Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I believe that the Government’s argument about the legality of last week’s action is technically correct: the use of military force is part of the royal prerogative; her Majesty invests the Government with that power; the Queen is commander in chief; and this is an important power, which is vital to the effectiveness of our armed forces. So I have no constitutional disagreement with what the Government have done. However, there is a word of warning here. As Chesterton put it:

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

There is a risk here and a moral to be learned. I do commend the Prime Minister for the limited scope of the intervention. Although it is true that the Government can intervene technically and militarily without consulting Parliament, I believe that the power should be used on as few occasions as possible, if at all. That is where I echo what the Father of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), has said.

I do not accept that we need a war powers Act, because it would be justiciable. I do not believe in referring everything to the UN, where, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) has said, one power has a permanent right of veto. But I think we should proclaim this afternoon the right of Parliament to debate and vote on military action in the future, unless, as was probably the case here, there is an urgent humanitarian case to be made.

I want to say a word about some of the problems we face in the middle east, one of which is that we are seen to be parti pris in this conflict. We are seen by many people not to be primarily engaged in humanitarian concern for the people of Douma, but to be engaged in a proxy war. I know that that is not a fair point of view but, unfortunately, we have in the past proclaimed our desire to replace the Assad regime. The conflict began in 2011; Assad is still President of the Syrian Arab Republic. The idea that the Americans achieved a great deal by backing the Free Syrian Army—a kind of Lib Dems with guns—has proven to be a complete and total fantasy.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank you for allowing me to intervene, Mr Speaker; I was late for this debate, for which I apologise.

I cannot resist rising to that challenge. We heard the line of questioning from constituents about whether Parliament was going to be recalled—“Are you going to have a vote on it?” My answer that I did not know led to puzzlement and confusion. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that in itself is corrosive to the electorate’s democratic confidence in their elected Members and what we do in this place?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I have just said that I agree with the Father of the House that in general Parliament should have its say before action is taken.

I believe that there is so much opposition to what we are doing in the middle east because from the beginning western Governments have not really been cognisant of the sheer complexity of the situation. The Americans are against Assad and the Russians, and for the Kurds, many of whom are against Assad, but the Americans are also allied to the Turks, who are against the American-backed Kurds, and the Turks will do anything to stop the Kurds, even though both are friends of the Americans. That shows the sheer complexity of the situation.

I must quote the patriarchs of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Melkite Catholic Church. They are based in Syria and rely on the Assad regime for protection and their continual survival. This can perhaps be dismissed, as they are subject to pressure from the regime, but their beatitudes say:

“It causes us great pain that this assault comes from powerful countries to which Syria did not cause any harm in any way.”

They are Christian leaders speaking in Syria. We should be very careful.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Did any of those Christian leaders in Syria comment on the atrocities visited on innocent children that we have seen in the past week?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have just said that these Christian leaders are under great pressure from the Assad regime to toe the party line, as it were, but the fact is that their responsibility is to protect their own communities, which are under unprecedented pressure. We have to take some account of the pressure on Christian communities.

Last week, when the Vatican all-party group was in Rome, we had a meeting on persecuted Christians in Syria. We met every single expert from the refugee services and from all around the world who look into this issue, and they all told us that bombing was a dangerous thing to do with regard to opinion in the middle east and pressure from Muslims on the remaining Christian communities. I was struck when the representative of the Catholic Church in Pakistan said that the Catholic communities there would get it in the neck even more because, unfairly, so many Muslims do not differentiate between Russian bombs, American bombs, French bombs and British bombs. They say that the misery in Syria has been caused by foreign Christian powers raining bombs on their communities. That might be an unfair point of view, but it is generally held in the middle east.

This point has not been made by anybody else in the debate so far: I accept that the Government were right to act, and that they have powers under the royal prerogative to act, but I do not believe that we should pursue any more our objective of trying to change the Assad regime. If we then do act for humanitarian reasons—if we intervene to deter a possible chemical attack—we will have much more credibility in the middle east, because we would not be seen to be taking sides. That is the way forward.

[Mr Grieve]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Unfortunately I cannot give way because I am running out of time.

I have agreed with my right hon. and learned Friend, but I hope that when we debate these matters in future, we will remember this and avoid all hypocrisy. The fact is that as much as we detest Assad and as much as he is a dictator, none of us, as Christians, would want to live in an area of Syria that was outside Assad’s control, because he would protect us. That is a difficult thing to say in Parliament and not everybody will agree with it, but I have to say what I have to say.