MP says UK ‘powerless’ to stop bombing civilians
Dorking Friends have received a letter from MP Paul Beresford
Dorking Friends have said they are disappointed after receiving a letter from their local MP Paul Beresford saying that the UK is ‘powerless’ to act against the bombing of civilians. The response on 21 January came after Dorking Meeting wrote to the Conservative MP for Mole Valley late last year, urging him to back a ban on this kind of bombing.
Anne Brewer, member of Dorking Meeting and assistant clerk of West Weald Area Meeting, told the Friend that local Quakers were prompted by the ‘Stop Bombing Civilians’ campaign organised by the charity Humanity and Inclusion UK. The charity, formerly Handicap International UK, contacted many Quaker Meetings in late 2018 encouraging them to reach out to MPs and ask them to support the campaign. The letter from the Meeting, signed by Frances Poulton, the clerk, claimed that, according to Humanity and Inclusion, the UK ‘did not join fifty other states (including twenty-seven European countries) who issued, in October 2018, a joint statement highlighting the need for urgent action, and an international declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas’.
It asked the MP to table a question in parliament asking ‘the UK government why it did not sign this joint statement and suggest that in future it looks constructively at any multilateral policy responses proposed to improve the protection of civilians from explosive weapons’.
The letter also said: ‘We understand that when explosive weapons are used in villages, towns or cities ninety-two per cent of all victims are civilians, and that over 31,500 civilians were killed or injured in this way in 2017… You only have to look at Yemen for a vivid and heart-breaking example.’
According to Anne Brewer, the response from Paul Beresford, ‘didn’t commit to anything’. She said: ‘The letter mentioned Syria and said how terrible it was but, basically, it wasn’t our fault. We felt he wasn’t really supporting us, so we are drafting a very polite letter thanking him but saying it might be worthwhile to have a ban on the bombing of civilians, after all.’
The MP’s letter referred exclusively to Syria, despite the fact that this conflict was not mentioned specifically by Dorking Friends. He also said the UK’s ‘ability to influence any of the different participants regarding how they use their military power is essentially zero’.
He wrote: ‘You mention the need for “urgent action” to stop the loss of innocent life, sadly, the time for such action has come and gone… I have no pleasure whatsoever from outlining our powerlessness in this matter, but the truth is that we have been reduced to the status of passive observers.’
