Unlike political Twitter, which was full of armchair experts extolling their own surprisingly untapped talent while the Paris attacks were still taking place on Friday night, senior politicians have today been rather cautious in their responses to the massacre. Theresa May repeatedly told the Marr Show that there were ‘lessons to be learned’ from the attacks, but that it was ‘too early to tell’ what the fate of the Schengen agreement would be. She also said that there needed to be political consensus on British action against Isis in Syria. But she was carefully non-specific, saying:
‘It is of course important that we look at the lessons to be learned from what has happened in Paris – of course we all work very closely together to ensure we can keep people safe and secure. Here in the UK our police, our law enforcement and our security and intelligence agencies are constantly working day and night to ensure we can keep people safe and secure.
‘These are issues where we are always looking to see if there is more that we need to be doing in these areas – we will be looking at the lessons to be learned from the Paris attacks. That’s partly, obviously, what the Cobra meeting this morning will be about, as things develop, as we learn more about what has happened in Paris. We need to look to see if there are more lessons that we need to learn here in the UK.’
Lord Falconer, speaking for Labour on the same show, was similarly non-specific about what needed to be done in response to the attacks, arguing that ‘everybody is now thinking that the right thing to do now is to take stock’. But he added that Isis ‘can only be defeated by the international community as a whole, if possible through a UN-sponsored process but if not that then nations come together’. And his own view was that ‘I’m not urging troops on the ground, but ultimately Isil have to be defeated. It can’t just be from the air’.
His colleague Hilary Benn echoed these comments, telling Sky’s Murnaghan that ‘there has to be a comprehensive plan if you are really going to end the threat from Isil Daesh and that needs to come forward. If the Government wants to bring that forward then we will look at it. But you are not going to defeat Isil Daesh in Syria just by dropping bombs.’
Politicians who are in government need to avoid being too specific as they have the responsibility of making real decisions, rather than just sending important-sounding tweets. Opposition politicians want to take sensible stances, but Labour frontbenchers also have a great deal of internal tensions on foreign policy to navigate, which also makes avoiding specific prescriptions at this stage wise. It will be interesting to see what the reaction of Parliament more widely is when the House returns tomorrow, and over the coming weeks when cautious politicians have had a chance to take stock.
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