Britain’s Parliament looks set to vote on Wednesday in favour of joining the bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, despite growing doubts among the public and some MPs.
Britain’s Parliament looks set to vote on Wednesday in favour of joining the bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria, despite growing doubts among the public and some MPs.
Prime Minister David Cameron kicked off over 10 hours of scheduled debate by urging MPs to “answer the call” from Britain’s allies and authorise air strikes against ISIS targets inside Syria.
“The action we propose is legal, it is necessary and it is the right thing to do to keep our country safe,” Mr Cameron said.
He adopted the term “Daesh” to refer to ISIS on Wednesday and urged others to follow suit to avoid lending the jihadists credibility.
The Prime Minister was forced to fend off calls to apologise, including from Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, after repor-tedly telling fellow Conser-vative MPs at a private meeting not to vote with “a bunch of terrorist sympathisers” against the strikes. Mr Corbyn, for his part, warned MPs against an “ill-thought rush to war”.
“The spectre of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya looms over this debate,” Corbyn added, referring to unpopular British interventions in foreign conflicts over the last 15 years.
Ministers are confident that MPs will ultimately say “yes” in a vote expected at around 22.00 GMT, while campaigners have promised a new protest outside Parliament after a demonstration on Tuesday drew around 4,000 people.
Britain is still scarred by the memory of unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and has played a smaller role in recent foreign military actions, leading to concerns that its global clout is diminishing.
Mr Cameron urged MPs not to allow Iraq to dictate their decision, saying: “This is not 2003. We must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction.”
Mr Cameron added that the gap in views between Western nations and Russia over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has narrowed and will continue to do so.
“There was an enormous gap between Britain, America, France and indeed Saudi Arabia and Russia on the other hand,” he told Parliament.
