Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Syria - Open letter to Julian Sturdy MP

Dear Julian,

I am writing to express my concerns over the government’s actions in Syria. 

First, I do not understand how bombing will lead to peace.  We have seen Syria being bombed for the lest seven years and all it has lead to is more violence and more bombing.  Further, I do not see what the urgency was to bomb before there had been a time to see what the attack was and who was responsible. It feels very like before the Gulf war when the WDM inspectors were not allowed to finish their job – because there were no WDMs to find.

This brings me to my second point, that there does not seem to be any consistency in the government’s policy.  Saudi Arabia has been targeting civilians in the Yemen for many years now, without any criticism from the government.  The Saudi Arabian forces (which include embedded UK forces) have used white phosphorous and cluster bombs against civilians (a form of chemical warfare).  Not only has there been no criticism from the UK government it has sold over £3,500 billion of weapons to the Saudi government since the start of the war with Yemen.  It is therefore difficult to believe that the government is motivated by human rights concerns.

Thirdly, and perhaps in the long run most seriously, was the extraordinary claim by Theresa May that we could not wait for the UN as the Russians would probably veto any resolution calling for action.  This is a clear undermining of the international rule of law.  Next time it might be Russia or North Korea saying that they cannot wait for the UN as one of their enemies might veto their resolution.  We have an international legal framework, but once we start undermining it others will follow down that path and there is a serious danger of undermining the whole international settlement.

Finally, there has been the further erosion of parliamentary democracy.  Parliament has been very weak for many years (see for instance Lord Hailsham’s article on elective dictatorships), but Theresa May appears to have little belief in parliament.  It took a legal case to force her to refer invoking article 50 to parliament and now we have this clear assumption of further dictatorial powers to the executive.

As a parliamentarian I am asking you to
  • Write to the Prime Minister asserting that it is Parliament, and only parliament, that should ever declare war (note that is different to responding to a declaration of war against the UK by another country).
  • Write to the Secretary of State for International Trade and the Secretary of State for Defence demanding an end of sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia – and any other country that is committing war crimes

Thank you very much
Best wishes
Tom.
Tom Franklin

No comments: