MPs have rejected
possible UK military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
government to deter the use of chemical weapons.
David Cameron said he
would respect the defeat of a government motion by 285-272, ruling out joining
US-led strikes.
The US said it would “continue
to consult” with the UK, “one of our closest allies and friends”.
I was quite surprised to discover
that the government were defeated in this vote, and the result of it does pose
some interesting questions, for example, how are we going to look if the US and
France do intervene at some point in the near future.
Once the result was in Cameron
tried to be magnanimous saying it was clear Parliament didn’t want military
action and that the government will “act accordingly”, but when dealing with a
regime like Assad’s once military action is off the table there isn’t really
much for you to do other than stand by as others get involved.
The reason why Cameron was defeated
in this vote was simple; he held it too early, the government motion was in
support of military action if it was backed up by evidence from UN weapons
inspectors that chemical weapons had been used.
But that investigation is still
ongoing and their findings won’t be public knowledge until next week, so
wouldn’t it have made more sense to hold it then, Cameron has lost this vote
because he’s tried to rush it through and in doing so has lost the support of
too many MPs.
It will be interesting what happens
next particularly seeing how the US and France respond in the wake of this news.
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