Boris Johnson faces huge Tory revolt over China human rights row

Boris Johnson narrowly avoided a embarrassing Commons defeat on foreign policy tonight as Tory MPs rebelled in an attempt to force a hardline approach to China’s domestic human rights abuses.

The Prime Minister’s working majority of 87 dwindled to just 11 as MPs voted to reverse an amendment to the Trade Bill made by the House of Lords by 319 votes to 308. 

The changes made by peers would have forced ministers to withdraw from any free trade agreement with any country which the High Court rules is committing genocide.

In its sights was the hardline Communist regime in Beijing, which has been accused of appalling human rights abuses against its Uighur Muslim minority in Xianjing, including using them as forced labour. 

Some 33 Tory MPs broke the whip to vote for the amendment, with a further nine abstaining. They were a mixture of hardline China hawks and centrists with human rights worries.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith led those voting against the Government, who also included ex-ministers Tobias Ellwood, Damian Green, David Davis and Tracey Crouch, and committee chairmen Julian Lewis and Tom Tugendhat.

Those abstaining included former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee. 

It comes as US secretary of State Mike Pompeo used his last day in office to say China’s policies on Muslims and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang constitute ‘genocide’.

 ‘After careful examination of the available facts, I have determined that since at least March 2017, the People’s Republic of China, under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party, has committed crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,’ Pompeo said in a statement.

Earlier Wakefield Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan said he would vote for the amendment, saying: ‘Rebellion against one’s own Government is tortuous, but in this case I feel compelled. I have no doubt it is the right thing to do.

‘The UK has a proud history as a staunch defender of human rights, champion of the oppressed and celebrant of diversity and freedoms everywhere. The anti-genocide amendment is our chance to continue this proud tradition and help protect innocent lives from evil-doers.’

He added: ‘There are occasions when it is simply impossible to reconcile personal conviction with party loyalty. The genocide amendment is not perfect, but it provides a real opportunity of a new beginning for reimagined foreign policy.’

Tory MP Nusrat Ghani, who is leading the drive for the change, said: ‘Britain must not look the other way on the genocide that is happening today in China.

‘This is our first chance outside the EU to show what Global Britain stands for.’

Mr Hunt told The Times: ‘I feel very strongly about this. I was always very struck having visited the genocide memorial sites in Rwanda that Bill Clinton thought his biggest mistake was that he didn’t intervene … 

‘I think there’s something very powerful about the fact that a UK court could make a determination.’

The Government has opposed the amendment amid concerns the measure would lead to vexatious court claims and could prove counterproductive since the threshold to prove genocide is high.

Ministers argue that politicians, rather than judges, should get the final say on whether to do business with foreign states. 

Downing Street said the UK had a ‘proud record’ standing up for human rights in China. The PM’s press secretary Allegra Stratton said: ‘We recognise the strength of feeling but the Government doesn’t support the amendment.’

Lib Dems foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran MP said: ‘Today the Government turned down a crucial opportunity to say ‘never again’ and put ending genocide and protecting human rights at the heart of the UK’s trade policy, despite clear cross-party support.

‘On the same day that the US recognised what is happening in Xinjiang as genocide, the Government has chosen to turn a blind eye and to not put human rights first.’

The amendment aimed ‘to address significant human rights concerns in China, but it’s the case that we don’t have a free trade agreement with China and we are not currently negotiating one’.

Trade Minister Greg Hands told the Commons this afternoon: ‘To accept this specific amendment would allow the High Court to frustrate, even revoke, trade agreements entered into by the Government and approved after parliamentary scrutiny.

‘This is a completely unprecedented and unacceptable erosion of the royal prerogative and not something the Government could support.

‘It is for the Government, answerable to Parliament, to make trade policy, not the courts.’ 

He added: ‘We do not have a bilateral trade agreement within the scope of this Bill with China. We have no plans to do a bilateral trade agreement with China.’

But Sir Iain, the former Tory leader, urged MPs to support the amendment, telling the Commons: ‘This is not anti-China but it is anti-genocide and we need now to stand tall.

‘We left the European Union because we didn’t want to accept judgments from a court that we say we didn’t have power over. 

‘But we didn’t come away because we disliked our courts. I think we have the best courts in the world, and I think they can make this judgment.

‘And my question, therefore, is what is it about? Why are we leaving? Why did we leave?

‘And the answer is so that we would stand tall and have a global vision about the morality of what we do.

‘I simply say to my colleagues and to the frontbench, tonight is more than just pettifogging, tonight is all about simply shining a light of hope to all those out there who have failed to get their day in court and failed to be treated properly.

‘If this country doesn’t stand up for that then I want to know what would it ever stand up for again? I urge my colleagues to vote to keep the amendment that is from the Lords in this Bill.’

Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman of the Defence Select Committee, signalled his intention to vote for the amendment as he told the Commons: ‘It saddens me that I’m having to rebel here today to encourage my Government to take the moral high ground. It should be our default position.’ 

In a joint letter to MPs, shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry called on them to support the changes.

‘In particular, we are all gravely concerned about the situation in Xinjiang and the growing body of evidence of the systemic human rights abuses being committed by the Chinese government on an industrial scale against the Muslim Uighur people and other minorities,’ they said.

‘It is essential that, as we begin to implement our own independent trading policy, we ensure that our collective concerns about human rights are reflected in how we conduct trade negotiations around the world, and that Parliament can play its proper role in scrutinising potential trade agreements with those human rights concerns in mind.’

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was asked on Sunday if he thought the treatment of the Uighur minority group in China was genocide.

He said: ‘I think it’s for a court to decide whether the very complex definition of genocide is met.

‘But what is clear, frankly, whatever legal label you put on it, is that there are convincing and persuasive third party authoritative reports of serious violations of human rights on an appalling industrial scale.’

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has said it is backing the calls for the British courts to be given a new role in determining if the Uighur people are suffering genocide in China.

The amendment would allow domestic courts to declare if genocide is occurring in another country and it would prevent the UK trading with any country the High Court rules is committing genocidal acts.

Ms Stratton said the Government was ‘constantly reaching out to all parliamentarians’ and was proud of how the UK champions human rights globally.

She said the Trade Bill only applied to trade agreements that had already been signed with the EU, and that none of those agreements had ‘eroded any domestic standards’.