Britain’s foreign policy is now dictated by our politicians’ feelings

The ‘price of non-intervention’ is becoming one of those awful Westminster clichés. It is a phrase which, we can be sure, will be used to justify another half-cocked and disastrous military intervention in the not-too-distant future. There is growing consensus among the political class that, had wicked Ed Miliband not scuppered brave David Cameron and George Osborne’s plans to throw some bombs at the Syrian problem in 2013, the horrors of Aleppo would have been averted. Some nice, clean surgical air strikes would have sorted out that whole President Assad problem. But Parliament got cold feet, and as a result the people of Aleppo are dying, horribly. So, shame on you non-interventionists — you have blood on your hands. 

George Osborne used his first major Commons speech since leaving the cabinet to make this point. ‘There were multiple opportunities to intervene,’ he said, calling our non-intervention a ‘failure of western leadership; of British leadership.’ ‘I take responsibility,’ he added, as he, essentially, blamed the House of Commons.