Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is difficult to get precise figures, but a number of people have left Syria because of Assad’s brutality and a number of people have left because of ISIL’s brutality. That is why the movement of refugees has been so great and why it is wrong to say that we need to choose between two evils. We need to get rid of both of them.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that our priority in relation to Syria should be to work with other Arab countries and Iran, Russia, France and Germany to find a coherent response to the fighting in the region, and that we should not repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war—a war opposed by the Liberal Democrats—by following the US Government into bombing and then occupying an Arab country?

[The Prime Minister]

We should work with other countries in accordance with international law, but that should not stop us getting on and doing the necessary things that we have done, including the counter-terrorism action that I referred to earlier.