Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point, and I will look at this very carefully. Let me first express my sympathy to the victim and her family in what is undoubtedly an incredibly distressing case. It is always very difficult to comment on individual cases, because I was not sitting in the courthouse and I did not hear all the points that were made, but the point he makes does seem to be very powerful. A punishment is a punishment, a tag is a tag, and I think he is making a strong case.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Q12. Today’s middle east is increasingly resembling the central Europe of a century ago. Minorities, be they linguistic, religious or sexual, find themselves under more pressure than ever. My constituents, the Scottish National party and I understand the threat posed to these groups by Daesh, but how is the Prime Minister planning to prosecute a bombing campaign that does not alter the demographic map of the middle east, prevent Aleppo from becoming the new Lublin and Mosul the new Budapest?

[The Prime Minister]

We will set out the arguments clearly tomorrow, but there is a clear and present danger to the United Kingdom from ISIL, based in Iraq and Syria, planning attacks against our country today. We do not live in a perfect world and we cannot deliver a perfect strategy, but we can deliver a clear, long-term strategy that will work. The hon. Gentleman talks about the lessons we learned from the last century. One of the lessons I would say we should learn from the last century is that when your country is under threat, and when you face aggression against your country, you cannot endlessly sit around and dream about a perfect world—you need to act in the world we are in.