ISIL in Syria

Debate between Kevin Foster and Callum McCaig

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have the chance to speak straight after the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara). He has given us a range of problems, but he seemed somewhat lacking in potential solutions. The one thing I agree with the Scottish National party on is the change that the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) was pushing for—namely, that we should call those people Daesh. They are neither true to Islam nor a recognised state, and we should not give them credence by calling them anything other than Daesh.

For me, this is not about making some political statement. If there is a statement to be made, it is about the fact that when one of our allies is attacked, we will come to their aid. The bedrock of our defence is article 5 of the NATO treaty—the NATO that the SNP still wants to be part of—which deals with mutual defence. We will respond to an attack in Europe.

[Callum McCaig]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the solidarity that we must show with our allies. Would he apply that to the Kurds, and to our NATO allies in Turkey?

[Kevin Foster]

We stood with the Kurds a year ago. This Parliament voted to intervene when the murderous thugs of Daesh were on their way to overrun the Kurdish Autonomous Region, which could have resulted in a massacre on the same level as that of Srebrenica. Members of my party—and, to be fair, members of other parties—wanted to do something about that. Some of the arguments we have heard today have been in favour of pulling away the air support that has helped to prevent Daesh from massacring the Kurds. It is the air support—not warm words—that represents solidarity.

In approaching the motion, I have asked myself a number of questions. What specific objectives do we have for our involvement, along with our allies? Is there a clear legal basis for the action? What will a post-civil war Syria look like? Who or what will be the Government there, and how will our intervention assist in bringing that about? The question of legality is now much easier to answer. There is a pretty clear UN Security Council resolution. Had that resolution not been passed, we would have been hearing today about how we needed such a resolution. Now we have one, we are hearing that it is not quite enough. The reality is that no resolution would be enough to satisfy some in this Chamber, despite the clear wording of the one that we now have. The action is definitely legal.

What are our specific objectives? The ultimate objective is to clear Daesh away from the territory it controls, which gives it its power base.