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Theresa May has warned that waiting for the United Nations to authorise military action in future would effectively give Russia a veto on British foreign policy as she defended her decision to join international air and missile strikes against the Syrian regime.
The prime minister accused Moscow of preventing inspectors from reaching the site of the chemical weapons attack on Douma and suggested that Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by the Russians, were attempting to destroy evidence of the attack.
She faced down her critics in a heated debate in the Commons in the wake of the atrocity, which she described as “a stain on our humanity”, insisting the UK had needed to act rapidly to prevent further attacks.
May faced widespread recrimination for launching strikes before consulting parliament – although many of those MPs said they would have given her their support – but she suggested the “security” of the operation could have been compromised.
“I am absolutely clear that it is parliament’s responsibility to hold me to account for such decisions – and parliament will do so,” she told MPs. “But it is my responsibility as prime minister to make these decisions. And I will make them.
“This was a limited, targeted strike on a legal basis that has been used before. And it was a decision that required the evaluation of intelligence and information, much of which was of a nature that could not be shared with parliament.”
However, Jeremy Corbyn said the strikes were “legally questionable” and that parliament should have been given the chance to approve the action, which he suggested was at “the whims” of the US president, Donald Trump.
The Labour leader called for a renewed diplomatic effort by the UK government and its allies to bring peace to the region - although the prime minister attacked his suggestion that diplomatic efforts had not been exhausted.
May warned: “The leader of the opposition has said that he can ‘only countenance involvement in Syria if there is UN authority behind it’. The house should be clear that would mean a Russian veto on our foreign policy.”
May, who spent more than three hours at the despatch box, denied that Britain had joined the US-led airstrikes at the request of Trump, insisting it was the “legally and moral right” thing to do in response to the onslaught which killed up to 75 people.
She told the Commons: “Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so. It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria – and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used.
“We have not done this because President Trump asked us to do so. We have done it because we believed it was the right thing to do. And we are not alone.”
The prime minister pledged there would be a further diplomatic push to bring the Assad regime back to the negotiating table as well as a “full range” of political and economic levers, to strengthen the ban on the use of chemical weapons.
May denied Corbyn’s claims in a Guardian article that the attacks had just demolished empty buildings in Syria. She said the targets included a scientific research centre developing chemical weapons, a chemical weapons bunker and command post and a missile base, assessed to be a location of sarin gas.
“Very careful scientific analysis was used to determine where best to target these missiles to maximise the destruction of stockpiled chemicals and to minimise any risk to the surrounding area,” she said.
The statement marked a new low point in diplomatic relations with Russia, already poor in the wake of the Salisbury attack, with the Kremlin reacting furiously to claims that it was hindering the Douma investigation.
It comes after Ken Ward, the US ambassador to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, expressed concerns that the Russians had tampered with the attack site with the aim of thwarting the weapons inspectors’ fact-finding mission.
May told MPs: “The problem is they are being stopped from their investigation. The regime and the Russians are preventing them from doing that. Moreover, the regime has reportedly been attempting to conceal the evidence by searching evacuees from Douma to ensure they are not taking out of the region samples that could be tested elsewhere.”
She cited intelligence which showed that a “wider operation” to conceal the facts of the attack was under way, supported by the Russians. Moscow strongly denied interfering with the work of inspectors, suggesting the international missile strikes in response had made it difficult for the OPCW to travel to the scene.
Corbyn again suggested that it was not yet confirmed the Assad regime had launched the attack and OPCW inspectors should be allowed to do their work. “While suspicion, rightly, points to the Assad government, chemical weapons have been used by other groups in the conflict,” he said.
May, however, pointed out that the 2013 agreement in which the regime had committed to dismantle its chemical weapons programme had not worked. “It did not stop the Syrian regime from carrying out the most abhorrent atrocities using these weapons,” she said.
As several hundred Stop the War activists protested outside, Corbyn said there was a need for a war powers law to force the government to seek the approval of parliament before launching military action in future. “There is no more serious issue than the life and death matters of military action,” he said. “It is right that parliament has the right to support or stop the government from taking planned military action.”
He was backed by other opposition parties over his demands for a future parliamentary debate on military action. Corbyn has been granted a debate on Tuesday that will allow MPs to consider the rights of parliament to debate and approve military action by British forces overseas.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford said the timetable meant a vote had been “perfectly possible” while Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said he regretted May had not sought MPs’ approval.
(THE GUARDIAN)
