On Syria, Ed Miliband deserves praise not poison | Peter Hain

David Cameron should stop trying to spin his humiliating defeat over military intervention. Miliband has been consistent

David Cameron has a streak of petty, bullying arrogance which often reveals itself at prime minister’s questions – very un-prime ministerial. Now his henchmen have been trying to spin his humiliating defeat by parliament over military intervention in Syria into an unedifying character assassination of Ed Miliband. It wasn’t Miliband who attempted to grandstand by bouncing parliament prematurely into attacking Syria. The Labour leader hasn’t been responsible for perhaps the most monumentally misjudged British foreign policy in recent times. Cameron began two years ago demanding regime change – which didn’t work. Then he resourced the rebel forces – which failed too. Then he tried to send arms to the rebels – until cross-party opposition in parliament blocked that: perhaps he forgot the series of protests by MPs culminating in the vote opposing his policy by 114 to one on 11 July on a backbench motion moved by Tories?

When first phoned last week by the PM and informed of his intentions to recall parliament at short notice, Miliband initially offered to co-operate – as was his duty. The hideous chemical weapons attack revolted everyone. But he was not prepared to support an ill-judged and rushed decision to use military force: before the UN weapons inspectors had reported, before the UN security council had even debated and voted on the basis of the evidence presented, and before the wider impact of military action on the region had been properly weighed up. Miliband has been consistent ever since he was elected Labour leader three years ago: these are the lessons of Iraq. We have to learn them.

Instead, Cameron insisted parliament vote ahead of the evidence – and parliament refused to be bounced. No amount of poisonous Tory briefing can escape that truth.

Yes, on Wednesday backbench and frontbench Labour MPs made it clear they were unwilling to go along with the PM. As did many Tories too – though No 10 ignored them, in a way the Labour leader did not with his party. But the real problem is that Cameron gave absolutely no sense of where all this was going to lead. What would happen after a military strike – “surgical” or not? What about collateral civilian casualties, retaliatory attacks, escalatory consequences? Although they do indeed cross a red line in warfare, chemical weapons actually account for just 1% of all the terrible casualties in Syria. What would parliament be asked to do next?

If Cameron had been doveish over Syria all along and come to MPs saying “we simply must stop chemical attacks”, maybe he might have achieved a different result. But he has been repeatedly and publicly straining at the leash of British military intervention for over a year now. The chemical attack simply seemed like an excuse to do what he had long wanted.

The fundamental flaw in the position of the government, the US and its …read more