LONDON—British lawmakers voted by a wide margin Wednesday to join the international campaign of airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, after Prime Minister David Cameron asserted that bombing the “medieval monsters” in their heartland would make Britain safer.
The 397-223 vote in the House of Commons means Royal Air Force fighter jets—already operating against ISIS in Iraq from a base in Cyprus—could be flying over Syria within hours. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told Channel 4 news that the strikes would begin “very quickly ... probably not tonight but it could be tomorrow night.”
Anti-war protesters outside Parliament booed as they learned the result of the vote. The decision came after an emotional 10 1/2-hour debate in which Cameron said that Britain must strike the militants in their heartland and not “sit back and wait for them to attack us.”
Opponents argued that Britain’s entry into Syria’s crowded airspace would make little difference, and said Cameron’s military plan was based on wishful thinking that overlooked the messy reality of the Syrian civil war.
Cameron has long wanted to target ISIS in Syria, but had been unsure of getting majority support in the House of Commons until now. He suffered an embarrassing defeat in 2013 when lawmakers rejected a motion backing attacks on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The mood has changed following the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, claimed by ISIS, that killed 130 people. Both France and the U.S. have urged Britain to join their air campaign in Syria, and Cameron said Britain should not let its allies down.
He said Britain was already a top target for ISIS attacks, and airstrikes would reduce the group’s ability to plan more Paris-style carnage.
“Do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands, from where they are plotting to kill British people?” he said. “Or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us?”
The top NATO commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, said the bulk of Russia’s air operations in Syria are still directed against moderate anti-Assad opposition forces, not ISIS positions.
U.S. officials had hoped Russia would change its bombing focus after the Oct. 31 attack on a Russian airliner over Egypt, which killed 224 people.
Asserting that the “vast majority” of Russian sorties targeted moderate groups, Breedlove said coalition forces were “not working with or cooperating with Russia in Syria” but had devised safety routines to make it easier for both groups.
The British debate was sometimes bad-tempered as opposition lawmakers demanded Cameron apologize for remarks, reportedly made at a closed-door meeting, in which he branded opponents a “bunch of terrorist sympathizers.”
Cameron did not retract the comments but said “there’s honor in voting for, there’s honor in voting against” the motion to back airstrikes.
From the passionate speeches in the House to the anti-war protesters outside Parliament, the debate recalled Britain’s divisive 2003 decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on what turned out to be false claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Many lawmakers came to regret supporting the war and ensuing chaos, and blamed then-Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for lacking a plan for post-war reconstruction.
Labour leader Corbyn said that “to oppose another reckless and half-baked intervention isn’t pacifism. It’s hard-headed common sense.”
Labour’s Shabana Mahmood—one of the few Muslim lawmakers in Parliament—called ISIS “Nazi-esque totalitarians who are outlaws from Islam,” but said she opposed the strikes because “we cannot simply bomb the ground, we have to have a strategy to hold it as well.”
But Cameron said doing nothing was a worse option.
“The risks of inaction are greater than the risks of what I propose,” he said.
