Prime Minister David Cameron said the country had a "duty to take part" and that there was "no option to walk on by".
He added: "This is not the stuff of fantasy. It is happening in front of us and we need to face up to it."
Earlier this week, Mr Cameron had returned from his trip to the United Nations headquarters in New York to recall Parliament and raise a motion in favour of the strikes.
And, following a seven-hour debate in the House of Commons yesterday, the proposal was backed by the massive margin of 524 to 43.
That result stands in stark contrast to a similar vote just over a year ago. Back then, Mr Cameron embarrassingly lost in the Commons after proposing to take action against Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria.
This time, though, the mood in Westminster has been rather different. Assurances have been sought that Britain would not commit itself to ground troops or involve itself in the bombing of Syria - which, unlike Iraq, has not appealed for outside help.
And, with the wording of the motion confirming action was being restricted to air strikes over Iraq only, the outcome of the division was pretty obvious from the outset.
Of course, this decision to back military action comes after weeks and weeks of unremittingly grim news from the Middle East with ISIS having taken control of vast areas of Iraq and Syria.
More recently, the group has struck much closer to home, releasing a video this month of the beheading of British aid worker David Haines.
Another volunteer aid worker, Alan Henning from Eccles in Salford, remains in its clutches, his family this week having received an audio file of him pleading for his life.
Unsurprisingly then, it is not just the politicians who are in support of the strikes.
Recent polling shows that the British public are also now far more in favour of action against ISIS than they were of an intervention against Syria last year.
Yet, even these numbers show there is a fair proportion of people who remain war weary from the previous large-scale conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the campaign in Libya in 2011.
Dissenting MPs raised concerns in the debate and questioned the worryingly open-ended length of time which has been committed towards the campaign.
Mr Cameron admitted that the mission "will take not just months, but years" - while some of his other statements further seemed to raise the prospect of mission creep.
After all - if it had been up to the Conservative leader, then British forces would now be preparing to bomb Syria too. It was only a lack of consensus in the Commons which prevented this.
Remarkably then, for the third time in less than 24 years, it is Iraq which is the focus of a bombing campaign including British forces.
Yes, of course, this is somewhat different to the 2003 invasion in terms of its legality and even in terms of its morality.
But that still does not mean the air strikes will necessarily actually work.
ISIS may now control large swathes of northern Iraq - however, it remains more of an idea and a belief system than a geographical area.
Arguably, the group has been borne out of a hatred of western intervention in Iraq and the wider Middle East.
And so, in this context, yet more air strikes can surely only be considered counter-productive in the long term.
Therefore, as sad and frustrating as it would have been, this was a time which Britain should have engaged in regrettable isolationism.
The engagement of Special Forces with highly specific missions to free trapped British hostages is surely something nobody reasonable would oppose.
But yet another general bombing campaign seems to be a depressingly simplistic fall-back option to a hideously complex problem.
Philosopher George Santayana once said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
It feels, at the moment, as if we seem condemned to repeat it to fade.
THE MOTION
"That this House:VOTING AGAINST THE MOTION
- Condemns the barbaric acts of ISIL against the peoples of Iraq including the Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christians and Yazidi and the humanitarian crisis this is causing;
- Recognizes the clear threat ISIL pose to the territorial integrity of Iraq and the request from the Government of Iraq for military support from the international community and the specific request to the UK Government for such support;
- Further recognizes the threat ISIL poses to wider international security and the UK directly through its sponsorship of terrorist attacks and its murder of a British hostage;
- Acknowledges the broad coalition contributing to military support of the Government of Iraq, including countries throughout the Middle East;
- Further acknowledges the request of the Government of Iraq for international support to defend itself against the threat ISIL poses to Iraq and its citizens, and the clear legal basis that this provides for action in Iraq;
- Notes that this motion does not endorse UK air strikes in Syria as part of this campaign, and any proposal to do so would be subject to a separate vote in Parliament;
- Accordingly supports Her Majesty’s Government, working with allies, in supporting the Government of Iraq in protecting civilians and restoring its territorial integrity, including the use of UK air strikes to support Iraqi, including Kurdish, security forces’ efforts against ISIL in Iraq;
- Notes that Her Majesty’s Government will not deploy UK troops in ground combat operations;
- Offers its wholehearted support to the men and women of Her Majesty’s armed forces."
Labour (23)
Diane Abbott, Graham Allen, Anne Begg, Ronnie Campbell, Martin Caton, Katy Clark, Ian Davidson, Paul Flynn, Stephen Hepburn, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Sian James, Mark Lazraowicz, John Mc Donnell, Iain McKenzie, Austin Mitchell, Grahame Morris, George Mudie, Linda Riordan, Barry Sheerman, Dennis Skinner, Graham Stringer, Mike Wood, Jeremy Corbyn (Teller).
Conservatives (6)
Richard Bacon, John Baron, Gordon Henderson, Adam Holloway, Nigel Mills, Mark Reckless
Lib Dems (1)
Julian Huppert
Scottish Nationalists (6)
Stewart Hosie, Angus Roberton, Mike Weir, Eilidh Whiteford, Angus Brendan McNeill, Pete Wishart (Teller)
Others (7)
Mark Durkan, Alasdair McDonnell, Margaret Ritchie, Jonathan Edwards, Hywel Williams, George Galloway, Caroline Lucas
No comments:
Post a Comment