Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Lady. One of the issues here is that when we debate military intervention, we quite often get things quite wrong on the basis of limited information, the rest of which we are not privy to. In 2013, this House was recalled to debate, discuss and vote on a motion to approve military intervention against Syria on the basis of Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the past. At that time, the chemical used was sarin, and 1,700 people died, and who knows how many of them were children. It was an ever-worsening situation that came after two years of inaction from the UN, and it was backed by evidence from the UN’s weapons inspectors. As we know, that vote was lost. I did not back the action, and I carry a sense of guilt following how I voted.

At the time, many Members on both sides of the House argued that if we did not vote to take action, that would be perceived as a weakness. They argued that no action, in addition to the UN’s intransigence, would mean that Assad would strike again and would use chemical weapons against Syrian civilians and children again in the future. Those Members were absolutely right. We are debating here today after the same thing has happened again.

After the 2013 vote, the first country to say that it welcomed our voting not to bomb Syria was Russia, strangely enough. What happened last week was a necessary one-off strike to attack and disable some of the chemical depositories and bases owned by Assad and to leave him in no doubt that the international community will never accept his breaking of a century-old accord—his crossing of the red line—and his use of chemical weapons on his own civilians. The Prime Minister, along with France, America and our allies, will not accept that, and they have stood by the side of the civilians and children of Syria.

Until recently, my constituency was home to RAF Henlow and is still home to the RAF Chicksands intelligence base. My constituents include many former and existing military service personnel. Launching a one-off, pre-emptive strike with no discussion or vote was the Prime Minister putting the safety of those personnel at the heart of her decision. Let none of us here be so arrogant as to think that we know best, that we know more or that we should always have the final say, because it has already been proven that we do not always get it right, and some would argue that we got it wrong when we voted to go to war in Iraq in 2003. If the Prime Minister was proposing regime change or to go to war or to enter into a sustained campaign, we would of course have a debate, and we would expect the Prime Minister to bring that case to Parliament, perhaps even for a vote. However, she was not.

Before we vote today, I ask every Member to imagine what I am about to say, because this is not about a process and there is no substance to the motion that we will be voting on.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Ms Dorries]

I will not give way.

Imagine that the children of Syria, with their eyes streaming and their bloodstained spittle, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) just described, are stood here in the Chamber with us. Imagine that they are sat among us, listening to us. How would they want us to vote? This is not about process or whether information is brought to the House of Commons.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Dorries]

No, I will not.

Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), how can we cast a vote when we do not have all the information? How can we make such an ill-informed decision, as we have done in the past? Would the children of Syria want us to do that? I know what will happen when I next cast a substantive vote on an issue such as this: I will imagine the hand of one of those Syrian children slipping into mine and guiding me into the right Lobby.