David Cameron has urged MPs to back UK airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, saying that the terrorist organisation is using the sanctuary of northern Syria to launch plots with deadly intent against the British people.
In a statement to the Commons the prime minister asked: “If not now, when?” Cameron said the UK could not afford to stand aside from the fight and it was morally unacceptable to leave the US, France and other allies to carry the burden.
In a written response to the foreign affairs committee published before he addressed MPs, the prime minister says: “The threats to our interests and to our people are such that we cannot afford to stand aside and not to act.
“Throughout Britain’s history we have been called on time and again to make the hardest of decisions in defence of our citizens and our country. Today one of the greatest threats we face to our security is the threat from Isil [Isis].”
Cameron says: “The longer Isil is allowed to grow in Syria, the greater the threat it will pose. It is wrong for the United Kingdom to subcontract its security to other countries, and to expect the aircrews of other nations to carry the burdens and the risks of striking Isil in Syria to stop terrorism here in Britain.”
He says all seven terror plots in the UK this year have been directed by Isis or inspired by the group’s propaganda. He claims the terror group has an external operations group dedicated to causing mass casualty attacks around the world. He insists the strikes against Isis will be part of a comprehensive political and diplomatic plan to deny the group space and create the circumstances for an end to the civil war in Syria.
The aim, he says, must be to close down ungoverned space.
Cameron’s case was set out in a 36-page memorandum to the foreign affairs select committee, before he made his Commons statement on Thursday.
Cameron said he would not call a vote in the Commons on airstrikes in Syria until he was sure there was a clear majority in favour of action as defeat would be a “publicity coup” for Isis. He told MPs that Britain must judge whether inaction in Syria carried greater risks than action.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did not immediately make clear whether he would tell his MPs to back military action in a Commons vote. A shadow cabinet meeting to discuss the issue was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Corbyn warned of “unintended consequences” if Britain got involved in military action in Syria in the same way it had in Iraq and Afghanistan, and urged the prime minister to make clear whether he was ruling out the use of UK forces on the ground.
The Scottish National party’s leader in Westminster, Angus Robertson, said his party’s MPs would not vote for airstrikes in Syria unless they were convinced that there was effective ground support and a fully costed plan for postwar reconstruction.
But the chairman of the foreign affairs committee – which earlier this month released a report urging caution over Syria – said he was now ready to back military action. Crispin Blunt said: “It is now my personal view that, on balance, the country would be best served by this house supporting his judgments that the UK should play a full role in the coalition, to best support and shape the politics, thus enabling the earliest military and eventual ideological defeat of Isil.”
Cameron told MPs: “The reason for acting is the very direct threat that Isil poses to our country and our way of life.
“They have already taken the lives of British hostages and inspired the worst terrorist attack against British people since 7/7 on the beaches of Tunisia.”
Cameron said seven attacks over the past year had been linked to Isis or inspired by its propaganda.
“I am in no doubt that it is in our national interest to stop them. And stopping them means taking action in Syria, because it is Raqqa that is their headquarters,” he said.
He added: “We shouldn’t be content with outsourcing our security to our allies. If we won’t act now, when our friend and ally France has been struck in this way, then our friends and allies can be forgiven for asking: if not now, when?”
Cameron’s reply also acknowledges that airstrikes have their limits and that ground troops would be necessary to defeat Isis.
“Airstrikes can degrade Isil and arrest its advance, but they alone cannot defeat Isil. We need partners on the ground to do that and we need a political solution to the Syria conflict,” the prime minister says in the memorandum.
Cameron’s foreword refers to the need for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to stand aside. He says: “An orderly political transition in Syria would preserve Syrian state structures but deliver a new Syrian government, which is able to meet the needs of the Syrian people, and with which the international community could cooperate fully against Isil, as we do with the government of Iraq.
“But that is not possible for as long as Assad remains in power without any timetable for his departure, and for as long as his security forces murder, torture, gas and bomb his own people.”
He claims Isis “poses a significant threat to the stability of the region, including to the security of Jordan, one of the UK’s key allies. Isil’s offshoots and affiliates are spreading instability and conflict in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Nigeria.
“In the Middle East, they are seeking to establish their vision of a caliphate across Iraq and Syria, forcing people in those areas to yield to their rule or face torture or death. They have beheaded aid workers, organised systematic rape, enslaved Yazidi women and thrown gay people off buildings. All these atrocities belong to the dark ages.”
In the memorandum Cameron also addresses those, including many in his own party, who say the government should abandon its opposition to Assad’s regime as the lesser of two evils and so focus on the threat posed by Isis.
The prime minister states: ”But this misunderstands the causes of the problem; and would make matters worse. By inflicting brutal attacks against his own people, Assad has in fact acted as one of Isil’s greatest recruiting sergeants. We therefore need a political transition in Syria to a government that the international community can work with against Isil, as we already do with the government of Iraq.”
He also claims there has been diplomatic progress to a wider peace through the Vienna talks process, which has brought together all the key players in the region. “We can now see, through the Vienna process, involving all the key players, a possible pathway – however rocky and uncertain – to a political resolution of the war in Syria,” he asserts.
Setting out the military contribution the UK can make, he says Isis cannot be negotiated away, and insists there are moderate forces on the ground with which the British air force can ally. He rules out UK ground troops, saying it would inflame the conflict, but says an orderly political transition is not possible without Assad.
He states: “Although the situation on the ground is complex, our assessment is that there are about 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups.”
He says: “With coalition air support, Iraqi forces have halted Isil’s advance and recovered 30% of the territory it had captured in Iraq. Only this month, Sinjar was liberated after last year’s Isil rout and mass killing of Yazidis, with the help of vital RAF and other partners’ air support for Kurdish peshmerga forces on the ground. Together with the RAF’s Reaper drones, RAF Tornadoes have flown more than 1,600 missions over Iraq and carried out over 360 airstrikes."
