William Hague, the UK’s foreign secretary, has ruled out military intervention in Syria stating Britain will only be offering diplomatic support in the light of PM Cameron’s defeat on the parliament vote. The UK Chancellor slammed Labour “opportunists.”
“Parliament has spoken. I don't think it is realistic to think
that we can go back to parliament every week with the same
question having received no for an answer,” Hague said on the
Murnaghan Show on Sky News on Sunday. It was his first major
interview since the House of Commons defeat late on Thursday.
Hague said that Labour would need to be “less partisan” in
order to reverse the Commons vote, and even in the event that
more chemical strikes were alleged within Syria, UK intervention
would still be unlikely.
“Anybody looking objectively at this would see that, in order
for parliament in any circumstances to come to a different
conclusion, people would have to be more persuaded by the
evidence. There is a great deal of evidence there but I'm not
sure that the extra evidence that the United States presented
would have made a difference to those doubting the evidence in
the House of Commons,” said Hague.
“We will have another discussion with Russia to see if we can
find a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis in
Syria,” Hague also commented.
UN inspectors are yet to publically provide the results of their
analysis, after having departed Syria on Saturday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry stated on the same day that the
US has its own evidence of sarin gas having been used in Syria,
telling NBC that “hair samples and blood samples have tested
positive” for the neurotoxic gas’ signature. The UN stated
that it would take some three weeks for the results of their
investigation to be processed.
The UK’s ruling Conservative party has been strongly in favor of
military intervention, forcing its leader, UK Prime Minister
David Cameron to concede “it is clear to me that the British
parliament... does not want to see British military action.”
Ongoing protests against UK military intervention Syria have been
taking place, the most recent of which fell on Sunday. Thousands
gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square, marching under banners
stating that “war solves nothing.”
The vote was defeated by a 285 to 272 margin, constituting what
was deemed a “major blow” to the party. The war vote was
the first lost by a British prime minister since 1782.
The UK’s Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, confirmed that
the UK would not seek a further vote on action in Syria. He
made comments along the same vein as Hague in an almost
concurrent interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“Parliament has spoken,” he declared with an air of
finality on Sunday. “I don't think another UN report, or
whatever, would make the difference.”
Osborne went on to state continuing support for the move, despite
full knowledge that it would be unlikely.
“Of course I wanted us to be part of a potential military
response. Now that is just not going to be open to us,” he
said. Osborne added that his party’s opposition rivals, Labour,
played the vote opportunistically, in his opinion, saying that
the move against the government’s desire for military action by
Labour made the party leader, Ed Miliband, look less like a
future prime minister.
Former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, renowned for his unwavering
support of the joint UK/US invasion of Iraq in 2003, labeled the
outcome of the Commons vote “shocking” in a Sunday Times
column.
Obama announced on Sunday that he would be seeking Congressional
approval for a strike on Syria, adding that the strike was not
“time-sensitive.”
“In consultation with the President, we expect the House to
consider a measure the week of September ninth,” House
Speaker John Boehner said in a statement released on the same
day.
French President Francois Hollande also said on Sunday that he
would wait for a parliamentary vote before committing France to a
military attack on Syria.
Russia has warned that Washington’s apparent plans for military
intervention in Syria would only serve to increase the violence
now gripping the country.
“Any unilateral use of force without the authorization of the
UN Security Council, no matter how 'limited' it is, will be a
clear violation of international law, will undermine prospects
for a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict in
Syria and will lead to a new round of confrontation and new
casualties,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr
Lukashevich said. There is currently a lack of proof that the
Syrian government used chemical weapons, he added.