Mrs May must speak to the public about Syria

LEADERSHIP in a democracy involves not only action but explanation. The Cabinet met yesterday and, according to a statement released later, “agreed to take action” against the Syrian regime for its use of chemical weapons. What that action might be, we were not told. Whether Parliament will be given a vote in advance, we do not know. The Prime Minister did not make a statement. The Foreign Secretary did not give an interview. All we heard was a junior minister, who wasn’t at the meeting, telling BBC Question Time that “there has been no decision to take military action”. That seemed to contradict the behind-the-scenes briefing that British planes and submarines are being moved into position to take part in an imminent USFrench missile strike. Meanwhile, in the absence of any ministerial view on whether the House of Commons should have a vote, the airwaves are being filled by Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Clarke, who believe that it should. As for public opinion, as far as we can tell from the instant polls the British people remain far from convinced that there should be strikes against Syria, let alone that Britain should take part.

It’s high time the Government got out there and made its case — a case this paper supports. It is not doing that at the moment. The dry Downing Street statements, off-the-record briefings and unemotional Prime Ministerial television clips belong to a bygone age. We live in a world of President Trump’s outlandish tweets and the Kremlin’s cynical spin. That’s where the British public are getting their information from right now, and it’s helping to form their sceptical views. President Macron sat down yesterday and gave a lengthy interview in which he explained to the French people why their country could not sit on the sidelines when chemical weapons were used in our world. Theresa May needs to do the same, and fast. She has spoken to Donald Trump, she is speaking to Emmanuel Macron: it’s time she spoke to the British people.