This in from the office of Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Andrew Turner. Ed
In the House of Commons yesterday, during a debate on Ukraine, the Middle East, North Africa and Security, the Island’s MP spoke of his fear that in all three areas Britain may be drawn into military action ‘without any clear objective’, as had already been tried in Syria, but ‘fortunately’ failed.
Iraq war ‘wrong and unnecessary’
He said the history of going to war with Iraq, when the then Prime Minister Tony Blair was ‘not straight with this House or with the nation’ led the UK into a ‘wrong and unnecessary’ war that showed that such decisions in future could not simply be left to the nation’s leaders.
During his speech Andrew Turner spoke about each of the areas in turn, pointing out that in Gaza (a land mass smaller than the Isle of Wight, but with more than 1.8m residents), around 2,000 innocent citizens in Gaza had been killed by Israeli offensives He also spoke of the economic problems faced by people and businesses there and the need for safe land and sea crossings into Israel and Egypt.
Turning to Syria
Mr Turner said it is ‘tempting to believe’ that the West could sort the problems out with military intervention, but there is no evidence to support that assertion. The Syrian and Iraqi people themselves should take action and be encouraged to take control of their destiny.
Finally he spoke of the fragile ceasefire in the Ukraine, where we have not intervened because Ukraine is not a member of NATO. His belief is that the EU will act as if Ukraine is part of the EU – which he says is undemocratic and unacceptable.
He closed his speech saying “Peaceful negotiation is always preferable to war. As Churchill said, ‘Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.’”
Mr Turner said after the debate:
“Tony Blair, lying in order to take the UK to war, has had far-reaching repercussions. I voted against the Iraq war because I didn’t believe him, even though it was hard to accept that a Prime Minister would lie about such things. Thirteen years later we know we must be very wary of being drawn into military action of any sort without clear, achievable objectives. I would also have spoken about the unintended consequences of such foolhardy warmongering, but there was a strict time limit on speeches due to the number of Members wanting to take part.
“I am a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and we recently produced a cross-party report proposing that a vote of both Houses of Parliament should be needed before we go to war again – I hope that will be seriously considered by the Government.”
In her summing-up speech the Home Secretary, Theresa May MP, referred to calls made during the debate by John Redwood MP and Mr Turner about the need to talk more.
Image: americanprogress under CC BY 2.0
