“A Conservative  government is organised hypocrisy.” So said Benjamin Disraeli and he should know, having been a Tory Prime Minister.

Rarely has there been such a demonstration of rank hypocrisy as in the House of Commons on 16th April 2018, not only by the Tories, but also by such anti-socialist Blairite recidivists as John Woodcock, Yvette Cooper, Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes and Jess Phillips, who should all be dumped by their constituency Labour Parties. All these worthies were supportive of the attacks on Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons.

Such up-holders of international law and conventions said not a word when the British were firing depleted uranium shells in Iraq, leaving the Iraqi people suffering raised incidence of cancers and birth defects. They all do nothing about Yemen which has much worse humanitarian suffering than Syria.  All they do about Yemen is support the continued supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is pounding Yemen daily.

They all of them support Trident renewal at a cost of over £200 billion, despite the UK being a signatory of the 1988 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They are also silent over the government’s intended absence from next week’s NPT 50th anniversary Conference in Vienna.

The suffering people of Syria do not need yet more bombs and missiles.  They need a country to take the initiative by calling an international conference, prefaced by saying: we claim for ourselves no long-term interest in Syria other than its peace and total self-determination, which can only come about if all foreign powers declare unilateral ceasefire and withdraw, pledging material support for Syria’s reconstruction. The UK, unless it continues its mealy-mouthed hypocritical stance, would pledge such commitments regardless of what any other country, including Russia and the US might do.

All nations must stop using this poor benighted country as a football. Get out and leave it alone. And if Islamist gangs continue to slog it out, leave Syria to sort them out