Labour should 'be prepared to use military force as a last resort'

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy to tell delegates the party should never turn its back on international obligations

The Labour party must reject isolationism out of hand and be prepared to use military force as a last resort, the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy will tell the Labour conference on Monday.

In a message to some elements of the Labour movement, who called for Britain to restrict itself to diplomacy and humanitarian relief after the Syria vote, Murphy said the party should never turn its back on its international responsibilities.

The shadow defence secretary will underline Labour’s support for the armed forces by pledging to beef up the military covenant with a new bill of rights that will enshrine in law rights for service personnel.

He will say: “For those that have fought unimaginable danger it’s wrong that they have to fight through a well-intentioned but often frustrating bureaucracy at home.”

Murphy will make clear that support for armed intervention remains an integral part of Labour history. He will cite the eulogising of socialists who volunteered in the Spanish civil war, Michael Foot’s decision in 1982 to “support a controversial government here at home who stood up to an Argentinian junta” and Tony Blair’s Kosovo campaign in 1999 which stopped “a European slaughter in the Balkans”.

But the shadow defence secretary will say that the party should only ever use military force as a last resort and the international community should do more to prevent countries, such as Afghanistan, from turning into failed states. He will say: “Military intervention is always the last option for our party. That’s why on Syria we rightly required stringent tests over evidence, regional impact and a UN process before voting on military action.

“Labour has never turned our back on our international responsibilities and while some consider us a small island we remain a big country with a global reach. Under Ed Miliband’s leadership we will continue that tradition of knowing that our duty to stand for what we believe in travels well beyond our borders.”

Murphy believes Miliband was right last month to try and secure a proper legal basis for military action. But he blogged after the Syria vote in the commons, in which Labour joined forces with Tory rebels to defeat a government motion, that he felt “unease”. He feared that Britain had “gone from a stringent conditions-based approach to any UK military action to an unconditional policy of UK military inaction”.

His message is aimed at people in the Labour movement who saw the Syria vote as a chance to move away from support for armed intervention. But Murphy also knows that he has to convince the public, as opinion polls show widespread opposition to military force.

Labour says that many people believe that the Armed Forces Covenant, enshrined in law in 2011, is a “PR exercise or a gimmick”, which does not guarantee any rights.

The shadow defence secretary is to consult with service charities to assess how the armed forces could be given better in-service education, …read more