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
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