exercise, Conservative Business Relations, was initiated by David Cameron and constructed to dissect the actual nature and extent of the problem and its implications for our economy, productivity and job creation.

More than a year ago a comprehensive and focussed programme was started to engage with business, actively chaired by Alan Lewis, a successful businessman.

During this time, 20 seminars have been held in key sector areas with 150 Chief Executives and separately 150 trade association representatives, covering a range of areas from technology, media and telecommunications to consumer goods and retail.

Richard Spring MP: Baghdad Mark II, in the horn of Africa

Richard Spring is Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party and MP for West Suffolk

Well over 1000 people have been killed in the Somali capital Mogadishu this month, and 200 plus so far this week. The death toll continues to rise as chaos descends. There are 174,000 refugees in Kenya, which has now tightened its borders. Over 300,000 have fled and attempts to provide UN humanitarian aid have failed.

Many have fled by boat to Yemen; others have drowned or been thrown overboard on the way. Unlike its neighbours, as signatories of the 1951 Refugees Convention, Yemen is generously accepting thousands of Somalis, who are penniless and in many instances have health problems. It is a huge problem for a poor country. I saw this for myself just after Easter.

Earlier this week, 9 Chinese and 65 Ethiopian oil workers were killed in Ethiopia by a separatist group. It looks as if there could be a clear linkage between this and events in Mogadishu.

Last year, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seized control of much of southern Somalia, imposed Sharia law, and laid claim to part of Ethiopia. Allegations followed of al-Qaeda operatives basing themselves in Somalia, encouraging the formation of an Islamic state. The UIC had replaced the weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Richard Spring MP: Glimmers of reality

Richard Spring is MP for West Suffolk

It is welcome news that the Iraqi government is convening a meeting of its neighbours (and the UK and USA) to try to help the country reach some level of stability. What is particularly welcome is that the US is finally accepting that you cannot diplomatically isolate one country in the Middle East from another.

The ties of kinship, tribe, culture and religion often transcend political boundaries which were artificially created by outsiders anyway. No progress in tackling regional problems has ever been made by cherrypicking those with whom to do business, let alone talk to at all.

There are fundamentalist forces in Iran who certainly welcome Shiite radicalism and possible Shiite domination in Iraq. However given the wide spectrum of minorities in Iran, there are other Iranians who fear the break up of Iraq. Syria, by contrast, would find a dismemberment of Iraq totally unwelcome. It is constitutionally secular, protects its religious minorities and is vehemently opposed to religious fundamentalism.

So finally, echoing the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations, Syria and Iran will be brought into the loop. After all, the US finally did business with North Korea. Just maybe the change of mind will also lead to a dialogue with Syria over the other key problem of the region, namely Palestine and Israel, and its backwash into Lebanon. Up to this point the US has opposed any such dialogue.

Meanwhile let us be grateful to Jordan for taking up to a million Iraqi refugees and Syria more than a million, many of whom are Christian. It is a tragic by-product of the situation in Iraq, and a huge burden on Jordan and Syria, which we should freely acknowledge.

Richard Spring MP: Syria is key to Middle East strategising

Richard Spring is Member of Parliament for West Suffolk

Ahead of Tony Blair’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, there was much spinning about getting Iran and Syria involved in helping to resolve the situation in Iraq – a very tall order indeed.  Syria, for all its ambiguities, has no interest in radicalised Islamic rivalry and mayhem in Iraq – it is a secular society where even membership of the Moslem Brotherhood is illegal. 

Fundamentalist Iran, by contrast, is openly supplying weapons and materiel to fellow Shiite Iraqis with all the terrible consequences.  The frequent bracketing of Syria and Iran together is a complete misjudgement.  Their relationship of over 25 years arose out of their shared fear of Saddam Hussein.   Their latter day support for Hizbollah arises out of entirely different interests – even if the consequences are regrettably the same.

The pre-speech spinning proved to be wrong.  Tony Blair quite correctly called for a “whole Middle East” strategy.  But at least he recognised the distinction between Iran and Syria – it should be a key policy objective to try to separate the two, and have two actively different approaches.   He was quite right to return to the core issue of the Israel/Palestine conflict.