I find it incredibly worrying that, that the day before MP’s are to decide whether Britain should join the bombing of Syria, the media narrative is focusing on the Labour Party leadership. It should be focusing on the Prime Minister’s case for bombing Syria which is weak and indefenceable.

Realistically our involvement will be minimal. An additional 6% to the total amount of air sorties. The two foremost military powers in the world in the US and Russia are pounding Syria as we speak. Where is the logic in joining such a complex myriad of proxy wars against an enemy, which is being indirectly financed by Arab states? The reason being, the UK government wants to be at the negotiating table in a post-Assad political settlement.

As France and others plea for our involvement they want to share the risk more so than our resources. In dealing with ISIS, the risks are huge. By bombing Syria we will increase our risk of being attacked at home by an enemy who can groom and radicalise young people in their homes via a smartphone. We are dealing with an enemy that wants us to bomb them. Nothing will better their propaganda videos than images of RAF aircraft dropping bombs on towns and villages with vast civilian casualties, whilst members of ISIS sit comfortable in their bunkers.

Where has bombing without ground forces worked? Speak to village elders in the region of Waziristan, Pakistan about the effect US drone strikes have had there. Ask the same questions in Yemen. Ask those affected by the NATO bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz. You will get the same answer. They are a recruiting sergeant for Jihadi’s because of their indiscriminate nature and the mass civilian casualties they incur. What about the British experience of aerial bombardment? During the Blitz, the resolve of Londoners was unbroken as the Luftwaffe pummelled London from the skies above. The same applies here.

Bombing Syria wins nothing and defeats nobody. You need troops on the ground.

Here is where David Cameron’s argument is weakest. Somewhere… somehow he has plucked out a figure of ‘potential’ 70,000 moderate troops that can take out ISIS. This is David Cameron’s ‘Dodgy Dossier’ moment. It is complete fantasy. US military hardware is already being funnelled to ISIS. Supplying the ‘Free Syrian Army’ will undoubtedly funnel some more.

‘I want you to convince me that what you refer to as the Free Syrian Army actually exists rather than is a label we apply to a rag-bag group of clans and tribal forces with no coherent force. There are no moderates in Syria.’ – Peter Lilley MP ‘I would ask you to look again at your figure of 70,000 Free Syrian Army troops because we have been told very directly through recent contact there are very few moderates remaining on either side of this civil war.’ – John Baron MP

Just think for a moment at the consequences of what bombing, what was once one of Africa’s richest countries, Libya, has achieved. We now, as a direct result of our intervention in Libya, created an exporter of global terrorism. Had Ed Miliband backed David Cameron in 2013 and bombed Syria (the Assad regime on this occasion) there is little doubt that ISIS would have complete control over the territory.

At every single turn since the turn of the century, our policy in the Middle-East has been shambolic. This proposition is no different. Our “War on Terror” has been wholly counter-productive.

Our intervention will only increase the amounts of foreign fighters entering Iraq and Syria. Without a long-term strategy we will create another vacuum with more untold consequences.

There is nothing unpatriotic about pointing out the obvious. This is a bad and reckless idea which increases the risk of an attack at home. As the drums of war beat from most government MP’s and the mass media, it is Labour’s leader, love him or hate him, who was right on the Iraq invasion… and is right on Syria.

Be a patriot. Oppose the bombing of Syria.



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