On Wednesday, December 2, Dr Phillip Lee, the MP for Bracknell – which includes parts of Wokingham borough – voted in support of a House of Commons motion to extend UK air operations against Daesh into Syria. The Government motion was voted through the House of Commons with a majority of 174.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Dr Lee said: “I support the Prime Minister’s proposal to extend air strikes into the ungoverned space of Eastern Syria … I regard the current circumstances — in which the RAF can find a foe but not destroy it — as nonsense. The threat from ISIS is clear and present, the legal justification for action is strong, and it is right that Britain should play a leading role with its allies in eradicating ISIS/Daesh from the face of the earth.”
On extending air operations into Syria, he added: “We should help to eradicate groups of people anywhere who abuse authority in order to behead children, systematically rape women, kill people whose religious views or ways of life are not the same as their own, and whose extortion, terror and hatred makes it impossible for people to live in the territory they control, and those who commit murder and spread terror in other parts of the world.”
Dr Lee also voiced his support for a regional strategy towards the whole Middle East “We must consider our 10, 20 and 30 year priorities – as well as any immediate threats. I have long believed that we need a Middle East strategy similar to that rightly commissioned by the PM towards the Gulf States.”
