War With Syria was a Bad Idea - That's Why the Government Lost

Conservative MPs Who Voted Against the Government Motion

David Amess
Steve Baker
Richard Bacon
John Baron
Andrew Bingham
Crispin Blunt
Fiona Bruce
Tracey Crouch
David TC Davies
Philip Davies
David Davis
Nick de Bois
Richard Drax
Gordon Henderson
Philip Hollobone
Adam Holloway
Dr Phillip Lee
Dr Julian Lewis
Tim Loughton
Jason McCartney
Nigel Mills
Anne Marie Morris
Andrew Percy
Sir Richard Shepherd
Sir Peter Tapsell
Andrew Turner
Martin Vickers
Charles Walker
Chris White
Dr Sarah Wollaston

Conservative MPs Who Abstained on the Government Motion

Adam Afriyie
Henry Bellingham
Graham Brady
William Cash
Christopher Chope
Kenneth Clarke
Geoffrey Cox
Nadine Dorries
Alan Duncan
David Gauke
Justine Greening
Alan Haselhurst
Chris Kelly
Pauline Latham
Edward Leigh
Charlotte Leslie
Ian Liddell-Grainger
Jack Lopresti
Anne Main
Patrick Mercer
Jesse Norman
James Paice
Priti Patel
John Redwood
Andrew Rosindell
David Ruffley
Mark Simmonds
Rory Stewart
David Tredinnick
Andrew Tyrie
Bill Wiggin
Tim Yeo

Last Night the Government lost a motion on Syria by 13 votes, even though it didn't sanction military action. What the motion did was back the Government's legal position for going to war and in principle agree to it. Yet the Government couldn't even win this. Above is the list of Conservative MPs who voted against the motion and those who abstained (some of those who abstained are missing government ministers and some are ill). This was not because of  the spectre of Iraq or that it's not in the British Interest. The Government lost because this was clearly the worst idea ever.

Normally I'm pretty pro intervention. I was in full support of what happened in Libya because we allowed the Libyan people to get rid of a brutal tyrant and get them started on the path to democracy. Not everything is perfect in Libya at the moment but there is a democratic government which is starting to assert itself. People who would normally back intervention to save civilians lives and to allow a democracy in Libya did not back last night's motion in the Conservative Party and that is why the Government lost.

 Libya was a success, despite some problems afterwards. The only people who really regret toppling Gaddafi are George Galloway and the Russians who passed the UN motion.

Despite convincing hard-line sceptics like Douglas Carswell and Cheryl Gillian to vote with the Government David Cameron still lost this vote. And this was not the usual ground of Dr Sarah Wollaston either. The Noes on their side had MPs who you would not expect in this lobby. The abstentions are even more surprising. If we miss out the odd story of Justine Greening not hearing the division bell, you can see Adam Afriyrie and Jesse Norman not voting for the Government. Why did this happen?

 You know you have problems when those you would expect to back the Bill do not.

It wasn't to do with Iraq. For sure there were a lot of mentions of it but they came mostly from the Labour side. Labour has a problem with Iraq because they are of a mind set not to agree to intervention. Yet when Labour MPs sat on the government benches their own Prime Minister pushed for war and lied in the process. As a result they got a hammering in the polls of 2005. Speak to a Labour MP for a short time and Oona King will soon come up. Many of the electorate were also wary about Syria because of Iraq but in whole probably no more than in Libya. 74% of voters is such a huge number that it was clearly not Iraq which decided for them not to back Syria intervention. 

  Iraq caused a big problem for the Left but the facts caused a problem for the Conservatives.

David Cameron lost last night because, probably a lot like me, Conservative MPs could see this was going to be a disaster based on all the facts of Syria. A country where we would have to engage in a 3 way war. A country where we risked causing massive tensions with Iran and Russia. A country where there was no chance of bringing about a democracy. A country where we could quite clearly make no difference, or maybe make things worse, in saving civilian lives. A country where we were rushing over a short time to start action with little preparation. And also a country where our military chiefs said the most likely outcome for the UK would be defeat. This wasn't like Iraq at all, it was clearly much more complicated and much worse to get involved with.

I simply cannot believe that David Cameron, and William Hague too (who will be a bit nervous now so close to a reshuffle), thought that he could carry his party when all the facts went against him. I wasn't expecting Government defeat last night, but most sensible people knew that, with 80 Tory MPs against arming the rebels earlier this year, there was no way he was going to get Parliament to vote for war. What clearly happened was that David Cameron had decided to go to war perhaps even a year before, he had been swayed by all the graphic images we were seeing on our TV.

 William Hague has lost most of his credibility as a top rate statesman after the Syrian issues.

What Assad is doing is horrible beyond belief but if the PM hadn't allowed his heart to take over all logical thinking he wouldn't have lost a vote. With all the information at his disposal he should have known better than everyone that the facts showed we were unable to help and most likely we would make things worse. 

