SNP SPLIT ON BOMBS VOTE
Sturgeon is undermined by Salmond on sending RAF to Syria
A MAJOR schism has emerged at the top of the SNP over whether the party should scrap its opposition to air strikes in Syria. Nicola Sturgeon said she was prepared to listen to David Cameron’s case for bombing IS – even if he fails to secure a UN mandate.
But hours later she was humiliated by Alex Salmond, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, who insisted a Security Council resolution would be a ‘pre-condition’ to SNP support.
It is not the first time Miss Sturgeon has been undermined by her former mentor, but it is particularly embarrassing given the gravity of events in Paris and growing support for a bombing campaign.
Yesterday, a Daily Mail poll revealed six out of ten Britons want the RAF to bomb the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria.
That is unlikely to get President Putin’s approval – despite Russia waging its own bombing campaign – and David Cameron made clear he would be willing to launch an assault without a UN mandate.
On Wednesday he told Westminster he would not ‘outsource to Russian veto the decisions that we need to keep our country safe’.
Mr Salmond’s position would leave the SNP out of step with popular opinion and the UK impotent, without Russian agreement, despite the ‘severe’ terror threat level on these shores.
The First Minister’s spokesman was repeatedly asked yesterday if she would endorse the position of her Westminster foreign policy chief but refused, saying only that she would ‘want’ a UN mandate.
It is a difficult dilemma for the SNP after spending years attacking Labour for Tony Blair’s so-called ‘illegal war’ in Iraq, which did not have the support of a UN mandate.
The SNP had previously voted unanimously against air strikes in Syria but has had to re-evaluate following the Paris atrocities.
Miss Sturgeon told the BBC: ‘Everything we know about the threat from ISIL – Daesh as I prefer to call them – suggests that there is a serious threat. I’m not yet convinced the case for air strikes has been made. That is not to say I will not listen to the case that David Cameron will make... But I think it is incumbent on the Prime Minister, if he is going to bring a proposal for air strikes to the House of Commons, that he makes that case.’
Asked if air strikes could be legal without a UN mandate, she added: ‘If there’s not to be a Security Council resolution, then he has to outline what he considers to be the legal basis.’
But just hours later, Mr Salmond told the Daily Politics show a Security Council resolution would be a ‘pre-condition’, saying: ‘Without that resolution, you can’t bring about peace.’
In a confused interview he backed President Hollande’s bombing campaign in response to the attacks in Paris, but not President Putin’s following the attack on a Russian airliner over Egypt.
He said: ‘Every nation has a legitimate right of self-defence if they can identify where they are being attacked from.
‘But the situation we are currently in is in the Prime Minister’s wish to join an international bombing campaign in Syria, which everyone knows would make no difference to the military situation.’
It is not the first time Mr Salmond has dictated SNP policy from Westminster. During the General Election campaign he committed the party to full fiscal autonomy – complete control of tax and spending – which experts warned would have left Scotland £10billion a year worse off by the end of the decade.
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said yesterday: ‘This is not the first time Alex Salmond has veered off in a different direction on foreign policy. His record on this subject is hardly credible after describing military intervention in Kosovo as “unpardonable folly”.
‘Nicola Sturgeon would do well to listen to the Prime Minister over him, as she appeared to indicate she will today.’
‘His record is hardly credible’