Air strikes without a vote appalling

Dear Sir,

I am utterly appalled and incensed to hear today that our prime minister has ordered air strikes in Syria without obtaining prior approval from Parliament. As Sir Vince Cable said, this shows weakness, not strength, on our prime minister's part.

Previous prime ministers have ensured they obtained prior Parliamentary approval before taking action: Margaret Thatcher after Argentina invaded our sovereign territory in the Falklands in 1982; John Major before the first Iraq War in 1991; and Tony Blair, albeit with the help of a dodgy dossier, before the second Iraq war in 2003.

The fact that David Cameron failed to obtain the prior approval from Parliament when he sought to take military action in Syria in 2013, with our MP Fiona Bruce, being one of the 30 Conservative MPs who voted against that military action, is even more reason for prior Parliamentary approval for such action being required in 2018.

I trust Mrs Bruce is as appalled as I am that she has not had an opportunity this time to support or vote against it before military action was taken in Syria.

There is even more reason for prior Parliamentary approval before the air strike in Syria given our prime minister is using her inappropriate autocratic powers in conjunction with an unstable and unreliable president of the United States.

Let us also remember that our prime minister, as was sadly our MP Mrs Bruce, one of the 294 MPs who in April 2016, shamefully by a majority of just 18 stopped Lord Dubs' amendment to enable the UK to accept 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees who were in mainland Europe without a parent or guardian.

I, as I am sure many of your readers are, ashamed by the part the UK has failed to play regarding the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

Yours faithfully,

ROBERT DOUGLAS

Congleton