Syria - A statement from Roger Gale

 

15th April 2018

 

It was necessary for the United Kingdom to support our NATO allies in concerted, appropriate and proportionate response. I had the opportunity to discuss this personally with the Prime Minister last Friday and I urged her to authorise whatever action was necessary at the appropriate time. and not to feel compelled to delay action prior to a vote or statement to Parliament if to do so would compromise our military position and that of our allies.

 

I regard with disdain the suggestion that the action now taken was improper, was taken solely at the behest of the United States or that “Parliament should have been consulted first”. It is the clear duty of Government to act swiftly in the national interest and having taken  direct, proportionate and appropriate  action in the light of the illegal use of chemical weapons  by the dictator Assad against his own people  the Prime Minister will, quite properly, make a statement to Parliament at the earliest opportunity when the House sits tomorrow (Monday 16th April)

 

It is inevitably the case that the Government has access to security information that cannot be revealed to Parliament or even to a Leader of the Opposition whose sympathies appear to lie elsewhere, and while I believe in the sovereignty of Parliament I also accept that Government sometimes has to take hard and decisive actions without the luxury of recourse to debate.

 

The Prime Minister has, and will continue to have, my fullest support for the measures that have been taken. As she has said, to allow the use of chemical weapons in breach of international agreements and to become, by default, and inaction, acceptable is not and cannot ever be an option.

 

On a personal note, I have five grandchildren whose future I want to be secure. I also know that the bodies of those murdered in Douma were the bodies of other people`s grandchildren and I do not believe that we should sit idly by while further atrocities are committed – as they will most certainly be if we tolerate the use, anywhere, of chemical weapons.

 

Those, including Mr. Corbyn, who are suggesting that this matter could have been resolved by negotiation and debate are, I believe, being at best dangerously naïve. Negotiation and diplomacy are certainly necessary but have to be backed up by robust and determined intervention: The idea that we are dealing with  normal and decent people is, in this instance, as risible as it would have been to say that we should have ignored the invasion of Poland and relied upon `negotiation `with Adolf Hitler to restore peace in Europe in 1939. 

 

Parliament has to heed the lessons of history and we also have to understand that Government`s job is to govern and that decisive action is on occasion imperative.

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Sir Roger Gale joined Samaritans in Parliament on 18 December to pledge that he would do everything he could  to prevent suicide in 2018.