The government has made the UK irrelevant in Middle Eastern diplomacy and less safe, according to Tory leadership candidate and Shadow Security Minister Tom Tugendhat.
He told GB News: “Let’s be clear, Lebanese Hezbollah, that terrorist group that has been involved in child trafficking and drug dealing, is absolutely evil.
“It’s backed by the regime in Iran and it has brought huge amounts of destruction and death to the entire country of Lebanon and also to the region, killing many Syrians.
“It’s also been raining down missiles on Israel. It is a vile regime and nobody should be supporting it.
“What’s also true, however, is that Israel is and has been under threat from many different targets for many, many months, and in fact years.
“And so taking out the rockets that are hitting Israel, hitting nurseries, hitting schools, is something that any Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should support, because we would never tolerate rockets falling down on our cities and we need to be standing with our allies who are defending themselves.
“David Lammy has made Britain irrelevant in Middle Eastern diplomacy by the way he’s conducted himself.
“Labour has made Britain weaker in British diplomacy by the way they’ve conducted themselves, their sort of showboating, virtue signaling isn’t the way you stand up for Britain. It’s not the way you defend yourself against terrorists.
“Anything that equivocates between the terrorist sponsoring regime in Iran and any democracy is to completely misunderstand the purpose of diplomacy.
“The purpose of diplomacy is to keep Britain safe. That’s it.
“My job as security minister was to keep our country safe. That’s what I will always do. I will always lead to keep Britain safe.”
Asked about means testing the winter fuel payment for pensioners, he said: ”I’m saying the winter fuel payment should never have been taken away. It was taken away by Labour to pay off their union paymasters.
“It was wrong, and it was the wrong thing to do for our country. It was the wrong thing to do for our most vulnerable.
“It’s also wrong for Labour to be not investing in defence and in fact in some ways cutting defence, they are making us less safe. They’re making us less safe at home.
“We’ve just seen energy bills going up by about £150 for households this morning, and that’s why we should be standing with vulnerable pensioners today and we should be defending Britain today.”