I'm going to follow this up with another post later about what has actually come of this vote.

NUCA Westminster Trip

On Tuesday NUCA went on a trip to Westminster organised brilliantly by our 2012/2013 Vice-President, Luke, and Publicity Secretary, Jack. We had a great day seeing Conservative MPs and what is going on in Parliament. 

News at Ten, NUCA goes to Westminster. 

We arrived at Westminster around 10:50 to meet Chloe Smith MP. Chloe was known as the 'baby of the house' during the last parliament but now she has come of age with her obvious talent showing through. She was Economic Secretary to the Treasury and now is in the Cabinet Office, where she also has to work with Nick Clegg. Chloe emphasised on our visit the amount of waste that has been cut in the Cabinet Office. So far the Conservatives have cut £20 billion so that we can tackle our deficit problem.

Chloe Smith is a really lovely lady.

Next up was Adam Holloway MP, he is Luke's MP from Gravesham. Adam seemed very relaxed and gave us free reign to ask us questions. He took a keen interest in Jamie's tie and also my arm braces, to hold up my sleeves. I really enjoyed meeting Adam, he was really fun and told us some really good stories especially about his previous life as a journalist.  

Douglas Carswell came on afterwards. He spoke a lot about his plans of democratic reform from open primaries to the right of recall. I personally agree with Douglas Carswell, the people do know best and should get the final say. He pointed out to us that Parliament is not as steeped in tradition as we may think, our electoral system is not very old at all. For example, before 1918, if a backbench MP was selected to be a government minister he had to resign his seat and fight a by-election to get the people's approval.

Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless with the NUCA group.

Mark Reckless then came to speak to us and talked about the problems with a coalition government in general. I'm not a big coalition fan. If there was to be another hung parliament in 2015, although I believe the Conservatives can win, I do not think that either Labour or the Tories will want to do it again. Coalitions are a tainted brand and rightly so in my opinion. 

In the committee rooms tea was available. We should make a cut and stop using Twinings and have Yorkshire Tea instead.

After all this we went to lunch where we were joined by Colonel Cooper but more importantly our life President John Hayes. As I have said before, I like John Hayes and I told him that I was very pleased with the results he promised on wind turbines after the NUCA Dinner. It is good to see that the final decision on these turbines lies with local people and not some court, very much detached from the local people. John talked to us about his role as an MP in balancing his work in Downing Street and in South Holland and the Deepings, my next door constituency as it happens. We also engaged in a very philosophical debate about liberalism and conservatism and the right and left spectrum within the Conservative Party. For example Douglas Carswell who is very classical liberal is more right than David Cameron, although he is a definite One Nation Conservative.

John Hayes and NUCA outside the House.

During this time we spied many MPs. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband walked past us having a 'heated discussion', Labour has such cooperative front bench. MPs from Tim Faron, Dr Therese Coffey and John Redwood were also spotted when walking around Portcullis House and the Houses of Parliament. The Speaker was also playing Tennis on the lawn outside, so all in all we saw most of the important people in politics.

The chap in the white shirt is the Speaker.

After Lunch we met Adam Afriyie. Someone asked the obvious question on him standing for the leadership and Adam said that the closest he ever came to challenging David Cameron was saying once that if we lose in 2015 and David Cameron steps down he may try to become leader. Adam pointed out he is a Cameron loyalist, putting donations toward his own campaign to be leader. Other questions we asked him showed he has very good business experience and believes we should start a Conservative Reform. Reform of the modern Tory Party so that it emphasises more business and with other key issues of the day, but is not going backwards to where we opposed many socially liberal policies. Adam wants us all to cheer whenever we hear a company making profits as it means that more jobs will be created and people will be better off. The mood at the moment is more of the left where profit equals oppression, which is very far from the truth.

No wonder Conservatives complain Cameron is too left wing, the only papers we could find in Parliament are left leaning. 

Last but not least was Robert Halfon who gave a good speech on Neo-Conservativism. Robert has stuck his neck out and said that we should not shun intervention and bring freedom to those who are oppressed by tyrannical regimes. He says we have adopted a semi-appeasement stance at the moment and this should not continue. Rob believes that intervention works and pointed to Kurdistan in Iraq, where Sadam killed thousands of his own people with chemical weapons in a genocide. But now Kurdistan is a fairly peaceful region, there hasn't been a suicide attack in the area for many years. Intervention does not necessarily mean sending in the tanks however. In Syria Robert believes that we should have created safe zones for innocent civilians and wishes to put greater emphasis on international aid to winning hearts and minds. Thanks goes to ex-NUCA lady Emily Burditt for helping to get Robert to speak to us. 

Group photo with the Great Robert Halfon MP

Our Trip to Westminster was great and I really enjoyed it. The speakers were very good and showed how many talented individuals we have as MPs.