REMINDER TONIGHT: How could UK Defence Policy Better Protect us? Brent Trades Hall 7.30pm

Jean Lambert: Ongoing EU-funded search & rescue programme needed in the Mediterranean

A ten-point action plan has been revealed by the European Union in the wake of large-scale loss of life in The Mediterranean, promising to both increase control as well as rescue operations. The European Commission said the plan, approved by EU Foreign and Interior ministers at an emergency meeting in Luxembourg, will be presented at a summit today, Thursday the 23rd. Commenting, Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London said:

It could not be clearer that immediate action is needed to prevent further loss of life. We need an ongoing EU-funded programme for search and rescue of refugees because individual governments can no longer cry crocodile tears while at the same time refusing to support rescue missions. We must of course work to combat despicable smugglers, but acknowledge that desperate people take desperate measures. What worries me about this plan is the focus on smugglers and on return programmes. It looks as if we are just pandering to fears instead of really getting to the root of the problem.

No-one should be fooled, FRONTEX is border control, not a rescue operation. Unless Libya and Syria can experience prolonged stability people will continue to do what they have always done throughout history: try and reach safety. While the EU is not above criticism, it is our own Government that decides the level of support for the Italian Government.

The European Parliament will have a co-decision role on any proposal to adapt the EU budget, and Greens call on all political groups to consider this in the ongoing negotiations on the 2016 EU budget and put pressure on the European Commission and EU governments.

Next week the plenary agenda of Parliament in Strasbourg will include a formal  Oral Question ( for which Jean was a co-signatory) with Council and Commission statements on the situation, Jean concluded:

We need a common European approach based on solidarity and humanity. The overwhelming majority of refugees are not in the EU: if Germany had the same proportion of refugees as Lebanon, there would be more than 20 million to support. The real crisis here is for those seeking sanctuary, not for the EU.

No attack on Syria: Protest Wednesday, Demonstrate Saturday

No attack on Syria

- Protest tomorrow 5pm, Wednesday 28 August, Downing Street, London
- National Demonstration: Saturday 31 August, 12 noon, Embankment, London

Britain, France and the US are committing to another disastrous military intervention. Apart from the inevitable casualties, any attack on Syria can only inflame an already disastrous civil war and would risk pulling in regional powers further.

Most people in this country have learnt from the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. According to a Telegraph/YouGov poll on Sunday only 9% of the British public would support troops being sent to Syria, and only 16% support sending more arms to the region. Our politicians however have learnt nothing.

Take action:

• Please share Wednesday's event with your Facebook contacts
• Support our campaign by making a donation today (details below)
  

We need the maximum level of protests to stop them plunging us in to yet another catastrophic war.

No attack on Syria

- Protest tomorrow 5pm, Wednesday 28 August, Downing Street, London
- National Demonstration: Saturday 31 August, 12 noon, Embankment, London

The national demonstration on Saturday will gather at Embankment (near Embankment tube) and march via Parliament and Downing Street, ending in Central London for a political rally to say No attack on Syria.

Please do not hesitate to contact the office on 020 7561 4830 or email office@stopwar.org.uk

 http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/get-involved/join-or-donate

Gardiner: Brent children's services could be restored at less than the cost of one day's action in Libya

Barry Gardiner MP spoke again about Libya during the Budget debate making the link with cuts:

I did not support the Government in the Lobby on Monday night in the vote on military action in Libya. I pay tribute to our armed services, and to their valour and the work they do, but I cannot support the cost of the military escapade taking place in Libya, and I look to what could have been achieved if the funds being expended there were instead being expended around the rest of our country.

                       

One Tomahawk missile costs £350,000, and 140 of them were launched in the first 48 hours of the attack, which amounts to a cost of £50 million. It is estimated that the cost of prosecuting this military conflict is £6 million each day. The cost of one day of action in Libya could restore in its entirety the £2.25 million of cuts in children's services forced on my community in Brent by this Liberal-Conservative coalition Government. One month in Libya could protect children's services across the whole of London. Nine months in Libya could protect children's services across the entire UK. Aneurin Bevan once said that priorities is the language of socialism. Those are my priorities and that is why I will oppose this Budget.

Gardiner: Those made redundant will ask, 'What has this (Libyan intervention) got to do with Britain?'

With reporting of parliamentary debates often reduced to 'sketch writing' it is often hard to know exactly what our MPs have said without resorting to Hansard. For the record here is what Barry Gardiner MP for Brent North said in yesterday's debate on the Libya intervention:

I hope that, in a few weeks, the House will be able to rejoice that Gaddafi has gone. Few dictators have committed so many acts of psychopathic wickedness over such a long period of time. Many hon. Members will know of his atrocity at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, where he marched 1,270 prisoners into a compound, locked the gate and instructed his soldiers to open fire from the courtyard rooftops. The gunfire and grenades rained down for more than two hours until all 1,270 people were dead. But that was in the dying days of John Major's Government in June 1996, and Britain took no action.

