Emily Thornberry MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  At last! I am so very happy to see a British Government—a Labour British Government—finally doing the right thing and taking a strong stance against the illegal building of settlements in the occupied territories of Palestine, no longer a bystander wringing their hands. The Foreign Affairs Committee called for this unanimously over a year ago. As I look around the Chamber, I see so many people who have spent years campaigning, and there are many more outside the House. We are all smiling today. Britain has an absolute obligation to take a strong, clear stance on this issue, as a country that played such a pivotal role in the establishment of Israel during our mandate but has frankly failed in the protection of the interests of the Palestinians. I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on taking such a brave stance, and on his powerful and moving statement. I am so proud that this has finally happened; but could Ministers and officials meet my Committee and me, and some of our officials, to discuss whether we can implement these sanctions as quickly as possible?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Falkland Islands: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  The Israeli Minister Ben Gvir has said, “It is time for the state of Israel to publicly recognise that the Falkland Islands are Argentine territory under occupation”, and that we, the British, are not merely occupying the territory but, in carrying out oil drilling there, are stealing money from the Argentine people. Does the Minister think he knows that the Argentine Government agree with him and, as a result, have filed criminal complaints against Navitas Petroleum, which is of course an Israeli company? Does she think he knows that the company was very happy to sign a deal with the UK to explore the Sea Lion oil project in the British Falkland Islands? Or does she think that Ben Gvir was just too busy thinking of new ways to inflict ever yet more cruelty on the Palestinian people?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  No, I have only got two minutes. Come on! People should just pay their taxes and get involved. New clause 86 proposes that a donor would have to be a total citizen. It is not enough to come back to Britain and go, “Oh well, I’m here now. I’m going to pay a little bit of tax because there are various tax dodges and I can do that.” No, they have to be here paying their full whack of taxes, and then they can make donations to political parties. If they care so much about Britain and about democracy, they should come here and be a full citizen, in my opinion. My new clause 84 relates to descriptions on ballot papers. At the moment, instead of having just “the Labour party” on the ballot paper, it is possible to have “the Labour party, the party of equality and fairness”—fair enough. However, at the last local elections, the Greens registered candidates with the Electoral Commission as “first choice candidate” or “lead candidate”, so that, in an election with three votes, there was an instruction on the ballot paper as to who someone should vote for. That is an abuse, and it should be stopped. That is what that new clause is about. New clause 87 is about ballot papers always being in alphabetical order. I speak as a T. My constituents had to look very hard to find me, and fortunately they did, but when we vote in alphabetical order, the Ts are at the far end—and there were hardly any of us. It is definitely an advantage to be at the beginning of the alphabet. Why do we not have the Australian system, and just randomise it? There is so much more that we could do. Although there are rumours that a group may discuss how much more we can do, will there really be enough legislative time to bring forward another Bill that will deal with the many problems we have? My predecessor, 180 years ago, was the MP for Finsbury, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe. He brought in the massive Chartist petition—3.3 million people wanting to be allowed to vote. So many people had signed it that they had to take the doors off the Chamber to get all the bits of paper through. Presumably it did not go into the Bag behind the Chair, but there was that much enthusiasm—that was what democracy was about. I do not want to be an MP for Finsbury who sits back complacently and allows our democracy to be undermined. We have to fight back.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  I applaud the Government’s ambitions in this Bill and the fact that they want to fix politics and for it to be fair and free from foreign interference. There is much to be enthusiastic about in the Bill, although in the five minutes I have been given to speak, I cannot go through it all. This might be the only such legislation that we have before the next general election, and I believe that it is incumbent upon us to prepare ourselves and our constitution for the possibility, God forbid, that a populist party might take control of our country. We are allowing ourselves to be wide open to all kinds of things. The Foreign Affairs Committee did a report into foreign influence across Europe, and we saw a number of shocking things. I recommend the report to Members, if they are in any doubt about the ways in which malign actors, either state or non-state, are trying to influence and undermine democracies across Europe, but if we think that we are free of that because we are on the other side of the channel, we have got another think coming. We are so complacent about the things that can happen, that have happened and that might happen to our country next. We must protect ourselves. We must take this seriously. There is not enough in this Bill to protect us. We must go further. I do not understand why we do not. For example, when it comes to disinformation from other countries trying to influence our democracy, how many Ministers do we have who are responsible for disinformation? We have seven. If we have seven Ministers for disinformation, we have no Minister for disinformation, but disinformation is undermining our democracy right now, and it will get worse coming up to the next general election. There is not enough in the Bill to be able to deal with that. I ought to speak to my new clauses, including new clause 85, which are supported by the TUC and have been welcomed by Transparency International. I am proposing a complete ban on overseas voters donating to political parties. Why not? I do not understand why not. Rycroft says that foreign money is more difficult to trace and more difficult to ensure that it is clean. That is why he puts a £100,000 cap on it. Well, why do we not go further? We are the politicians. Why do we not just ban it? People can come to this country, live here, pay their taxes and get involved in our democracy. Then they can make donations. If they live somewhere else in a tax haven—tough, they cannot.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister refers to crypto’s anonymity of source. Does she not agree that it is difficult to know what the attraction of crypto is, other than the fact it allows someone to hide where the money comes from? Why not just be straightforward and simply ban its use? Not a temporary ban or a moratorium—just ban it. Why cannot people simply give old-fashioned cash to support political parties?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  The allegations that the hon. Lady makes are extremely serious, and should be based on robust evidence. To be told that “volunteers had reported” is not sufficient, and she must understand the implications of what she is saying, in terms of social coherence and undermining the very status of our democracy. I ask her to be a little more cautious, and to proceed on the basis of evidence.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  Yes, I am. I am not getting into all the arguments about whether people who live abroad should have a vote—

