Ed Miliband defends blocking Syria strikes as Streeting says Assad may’ve been stopped

Ed Miliband has said he has no regrets about blocking military action in Syria in 2013 – despite criticism that it could have saved over a decade of horrors.

The Energy Secretary, who was Labour leader 11 years ago, accused critics of taking a “wrong” view of history. It comes after Wes Streeting said failure to strike “kept Assad in power for much longer” and gave Vladimir Putin an opening to fill a power vacuum.

Mr Miliband helped inflict a Commons defeat on David Cameron as MPs voted against strikes against Syria following a suspected chemical weapon attack. Asked on Sky News whether he now regretted it, he said: “No, I don’t.

“I welcome the fall of president Assad. Back in 2013 we were confronted with whether we should have a one-off, potential one-off bombing of Syria.” He suggested that even if the bombing had been carried out, it may not have topped Assad – pointing to later action in 2017 and 2018.

It comes after Health Secretary Mr Streeting, speaking on BBC Question Time on Thursday, said: “With hindsight, I think we can say, looking back on the events of 2013, that the hesitation of this country and the United States created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.”

He added: “I think if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone.” But Mr Streeting said it was unclear whether this would have led to a better Syria.

Since Assad was toppled, the scale of the horrors he inflicted on the Syrian people has become clearer. Dozens of bodies recently killed inside Sednaya Prison, dubbed “the slaughterhouse”, show signs of torture, indicating Assad’s killers dealt atrocities out in his final hours of power.

Mr Miliband insisted it was right to hold back in 2013, saying there was “no plan for what this British involvement would mean, where it would lead, and what the consequences would be”. He added: “Now to those people who say that president Assad would have fallen if we bombed in 2013 that’s obviously wrong, because president Trump bombed president Assad in 2017 and 2018, so he didn’t fall.

“So I welcome the fall of a brutal dictator, but I think the view that some people seem to be expressing about history is just wrong.”

Mr Cameron lost a vote on joint UK-US strikes on Syria by 285 to 272 in August 2013. The then-PM argued it would deter further chemical weapon strikes by Assad. A week earlier hundreds of people had died in an attack on the outskirts of Damascus.