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Dominic Grieve
World News

Christian MPs weigh in on emergency Syria debate

The discussion, requested by Jeremy Corbyn, follows Britain's decisions on Saturday to join the US and France in launching missile strikes on suspected chemical warfare facilities in Syria.

Rachael Maskell is among politicians supporting a call by her party's leader for a new War Powers Act to require ministers to consult MPs first before taking such action in the future.

Speaking with Premier, the representative for York Central said: "I was deeply concerned that the Prime Minister - when she had time - did not recall Parliament on such an important issue.

"I believe it was incumbent on her to make sure that Parliament - to which she is accountable - had the opportunity to debate the issue of whether or not action should be taken and, if so, what action should look like.

Rachael added: "I want Theresa May to understand her accountability before the House and ensure she does adopt Labour's call for a War Powers Act and that she is accountable to that Act for the actions that she calls on from her Government and, ultimately, our armed forces."

Conservative MP and former attorney general, Dominic Grieve told Premier that it would have been "very difficult" for Theresa May to brief politicians on Saturday's "highly specific operation", in light of the need to protect confidential details.

He said: "The reality is that if we debated this last week, the Government would have been unable to tell us exactly what it was going to do and the difficult reality would have been that we would have all been floundering around thinking very different things about what the Government had in mind.

"I do have some concern as to whether the debate would have been particularly constructive."

Mr Grieve added: "That said, I think the basic principle that you should seek parliamentary authorisation before taking military action is a perfectly sound one and I don't think the Prime Minister disagrees with that."

Click here to listen to Premier's Alex Williams speaking with Rachael Maskell:

Click here to listen to Alex speaking with Dominic Grieve:

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