I spent far too much of Wednesday watching the Parliament Channel. It brought back memories of when members of parliament, for the first time, were asked to vote on military action in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I voted ‘Yes’ then, having considered all arguments, and I would have voted ‘Yes’ yesterday; though I would have voted ‘No’ when the bombing of Syria was last posed in 2013. Back then it was not clear who the enemy was and we had not seen the Paris concert, Tunisian beach or the downing of a Russian tourist plane – or got United Nations authorisation. We are in new territory now.
The prime minister gave a well-prepared, rational and necessary speech marred by breakneck delivery and appalling lack of judgement in referring to ‘terrorist sympathisers’ the night before: he would have benefitted from clarifying what he meant. The speech by the leader of my party lacked intellectual rigour but the following one, by the leader of the Scottish National party, took the prize as the worst of the day.
Alan Johnson and Yvette Cooper made excellent, proportional and well-argued contributions, reassuring me that my gut instincts were right. Two Tory friends I disagree with on most things, both well versed in Middle East matters, made difficult speeches but reached the right conclusions: Crispin Blunt and Alan Duncan. In his closing speech, evoking the spirit of anti-fascism, my old boss and friend Hilary Benn was nothing short of inspirational.
The best is the enemy of the good. Every reason not to support the action proposed in 2013 has been addressed and the UN Security Council has unanimously not just allowed but urged us and others to engage with military action against Da’esh. I do not care if there are 70,000 anti-Daesh forces in Syria or 10,000; we will never know unless Daesh is crippled. Margaret Beckett’s reminder that we would have expected France to support us if what happened in Paris had happened in London was unanswerable.
Outside the chamber, things were more alarming. Stella Creasy and Mary Creagh in particular were subjected to horrible verbal and other abuse because one was at that point undecided and the other as a matter of principle had decided to support military action. Twitter was throbbing with vindictive bile and naivety: in Parliament Square people chanted ‘Don’t Bomb Syria’ when that decision was not parliament’s to take – Syria would have continued to be bombed and Britain would have continued to bomb Daesh in Iraq even if the vote had been lost.
Back in 2003 I was heavily influenced in my vote by talking to Kurdish people and Iraqi trade unionists. I never believed the UK was 45 minutes away from being attacked and no one ever said that it was; though any government needs to be able to respond rapidly to military attack. Today Bashar al-Assad cannot rule Syria without bombing his own people and Daesh uses that anarchy to build its empire.
As the dust settles on last night’s debate there is no sense of victory. Britain has made a difficult but necessary decision.
Our representatives (they are not delegates, remember that) have taken many serious arguments into account and resisted the emotional, naive, confused, vindictive and far too often anonymous and bilious attacks of people who now claim the moral high ground. These people also claim to have the Labour party in their grip.
My fear is that in this, at least, they may be right.
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Tom Levitt is former member of parliament for High Peak. He tweets @sector4focus
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My conclusions are diametrically opposed to the Author’s, having also watched virtually the whole debate. The case put by David Cameron was comprehensively destroyed by several senior figures on his own side, including: John Baron, Dr Julian Lewis (Chair of the Defence Select Committee) and David Davis. The “moderate rebels” figure was shown to be completely bogus with the real figure being estimated at between 10000 and 15000 rather than the 70000 quoted by the PM and Philip Hammond.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/watch-julian-lewis-powerful-speech-6942338
Forensic and excellent dissection by several members of the SNP revealed further discrepancies: the fact that the bombing so far in both Iraq and Syria had actually doubled the recruitment rate for Daesh, in the previous year (one for every target hit). Also the supposedly unique contribution from the Tornado GR4 and Brimstone missile was anything but – having been used already by the Saudis in Syria!
I thought Alan Johnson and Yvette Cooper were awful and Mary Creagh reprised her performance, from the previous night’s Newsnight, where she managed to deter 2 wavering members in the audience from adopting her viewpoint.
The debate, on the actual arguments was won by the NO side – on the basis that:
1. The plan put forward had no real strategy, other than bomb first think later, the ground support required was deficient, unreliable and in the wrong place within Syria. There are virtually no moderate rebels left in Syria – al Nusra also want a Caliphate (different Calif) but the other factions all appear to want an islamic state, under sharia law and several have called for the ethnic cleansing of all apostates, including: Druze, Yazidi, Ismaili, Alawite and Kurds.
2. The military contribution would likely be insignificant, at well under 1% of combat missions currently being flown.
3. The Daesh leadership are apparently currently based in Mosul and not Raqqa!
4.The most significant factor in the support and growth of Daesh is that provided by our supposed allies: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, who supply arms and currency, provide a conduit for trade in oil and now apparently heroin (Turkey).
Unfortunately the ayes won, despite the weakness of their case and the Hilary Benn speech helped the Conservatives, by referring to perhaps 70000, or 40000 or 80000 “moderate rebels” after this had already been shown to be fiction! If you watch the video the cheering can be seen to come mostly from the Tories and the small rump of Labour MPs who voted with the government. I wonder if Hilary will be invited to Chequers, to see if he can be persuaded to cross the floor?
Interestingly, the majority of the shadow cabinet voted against the motion 16:11 with one abstention (Chief Whip) . Andy Burnham listened to the debate and then voted No because the case had not been made to his satisfaction. If this and the abstention were the only changes, to previously stated positions then there was Never a majority in favour of bombing and someone must have been feeding misinformation to a credulous media and are unlikely to be trusted again!
