THERESA May has defended her decision to launch military action in Syria as part of the US-led airstrikes following the alleged chemical attack in Douma little over a week ago, demanding that the use of chemical weapons in Syria “must stop now”.
Mrs May is looking to reassure a sceptical public that the UK’s military action in Syria was the right move after a Survation poll showed that only 36 per cent of voters backed the attacks.
The Prime Minister said: “Britain’s carefully targeted strikes on three chemical weapons sites in Syria is a clear message to those seeking to disregard the international rulebook.”
Mrs May described the alleged chemical attack in Douma as “an act of almost unimaginable horror”, and referred to the horrifying scenes which caused her to take action.
She said: “Children gasping for life as chemicals choke their lungs, the air around them thick with the toxic smell of chlorine.
“Innocent people lying dead, with foam in their mouths
“Survivors being desperately hosed down, their eyes fixed with terror.”
Mrs May also took direct aim at the Syrian regime, saying: “Despicably, the attack took place while civilians were cowering in underground bunkers, seeking shelter from the military bombardment of the Assad regime.”
She noted that the action, carried out by France, the US, and the UK was a “firm and decisive action in response to the persistent use of chemical weapons by Assad”.
Writing in The Sun, she reassured readers that the air strikes against three chemical weapons sites had been “successful”, and helped in “seriously degrading and deterring the Assad regime’s ability to carry out further attacks with these banned and abhorrent weapons”.
This comes as Mrs May is set to call for an emergency six-hour debate in Parliament surrounding the UK’s involvement in the US-led airstrikes following growing criticism from MPs that she bypassed Parliamentary approval.
Outlining the Government’s legal and moral case for the military operation, she said: “I was absolutely certain that it was the right and legal thing to do — and at the right time.
“For, by moving with speed, and in coordination with our close allies, we were able to protect the vital operational security of the mission.”
She also noted that the airstrikes were not about “interfering in the Syrian civil war or regime change”, but were expressly about “alleviating future humanitarian suffering by degrading the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability.”
The Prime Minister underlined the need to preserve international rules surrounding the use of chemical weapons which are almost 100 years old, and that the use of chemical weapons can “never, ever be acceptable”.
Mrs May will today address the Commons to reassure MPs that the military intervention in Syria was necessary.
She will say: "Let me be absolutely clear: We have acted because it is in our national interest to do so.
"It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used.
"For we cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised - either within Syria, on the streets of the UK or elsewhere."
In reference to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, Mrs May also noted that countering the use of chemical weapons had direct implications for the safety of British citizens.
She wrote: “In recent years, the international norm surrounding the use of chemical weapons has been dangerously eroded — not just in Syria, where Assad has repeatedly and barbarically used chemical weapons against his own people, but also on the streets of Salisbury.”
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