That circumstance doesn’t apply when it comes to launching a punishment raid on Syria.
It is also quite reasonable for a Prime Minister to act fast when the element of surprise is necessary in order to reduce the risk to the troops we ask to go into harms way on our behalf.
Thanks to Donald Trump’s impetuous and reckless tweets that circumstance also doesn’t apply.
Finally, it might be thought that it is OK for a Prime Minister to act fast when it is crystal clear that she has widespread support from all sides of the political spectrum and rapid and decisive action will be more effective than calm and measured intervention at a later date.
That is the exact opposite of the circumstance that the Prime Minister found herself in.
There is therefore no possible justification for refusing to take the decision to go to war to Parliament in advance of action. However limited the intervention may be, there is no other word for dropping bombs on another country than war. Back in 2013, the last time Parliament was asked to weigh up the risks of military action against Assad’s regime, it gave the government of the day a very clear answer about its judgement call. It voted against intervention.
Since then we have been showered with many statements about the vital importance of keeping our Parliament sovereign and independent. Yet when it came to a fundamental question of war and peace it was ignored. Even in the middle of the darkest days of the Second World War when Churchill took office he felt the need to get the backing of Parliament for his strategy of bravely fighting on against all odds. May simply decided that she was likely to lose the vote so she wouldn’t bother.
The level of opposition to this ill thought out act of war is astonishing. I have spoken to ordinary people on all sides of the political spectrum and very few of them see any advantage in the action. This is not because we are all pacifist wimps. Plenty of the opponents of this action are serious military strategists who believe in the vital importance of strong armed forces in a dangerous world. A great deal of the opposition stems from logic not from principle. It is a simple calculation of gain.
It is hard to see what May has actually achieved by firing missiles into a confused war zone. Is President Putin weaker at home today than he was before the missiles were fired? No. Is his domestic opposition weaker? Yes. Is Assad, the man who set off 7 years of unnecessary war because he thought he would lose free and fair elections, going to stop killing people or do so more cautiously because of our actions? No he is not. Have we discouraged him or his troops from using every horrible weapon at their disposal against children trapped in the wrong locations? No we haven’t. We have simply taught him the urgency of finishing off the job. Have we upheld international conventions by proving how strongly we are opposed to chemical weapons. No we haven’t. We have acted without UN approval and thus shown that we don’t take international law seriously. Is anyone now trembling in their boots before the combined firepower of Western armed forces? Or have we simply shown how little we can do unless we are prepared to put troops on the ground for years with serious intent to take a large number of casualties and risk a war with Russia in order to defend some safe spaces for rebel Syrians.
When we see scenes of horror on our TV screens any decent person wants to try and do something to help. But doing something isn’t always doing something helpful. And if you can’t do something helpful then sometimes doing nothing is the best option.
May clearly believed that Parliament would take that view if it was given the chance. She has a paper thin majority, several military trained Conservatives would never vote for such an ill thought out strategy, and the number of MPs who are cautious about foreign adventures has increased since 2013 when action in remarkably similar circumstances was voted down. That vote was simply ignored because it was inconvenient. An outrageous assumption of Presidential powers by a Prime Minister who is not up to the job.
No doubt plenty of us will be out protesting and the storm of protest on twitter, facebook and in blogs like mine will continue to mount. May will simply ignore it. She has factored in the risk of protest and thinks she can ride it out.
Only one thing will have a real impact on her resolve. Losing the local elections in three weeks time. If Theresa May gets a pounding in the London seats she will find it really difficult to continue governing as the horrible splits within her party will open up. If she loses significant numbers of votes and seats in the shires and the counties her government is even more likely to fall. Rarely has there been an opportunity for a vote in a local election to make such a difference to the future of our country.
So if you want rid of a shambolic government that is weak and utterly confused about the best way to build a strong and secure future for this country then you know what to do. Turn out and vote and above all challenge everyone you know to use the opportunity of their own little bit of power to rid us of a government that combines incompetence with arrogance.