![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper examines the arguments presented for and against the UK government’s motion for the UK to intervene militarily in Syria in the House of Commons debate on ISIL in Syria that took place on 2 December 2015. It considers what the most common arguments were in favour of and in opposition to the motion as well as which arguments were given the most emphasis, in order to understand the prime justifications given that led to the decision to approve the motion. It suggests that due to the shadow of the 2003 Iraq war, politicians in the debate placed a considerable emphasis on the legal justification for military intervention. It argues that the focus on the national security of the UK and its allies in this particular debate seems to contrast with previous military interventions where humanitarian motives were more widely stated. This paper calls for further comparative research of parliamentary debates in order to track such changes in the rhetoric used by UK politicians to defend their support for military intervention.
Keywords:
Notes
1. ‘ISIL’ stands for ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.’ As ‘ISIL’ is the term used in the motion for the debate, this is the term employed throughout this paper.
2. See Appendix for the wording of the motion.
3. Including the Prime Minister David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn.
4. The table indicates the amount of times an argument pertaining to a particular category was made throughout the debate.
5. Stephen Doughty (House of Commons Citation2015a, 465).
6. See e.g. Beale (Citation2016).
7. See e.g. Rogers (Citation2016), and Airwars (Citation2016).
8. See note 7.
9. Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
10. An acronym derived from its Arabic name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām.
11. See e.g. Alex Salmond (House of Commons Citation2015a, 325), Hilary Benn (House of Commons Citation2015a, 483).
12. See e.g. Andy McDonald and Jeremy Corbyn (House of Commons Citation2015a, 340).
13. See e.g. (Cameron Citation2015) ‘Our Great British resolve faced down Hitler; it defeated Communism; it saw off the IRA’s assaults on our way of life. Time and again we have stood up to aggression and tyranny.’