Armed forces and international conflict

I studied International Development and I have lived and worked in a number of developing countries. In 2002 during a postgraduate internship I advised the Department for Internal Oversight at the United Nations in New York. I believe that to meet the challenges of economic globalisation, international terrorism and climate change, it is essential the UK works 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 so many others I opposed the Iraq conflict and marched against the war (photo left).

Time has run out for the mission in Afghanistan. Unless we change direction, failure is inevitable. I believe 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, Hounslow Liberal Democrats and I argued throughout 2009 that we should immediately start to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

At Liberal Democrat Autumn conference 2009 I was pleased 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. I continues to advocate policy to double in the number of forces’ family homes refurbished each year .

RELATED NEWS RELEASES

Subscribe to RSS headline updates from:
Powered by FeedBurner