STEWART Hosie has warned against “blundering into another conflict” as David Cameron steps up efforts to win the support of MPs for British airstrikes against Daesh.
The depute leader of the SNP spoke out after it emerged a detailed case for escalating military intervention will be set out to the Commons by the Prime Minister on Thursday, in the wake of the murders of 130 people in Paris by members of the extremist group.
Hosie sounded a cautious note yesterday, insisting Cameron would need at least to signal his intention to seek a UN resolution specifically authorising military action before his party would consider voting in favour.
“There may, potentially, be a place for military action as part of a wider solution,” he told BBC1’s Sunday Politics.
“But we have been extremely clear indeed that we need to have a Chapter 7 resolution which actually permits military action so that it is legal.
“If the Prime Minister confirms that there will be one, or there are plans to seek one, that is important. It is the de minimis position to ensure that what happens is actually legal, for goodness sake.”
He added: “Surely to goodness we have learned the mistakes of Iraq and, at the very least, we should not be blundering into another conflict, dropping yet more ordnance on a place that is awash with people dropping bombs, in the absence of a UN resolution that permits a plan for peace, and of course confirmation that the military action will actually help.”
In a separate television interview Angus Robertson, the leader of the SNP group at Westminster, also made clear his continued opposition to airstrikes.
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that there isn’t a shortage of bombing in Syria. The Americans are bombing, the French are bombing, the Russians are bombing, the list goes on," he told Murnaghan on Sky News. "It’s how we secure the medium and long-term peace that is the challenge for all of us. I am not yet persuaded.”
Cameron will visit Paris today for talks with President Francois Hollande – as attention over the weekend switched to the Belgian capital Brussels, which is in lockdown as the manhunt continues for one of the attackers.
The senior SNP politicians spoke out after George Osborne claimed Western nations were seeing “the price of not getting involved” in Syria.
The Chancellor declined to be drawn on reports a vote on airstrikes could be held within weeks, but said he believed the atrocities in Paris – and United Nations Security Council backing for countries to take “all necessary measures” to “redouble and co-ordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorists acts” by Daesh – were swaying the argument.
But he told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show any vote against allowing the RAF – currently bombing only in Iraq – to target Daesh over the border in Syria would be “a publicity coup” for the jihadists.
Ministers say there will be no vote until they are confident of the support of sufficient opposition MPs.
“The Prime Minister will seek support across Parliament for strikes against that terrorist organisation in Syria. Frankly, Britain has never been a country that stands on the sidelines and relies on others to defend us,” Osborne said.
Cameron’s case will come in the form of a response to a report by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that expressed severe reservations about the coherence of the government’s case.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said yesterday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was not planning to whip the vote on Syria, although he is personally opposed to airstrikes.
Opponents fear the strategy would backfire, leading to more support for Daesh among civilians affected by the bombing and to an intensification of the refugee crisis as more Syrians flee the raids.
Conservative MP Andrew Percy, one of 30 who voted against Syrian air strikes in 2013, suggested he could be won over.
A statement by the SNP over the weekend welcomed the United Nations resolution, which the party said demonstrated the international community was “willing to work together in shared opposition to Daesh” in a bid to bring about the end of the civil war in Syria and tackle the refugee crisis, but which it insisted stopped short of sanctioning military action.
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