Clegg: Gas evidence won’t force second Syria vote

Mr Cameron has come under pressure to call a second vote after US secretary of state John Kerry announced that the United States has evidence of sarin gas use by the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad. The US Congress is expected to vote next week on a punitive military response.

London Mayor Boris Johnson this morning suggested that a new motion could be put before Parliament if fresh proof came to light of Assad’s culpability in the deadly attacks on civilians on August 21.

But Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today said he “could not foresee any circumstances” in which the Government would ask MPs to vote again, following their rejection of the PM’s proposal for military action last Thursday.

And Mr Cameron’s official spokesman told a daily Westminster media briefing: “Parliament has spoken and that is why the Government has absolutely no plans to go back to Parliament.”

Mr Clegg today said that he and Mr Cameron remain “completely convinced it was Assad’s regime that used chemical weapons in that eastern suburb of Damascus the week before last”, adding: “I personally think there’s a case for Britain, on humanitarian grounds, to participate in deterrent action to stop the further use of these abhorrent and illegal weapons. But Parliament didn’t agree.”

He added: “We’re not going to keep asking the same question of Parliament again and again. We live in a democracy, the executive cannot act in a way which clearly is not welcome to Parliament or the British people, so we’re not proposing to do so. I can’t foresee any circumstances that we would go back to Parliament on the same question, on the same issue.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband’s decision to oppose last week’s Government motion has sparked a ferocious political slanging match.

Mr Clegg today accused Labour of using the House of Commons vote “as an opportunity to score party political points”.

But shadow cabinet minister Chuka Umunna said allegations of political game-playing were “insulting” and insisted that the party would have a duty to consider any proposal if Mr Cameron did decide to return to Parliament over Syria.

On the possibility of a second debate, the shadow business secretary told the BBC that if Mr Cameron “were to choose to change his position and come back to Parliament and seek a new mandate to take action, then, as a responsible Opposition, of course we would consider that and we would be applying exactly the same criteria as we set out last week”.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph today, Mr Johnson said that there was a “natural majority” of Conservatives and Blairite Labour MPs in favour of “a calibrated and limited response to a grotesque war crime”.

“If there is new and better evidence that inculpates Assad, I see no reason why the Government should not lay a new motion before Parliament, inviting British participation - and then it is Ed Miliband, not David Cameron, who will face embarrassment,” wrote the London Mayor.

And Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt this morning appeared to indicate that a second vote may not be entirely off the table, telling ITV’s Daybreak that he would “never say never”.

“You can never say never to anything. If circumstances are different, who knows?” he said. “But the point is that Parliament had the opportunity to look at it last week, and what the UK is now committed to is working diplomatically with partners on all the other things we need to do... Ultimately what will benefit the Syrian people is getting that negotiated settlement.”

But Mr Cameron’s spokesman said the Prime Minister had made clear that he respected last week’s vote and the Government will act “in full accordance with that”.

“The position we are in is that Parliament has expressed its will and that is the basis on which we will proceed,” said the spokesman.

He declined to comment on whether last week’s vote would stand in the way of the UK offering intelligence support to allies which do decide to take military action.

But he did not explicitly rule out the use by allies of UK sovereign territory, such as the RAF bases on Cyprus, saying only that no requests had been received for support of this kind.

Cypriot foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides said on Friday that the country had received assurances that the Mediterranean island would not be used as “a launching pad” for an attack on Syria.

Mr Cameron’s spokesman said that the Prime Minister will continue to press for a diplomatic solution to the two-year Syrian civil war when he meets world leaders including US president Barack Obama and Russian president Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in St Petersburg later this week.

The PM put efforts to revive the Syrian peace process at the heart of his chairmanship of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland earlier this year, but a proposed conference to bring the warring parties together in Geneva for talks on a transitional government has yet to materialise.

“We will continue to work with international partners in all the institutions in order to try to find the political solution that is needed to bring an end to the conflict in Syria,” said the PM’s spokesman. “The G20 this week offers a potential opportunity for further discussions.”

Russia is a long-standing ally of the Assad regime and has so far blocked agreement in the UN Security Council on tough action against Damascus.

Asked whether Mr Cameron was hopeful of persuading Mr Putin to drop his opposition, the PM’s spokesman said: “We will make the case with all our international partners for a robust response but it is hardly a secret that not every country shares our view.”