The BBC were reporting last night that the Conservative vote was whipped, unlike the SNP or Labour. There was a Welsh Lib-Dem rebel.
The irony is that the vast majority of the opposition to this motion was because the strategic planning was effectively absent and that this was a waste of resources, unlikely to contribute, other than marginally, to the desired outcome. Many who spoke, suggested that the government came back with a better plan involving a larger number of targets and terrorist groups ie, increased intervention rather than this limited and poorly thought out proposal. The dinosaurs (New Labour) appear to have learned nothing from their previous mistakes and perhaps are gambling on third time lucky?
It was interesting that one Tory MP reported that 90% of his constituency contacts were from people against the war – but he wasn’t whining about being harassed. The suggestion that you voted differently in 2013 in some great act of judgement is a nonsense – you like everyone else followed the whip after Ed Miliband decided that is how you would vote. And of course we knew who the enemy was – the motion was about making punitive strikes on the Assad regime because of their use of chemical weapons. Please don’t try to re-write history to show yourself as a free-thinker. The reality here is that the majority of the Shadow Cabinet backed the Labour Leader’s line – that the majority of the PLP backed the Labour Leader’s line, that the overwhelming majority of the Party were opposed to the bombing in the current circumstances – and in a disciplined Party you all would have voted together. It is clear that Cameron could have won this vote without any Labour votes – and to my mind he has simply pursued the issue in the way he has to give the opponents of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party the chance to pull the Party apart. The serial attack-dogs: Danczuk, Mann, Gapes, Spellar, Woodcock, have been on every TV and radio programme they could using this issue (which you suggest is an issue of conscience) to attack the Labour leader. In 2013 the Labour Party stood together and defeated the Tories. Today David Cameron will be well pleased with the job he has done on the Labour Party all based on some posturing about the RAF being vital for this war. To seek to equate MPs sitting in their comfy seats sending planes off to bomb people, with the massive personal sacrifice of those that individually went to fight in Spain – despite the efforts of our Government to stop them – is a disgrace. Have ISIL surrendered yet?
During the debate John Woodcock, John Mann and Alan Johnson all started sniping. Woodcock at the start of the debate, from Hansard: “It would be helpful if the Prime Minister could retract his inappropriate comments from last night, but will he be reassured that no one on the Labour Benches will make a decision based on any such remarks, or be threatened and not do what we believe is the right thing—whether those threats come from online activists or, indeed, from our own Dispatch Box?”
Followed by John Mann: “My right hon. Friend is appropriately pointing out that by not withdrawing his slur on me and others, the Prime Minister is not showing leadership. Does he also agree that there is no place whatsoever in the Labour party for anybody who has been abusing those Labour Members who choose to vote with the Government on this resolution?
Followed by a daft question, on a matter unrelated to the debate by John Woodcock, so assume it was just another personal attack? : “I am glad that my right hon. Friend has mentioned the Kurds. Could he be clear at the Dispatch Box that neither he, nor anyone on these Benches, will in any way want to remove the air protection
that was voted on with an overwhelming majority in the House 14 months ago?”
More from the hypocritical Woodcock: “Finally, I have been proud today to sit on the Labour Benches next to my right hon. Friend the Members for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who made superb speeches. Although there are deeply held views on either side, I will do everything I can to stop my party becoming the vanguard of an angry, intolerant pacifism which sets myriad pre-conditions that it knows will never be met, and which will ultimately say no to any military intervention. [Interruption.] Some of those on the Front Bench and those heckling behind me need to think carefully about the way in which they have conducted themselves over recent weeks. We need to do better than this to be a credible official Opposition.”
Perhaps they may grow-up one day, relinquish their columns in the right-wing press and appearing as ‘rent-a-gobs’ on any media that will have them? There are of course worse offenders and unfortunately most are from the Progress wing of the party and their associates/twitter buddies.
Thank god Tom Levitt is no longer an MP. The country votes to go to war and all he has to say is “I spent far too much time………”, and “I voted Yes then but No in 2013” , but “I would have voted Yes yesterday”. “Back in 2003 I was heavily involved in…………..”. but “I never believed in……..”
And for my benefit can anyone explain what the feech. “The best is the enemy of the good”?
Is that a typo or has Tom Levitt lost the the plot entirely?
The sooner the Labour Party is a chapter in the history of 20th century British politics the better.
‘I was in London yesterday and so did not follow the proceedings. I arrived back at midnight having been at the the Jounalists’ ‘Frontline Club’ for the Launch of a Handbook entitled ‘Caliphate’. by Dr Simon Oliver -Dee. Rather relevant to what was being debated in Westminster and for people ‘in the media’ for which it was scribed.
A friend emailed a link to Hilary Benn’s speech. I found it inspiring: it almost convinced me that military action in this case was right. If he were in a position to direct and control such action, perhaps I would support him as I feel he would have a well thought through strategy. A plan not only to gain victories, but to begin winning hearts and minds: something that previous actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya failed.
What dismays me are some of the things David Cameron has been reported to have said. Also the many things he has failed to make clear in reasonable questions that have not been given satisfactory answers. It is unwise to discuss some details of strategy of war in public for security reasons, but I would like to have more confidence that there is a viable strategy.
If Labour is to regain a sense of unity, it would be good if all sides could choose words more carefully, and with a little more humility. It makes eating those words, if later proved wrong, a touch more palatable. It was good it was a ‘free vote’: it meant that people listened to the arguments, and took personal responsibility for the way they voted.