ISIL in Syria

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

There are two issues at the heart of this debate: the first is how we view the terrorist threat we face, and the second is the specific proposal before us tonight. I will take each in turn. There is a view that the Islamist terrorist threat we face is a product of what we have done or a reaction to it. According to this view, although the activities of terrorists are of course condemned, the real source of the problem is seen as the actions we have taken in the past, and the kind of action proposed in the motion. This was the view that saw the killings in Paris as “reaping the whirlwind” of the action that France, or perhaps the west more generally, has taken.

The danger of this view is that it infantilises terrorism and absolves it of full responsibility for its actions. That view, at heart, separates the world into adults and children, or perpetrators and victims, with the west as perpetrator and others as victims. But life is not that simple. The world is not, in foreign policy terms, split up into adults and children. The terrorists are adults, motivated by their own ideology, which justifies the killing of innocent people from France to Mali, Iraq and Syria. They are fully, not partially, responsible for what they do. No one forces anyone to sell women into sexual slavery. No one forces anyone to behead innocent aid workers. No one forces anyone to bomb the London underground or kill innocent Parisians at a pop concert.

The problem with this argument is that it not only misunderstands what we are up against, but implies that if we lie low they will leave us alone. They will not. If we disarm ourselves against the threat we face, we cannot confront or overcome it. This argument is also too timid in defending our own values. Our society is not perfect, but we strive for a society in which women and men are equal, and where we have freedom of association, freedom of religion, democracy and diversity, and those things are worth defending.

Let me turn to the specific proposition before us tonight. Too much of the debate in recent days has discussed it as though it is an entirely new military intervention, but it is not; it is an extension of the military intervention against ISIS in Iraq that we have been engaged in for 15 months, which has had some effect. Why is it right to take action against ISIS in Iraq but not in Syria?

Several things have happened since we took that decision. First, we have had more terrorism, on the beaches in Tunisia, in Paris, in Mali, on a Russian passenger jet and elsewhere. Secondly, we have had a United Nations resolution calling on us to take all necessary measures to eradicate the safe haven that ISIS/Daesh has across both Iraq and Syria. That call from the international community, backed up by calls from a socialist Government in France, from Jordan and from other allies, should mean something to us.

As I said to the Prime Minister the other day, if we take this action we extend not only our involvement, but our responsibility. If we do this, he has a personal responsibility, and the Government as a whole have a responsibility, not just to take military action as a response to Paris and then move on; it is a big moral responsibility to use every means that we have, diplomatically with our soft power, and politically through the Vienna process, to get people around the table, including many who see one another as enemies or opponents, to try to carve out a better future for Syria. The use of hard power and soft power go hand in hand.

Similarly, if we are concerned about the flight of refugees, and the human desperation implied in that flight, then we have a duty to do something about its causes. That means both tackling Daesh/ISIS and trying to shape a better future for Syria—a future where people can live in that country rather than seeing it as place from which to flee.