The dos and don'ts for Britain in a new Syria
The UK has much to give and much to gain as Damascus rises from under the rubble of dictatorship. But using this momentous change to soothe our own migration paranoia shouldn't be on the list.
Most of the tectonic changes of the past dramatic, mostly tragic year in Middle East have been steeped in violence: from Israel’s meticulous ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, to its unrestrained attacks on Hezbollah (and any other Lebanese in the vicinity), to the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7 2023 - which didn’t start this conflict, but certainly kicked off this extraordinary chain of events. It is all the more remarkable, then, that perhaps the most dramatic and seismic event of them all - the final collapse of the Assad regime in Syria - has been, relatively speaking, violence-free.
There have, of course, been clashes in the early days of the rebels’ offensive, before the regime and its foreign backers lost the will to fight. There have, and will be, reprisals and score-setting. And it goes almost without saying that these ten triumphant days cap off 13 years of one of the most brutal civil wars the world has ever known. But against the backdrop of Lebanon and Gaza, the scenes from Damascus seem transported from earlier, more hopeful era - whether that of the Arab Spring at its finest, or from the fall of Communist dictatorship in the late 1980’s. Jubilant crowds breaking prisons open; refugees starting to return; civil servants of the old regime pledging full cooperation with the new government; the victorious opposition moving fast to restore civic order at home and to allay concerns and suspicions abroad.
Theses parallels - the Arab Spring and the collapse of the Soviet block - are also cautionary tales. It very much remains to be seen what kind of government the victorious Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) will be running. Will it bring other opposition groups on board, or alienate them? Is it going to be liberal democracy, a consociational arrangement with special rights, protections and representation for each of Syria’s many communities, or merely a more tolerant, more efficient one-party state? How will it defend Syrian political autonomy and territorial integrity against outside interference, be it Turkey, Iran, Russia or Israel? And will it be able to take the gun out of Syrian politics, with so many parties having grown accustomed to trust no military force but their own?
The international community, for its part, also has a rare opportunity to get things right. Israel’s opportunistic land grabs, Iranian and Russian hopes to regain some of the influence they lost with the collapse of their client dictator, and a newly assertive Turkey all present formidable challenges; but Syria also needs to be shielded from any doctrinaire pressures by the organisations like International Monetary Fund to liberalise its economy too quickly. Respect for Syrian sovereignty should be the default, even if the plurality of foreign and domestic actors, the many unknowns about the new government don’t quite allow for a complete cart blanche. In that regard, a transparent, agile, phased process to delist HTS as a terrorist organisation needs to be presented and agreed upon, otherwise the reconstruction of Syria will be paralysed from the get-go; not only will the new government be unable to function, but even international aid flowing into Syria will be hamstrung, with charities risking sanctions and criminal prosecution for conducting even the most mundane transactions with local authorities.
Britain is still a consequential actor in global politics, and it can lead on many of these issues by example. It also has unique experience in building constructive frameworks for demilitarising the conflict in Northern Ireland, both helping and permitting paramilitary groups transition into democratic politics. And as luck would have it, Britain has the right person in the right role to negotiate the reintegration of Syria and its new government into the international community: Jonathan Powell, who quite literally wrote the book on “talking to terrorists” and who very recently took up the role of National Security adviser to Keir Starmer. There are few people in any Western government with more relevant experience to offer, and Labour should make as much use of Powell as it can.
With so much to offer and so much to do, it is disappointing, therefore, that the most decisive action we’ve seen from Keir Starmer’s government so far is the parochial, paranoid and petty-populist decision to arbitrarily suspend decision-making on pending asylum requests by Syrians. Syria has not become a safe country for everyone overnight; each asylum case is different and deserves full individual consideration; and there is nothing in the history of Syrian asylum seekers in Britain that would suggest their residence here is any kind of problem at all, much less one requiring urgent measures.
It’s hard to overstate how small-minded it makes Britain look on the world stage, what poor start it is for relations with a newly free Syria, and how weak it makes Labour in particular appear domestically: interrupting the nascent rehabilitation of already traumatised people for the sake of solving a non-existent problem (immigration generally but Syrian migration in particular), all to curry favour with voters who would never vote Labour so long as they can vote for Reform. We all know Labour can do so much better; it’s past time for it to start finding its own voice on immigration, not offer subtle tweaks on the scaremongering advanced by the far right.
We at The Lead are extremely proud of our regular contributor , who won Housing Journalist of the Year at the International Building Press Awards earlier this month - beating even our friends at the sector’s flagship magazine, Inside Housing; and we are especially chuffed that two of the three stories that won Hannah the award were written for The Lead. You can revisit them below:
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Enjoy your weekend,
The Lead.