Armed forces and international conflict

Andrew studied International Development. He has lived and worked in a number of developing countries, and in 2002 during a postgraduate internship advised the Department for Internal Oversight at the United Nations in New York. Like all Liberal Democrats Andrew believes that to meet the challenges of economic globalisation, international terrorism and climate change, we must work effectively with our partners in the United Nations, the European Union, NATO and the WTO.

British people used to be proud of what our country stood for. But Britain’s reputation has been damaged by dodgy arms deals with dictators, allegations of involvement in torture, and of course the disastrous and illegal invasion of Iraq. Like many local people Andrew opposed the Iraq conflict and marched againt the war (photo left).

Time has run out for the mission in Afghanistan. Unless we change direction, failure is inevitable. We should be encouraging a regional peace process working towards a ceasefire and ultimately a political and constitutional settlement within Afghanistan. Unlike the national party, Andrew and Hounslow Liberal Democrats argued throughout last year that we should immediately start to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

At Liberal Democrat Autumn conference 2009 Andrew was proud to back the party's new pay deal for the lowest paid personnel in the forces. They would receive an increase of £6000 – placing them on £22,680 and on an equal footing with a development-level firefighter or new-entrant police constable. Privates and lance corporals would receive an average annual pay increase of over £3000, with the average annual basic pay across these two ranks rising to around £25,000. As a Liberal Democrat MP Andrew would also continue to advocate policy to double in the number of forces’ family homes refurbished each year .

The Conservatives cannot offer real change. They are mistrustful of international cooperation with an out-dated world view. They want to pull up the drawbridge, leaving British foreign policy isolated and impotent, as was demonstrated when in 2009 the Tories left the mainstream of European politics and joined forces in the European Parliament with a rag-bag of parties with extreme views.

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