I welcome resolution 1973. To take action now is right, but it would be disingenuous to claim that action was not possible without Britain's military participation, involving just three planes. The question is not whether action against Gaddafi is right but whether it is we who have the primary duty and responsibility to take it. It is the families of many of those slain 15 years ago at Abu Salim who began this revolution in Libya, inspired by others across the region who had dared to rise up and demand justice and dignity from their leaders. I praise their courage, but I recognise that this is a civil war in Libya. In that respect, it is categorically different from other conflicts involving ethnic cleansing and religious domination by one faith over another. This is neither Bosnia nor Rwanda. UN resolution 1973 has authorised international interference in a civil war in which there has been no genocide and no ethnic cleansing: no Halabja there.

The resolution purports to allow no more than the humanitarian protection of civilians, but all acknowledge that the Libyan population will not be secure from harm until the country is rid of Gaddafi. Coalition leaders, when asked whether Gaddafi was a legitimate target, have been equivocal in their response. In such circumstances, the rose of humanitarian protection begins to smell of regime change, and by that name it is not so sweet. This became apparent to Amr Moussa over the weekend when he said:

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians".

Perhaps the Arab League was too optimistic, because that is precisely what is likely to happen, if not by British and coalition missiles then by the rebels. It is naive to think that we can stop one side fighting in a civil war and not expect the other to take advantage. In a civil war, the tragedy is precisely that civilians are killed, if not by one side, then by the other. I do not believe that the international coalition will be even-handed in stopping rebel forces advancing in the same way.

The Prime Minister said in his statement on Friday that if we will the ends, we must also will the means. To will the means, however, does not entail the proposition that we must be the means. Many people in the UK are asking, "Why does Britain always have to get involved?" In two days, we will hear the Budget and the Chancellor will explain to the country why it is necessary to cut thousands of jobs to tackle the deficit. Those men and women who have been made redundant will no doubt sympathise with the Libyan people, but they will ask, "What has this got to do with Britain?" North Africa is not on our borders. It is not in our direct sphere of influence. Libya poses no direct threat to the UK, and we have no historical responsibility as the former colonial power, so why are we spending millions of pounds on cruise missiles, and endangering the lives of British soldiers to implement the resolution. It is ironic that many people asking these questions will be among the 17,000 military personnel who were judged to be surplus to requirements in last October's defence review, when the Government cut £4 billion from the defence budget.

There is no contradiction in welcoming the enabling authority given by UN resolution 1973, which allows those who have a direct interest or who have historical responsibilities as the former colonial power to act in Libya and, at the same time, to insist that we have no such direct interest or responsibility. Today, we are debating this after the event-we have taken that responsibility before a vote in the House, yet no one in government has sought to explain the policy of the rebels, on whose side we now find ourselves. We know that they are against Gaddafi, and that is a good start, but we certainly have no knowledge that they intend to replace him with an open, tolerant, liberal democracy. The whole of north Africa and the middle east are changing more rapidly than at any time since Suez. Shi'a minorities in Yemen and Bahrain have been shot or silenced by an invasion from Saudi Arabia. Iran is known to be eager to get involved. Egypt and Tunisia have effected home-grown revolutions and even Syria is experiencing serious internal tension.

In that extraordinary context, the Government have judged it right and in Britain's interest to involve our forces in military action. I pray that in a week's time Gaddafi is gone, and I pay tribute to the valour of our armed forces, but I believe that the Government were wrong to ask this-

The speaker interrupted at this point to enable another MP to speak.

Barry Gardiner votes against UN backed Libya intervention

Barry Gardiner MP (Labour, Brent North) joined Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Brighton Pavilion) and 11 other MPs  including Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Dennis Skinner in voting against the Government in yesterday's vote giving support to the UK's involvement in the intervention in Libya.

The vote was 557 for and 13 against. Sarah Teather MP (Brent Central) voted for the Government and Glenda Jackson MP (Hampstead and Kilburn) did not vote.

Barry Gardiner Questions UK Libya Involvement

Brent North MP, Barry Gardiner, had the following exchange with the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on Friday:

Barry Gardiner (Brent North, Labour)

I welcome the UN resolution, but I oppose Britain's military involvement in implementing it. The UN resolution is not to secure a no-fly zone for humanitarian protection, but an extraordinary authorisation of regime change. Unless the Prime Minister believes that Libya's Arab and African neighbours lack the capacity or the compassion for their Libyan brothers and sisters to act independently, why does he insist on putting British military personnel at risk?

David Cameron (Prime Minister; Witney, Conservative)

Obviously I respect the hon. Gentleman's view, but it seems to me that if we will the end, we should also will the means to that end. We should never overestimate Britain's size or capabilities, but neither should we underestimate them. We have one of the finest armed services in the world. We are one of the world's leading military powers, and we also have huge strength in diplomacy, soft power and development. We should not play a disproportionate part, but I think that we should play a proportionate part alongside allies such as France, America and the Arab world. To say that we should pass such a resolution but then just stand back and hope that someone, somewhere in the Arab world will bring it about is profoundly wrong.