Greg Mulholland-Working Hard For Leeds North WestMULHOLLAND TELLS PARLIAMENT MPs NOT PM SHOULD HAVE FINAL DECISION OVER WAR
October 21, 2005 12:00 AM
Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, today spoke out in the House of Commons in support of a new law that would ensure MPs and not the Prime Minister would have the final decision over when the UK goes to war. Greg went on to say that he wanted to speak on this historical debate in part because of the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq and the anger of his constituents, a decision he described as "always immoral, always illegal and now sadly obviously disastrous"
But the point of the bill he said, was not actually the conflict in Iraq, but "the fact the PM of this country can take the country to war by using the ancient Royal Prerogative which in a 21st Century Democracy is grotesque".
During his speech Greg Mulholland paid tribute to Clare Short, who had brought forward the Draft Bill and even went as far as declaring that he had a "soft spot" for her as one of the MPs from all sides of the house to have real principle and passion about what they believe in.
He said the debate needed to be widened to the whole issues of the outdated constitution adding,
"As a new MP, when I ask why things are done the way they are, I am sick of hearing the answer, 'because we have always done it that way.' That is no way to run a country in this day and age."
"We need a written constitution and bill of rights for this is the only way to prevent the excesses of Prime Ministers like Thatcher and Blair, and what better way to start the process by taking the power to go to war away from the Prime Minister and bringing it back to the seat of our democracy, the House of Commons. Only then will people feel confident in the gravest decision a Government can make, that of sending its troops to war"
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