• 1 Sept 2026 · UK-Mauritius Chagos Treaty: Future Spending · Hansard source

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  I begin by welcoming the Foreign Secretary and his new team to their places. In particular, I welcome the Minister; I am cross with her for leaving the Foreign Affairs Committee and we will miss her very much. She was a formidable member of our Committee, and I am proud to see her take such a well-deserved place on the Front Bench. Now to the work. On the issue of islands that the UK— and now supposedly the United States—takes a great interest in, will the Minister provide an official response to President Trump’s latest nonsense that he might withdraw support for UK sovereignty over the Falklands?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister is absolutely right: we must free our politics and bring back trust, and it seems to me that we could start doing it tomorrow. We could take foreign influence out of our politics by banning foreign money from our politics. I welcome the fact that the Government are going to amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 and cap such donations at £100,000, but given what has happened since the Rycroft review, I worry that the cap is not strong enough, and I think that the public agree with me. Given that this will probably be our last chance to protect our democracy before the next general election, will the Prime Minister give serious consideration to supporting my new clause 85, which would ban all foreign donations?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Iran Conflict: Ceasefire · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself with the Minister’s condemnation of Iran’s attacks on its neighbours? Does he agree that at least part of the problem in the fragility of the deal is its very ambiguity? It is a deal that was negotiated in haste, at a distance and through third parties, and it inevitably does not reflect agreement, but rather fudges some of the deep differences between the parties. Does he agree that we need a sustainable deal that is thoroughly negotiated, has more detail and includes recognition that, inevitably, concessions are needed on both sides?

• 6 Jul 2026 · Foreign Interference in UK Politics · Hansard source

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  As a contributor to the Rycroft review—I just asked to go and see him—I very much welcome the reforms that have been announced. Just as we do not want companies to take the mickey and be vehicles either for dishonestly obtained funds or for foreign money into our democracy, we also have to be careful about individuals, and my question is about individuals returning to the UK. Will they be properly here—in other words, will they be here in the sense that they pay taxes? Surely any crypto billionaire coming from, say, Thailand to a farmhouse in Hampshire, who has developed a deep interest in our country, would also want to help pay for our schools, our roads and our hospitals. My predecessor in 1848 presented to this place the huge Chartist petition calling for more democracy, and with the cry, “No taxation without representation!” I say this: “No outsize representation without paying your blinking taxes!”