I shall be brief. I support the motion and I commend both the case made by the Prime Minister and the excellent case for support made by the Leader of the Opposition. There has been a great deal of unanimity in the comments and contributions from across the House, but I have some concerns about the debate so far, like the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), and hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will be able to address those.
First, we must be absolutely clear with the British people. Our support for intervention is morally, strategically and politically right, but we have to be clear: we do not fully know how this will end. As is usually the case, this plan will not survive contact with the enemy. We need to be frank about that—frank, too, about the potential consequences. We must never again see soft and hard power as separate strategies. The lesson of the 21st century has been that hard power without soft power is disastrous, and that soft power without the prospect of hard power is too often pointless. Nobody in the House wants to
write a blank cheque, morally, strategically or financially. The motion seeks to avoid that, but the motion will not be on the battlefield.
We will return to these issues before a general election, I am sure, to discuss them again, perhaps with regard to further intervention. That is the truth. When the Deputy Prime Minister concludes, I hope he will be able to tell us what assessment the Government have made regarding the potential domestic consequences of our intervention. The public would expect that, and surely some assessment has been made.
Finally, were I a Muslim Briton, I would feel under siege in my own country—marginalised, treated with suspicion and caution, even contempt, for more years now than I would care to remember. As a Parliament, and as a legislature, we need to do more to reach out to our Muslim countrymen. We have to let them know that we know that the extremism we are fighting against is as alien to them as it is to everyone else in this country. We do not do that enough, and I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will ensure that he does so when he concludes the debate.
I support the motion, but it deliberately avoids a series of difficult questions that demand some extremely difficult answers. We will, I am certain, return to these issues very soon, but fundamentally, we must deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
3.38 pm