Theresa May will face questions from MPs today about her decision to launch airstrikes in Syria.
The Prime Minister will hit back at critics and say that her decision was one that was in the best interest of the UK and prevented human suffering.
“Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so,” she will say in Parliament today.
“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. We have done it because we believed it was the right thing to do. And we are not alone. There is broad-based international support for the action we have taken.”
May’s remarks will come on Monday after she refused to seek MPs’ approval before the action in Syria was taken.
“Theresa May had a chance to try and persuade parliament but bottled out of it through weakness,” said Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader.
Many MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, have called the attacks to Syria wrong. This is unlike Boris Johnson, who defended the Prime Minister’s decision.
“There’s one overwhelming reason why this was the right thing to do, and that is to deter the use of chemical weapons, not just by the Assad regime but around the world,” he said on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.
“It’s important that we understand the limits of what we are trying to do. This is not going to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria; one can hope it encourages the Russians to the negotiating table in Geneva, to get a political process properly going – but that is, as it were, an extra. The primary purpose is to say no to the use of barbaric chemical weapons.”