I did try and copy and paste it into a quote for easier reading but iPhone not willing!
Here it is.
STATEMENT: Potential UK Military Action Against the Syrian Regime
12 April 2018
In light of the possible military action that the UK might conduct together with the US and France against the Syrian regime in response to the latter’s suspected responsibility for the chemical attack that occurred in the town of Douma in rural Damascus on the 7th of April, we wish to make our position clear.
No one can be happy with the prospect of their country being bombed, yet the current situation in Syria must be put in its proper context. The Syrian regime’s mass killing and terrorisation has reached inhumane standards that has made many Syrians hope for any form of action that is able to stop the regime’s ongoing bombing campaigns. Importantly, these Syrians are tentatively hopeful that such a prospective military strike might change the power balance (currently skewed in favour of Russian and Iran) to help stop the war, rather than escalate the situation.
As a general principle, we believe all attacks that indiscriminately target civilians - using chemical or non-chemical weapons - are crimes in which their perpetrators must be held accountable. For the past years, we have been calling for international action to stop the bloodshed that is mainly being spilt by the Syrian regime. It is disappointing that world powers - supposed guarantors of international security - had to wait until more than 400,000 civilians were killed and half the population were displaced before showing a will to respond to the regime’s violations of International Humanitarian Law.
It is with bitterness that we believe that a well-planned and purposeful military strike, which sends a clear message to the Syrian regime that it cannot pursue a sole military solution, can help increase chances for the political resolution of the conflict. This strike must only be made with the purpose of vehemently making clear to the Syrian regime that it will not reassert its authoritarian and despotic system of rule, that it will sit at the negotiating table and make compromises to enter into a political process with its opponents in order to find a way out of this cycle of violence and transition into a pluralistic inclusive political system free from oppression and injustice. We do not want to see an escalation of this conflict, nor a Western-Russian confrontation that risks putting people around the world through what Syrians have gone through over the past seven years; we want a form of deterrence that stops the regime’s crimes and facilitates a political process to end the war.
We remain sceptical of this potential military strike’s purpose and outcome, which, as analysed by emerging reports, seems reactionary and limited. The message sent to the regime through a potential military strike should not be: “continue with your killing and takeover of the country, but do not use chemical weapons in doing so”. It should be: “stop the killing, and stop it now”.
We also warn that backing off from the strike now would send the clearest message yet for the regime to carry on with its crimes. It would greatly encourage the scenario of the Syrian regime retaking the country militarily and rule Syria with an oppressive iron first that, with the scale of injustice committed, cannot sustain stability and security within Syria’s borders or around the world for that matter.
Disunity at the UN Security Council has prevented an independent investigation from being carried out and identifying the party responsible for this attack. Yet, we have strong grounds to believe that the Syrian regime was behind this gruesome attack:
1. The immediate outcome of this chemical attack was the submission of the armed opposition group Jaish al-Islam in being taken out from Douma without a full-on ground offensive by the regime. After days of stalled negotiations and intransigence from Jaish al-Islam to leave the area, this attack immediately changed Jaish al-Islam’s calculations and let to the outcome of Jaish al-Islam’s agreed departure.
2. The regime’s suspected use of chemical weapons may have proved to Jaish al-Islam that the regime could take Douma with minimal manpower losses, which helped change Jaish al-Islam’s perceived balance of power.
3. It is less difficult to believe that the attack in Douma (controlled by Jaish-Islam) was committed by the opposing side, the Syrian regime, rather than Jaish al-Islam committing an attack in its confined area and against its stronghold. The remaining opposition-held area in Eastern Ghouta was limited to the single town of Douma, making it difficult to envision how a chemically-loaded rocket would launch and land in about the same location.
4. The regime has a history of daring and testing international limits for its ‘allowed’ scale of actions, dating from its pre-2011 destructive role in destabilising Lebanon and Iraq to the manner in which it has internationally managed the ongoing conflict.
5. After all crimes verified to have been attributed to this regime, including torture until death, forced starvation, and indiscriminate barrel bombing, it is not unlikely that this regime was not ethically, morally, and humanely constrained from committing this horrendous attack against civilians.
We thus believe that any military response from the UK alongside international powers must only be proceeded with if conducted within the following parameters:
• The response must be directed with the purpose of pressuring the Syrian regime and its Iranian and Russian backers to agree to an immediate ceasefire and sit at the negotiating table to find a just political solution that ends the military conflict.
• The response must strictly refrain from putting civilians at risk; it must avoid targeting civilians and civilian-populated areas.
• The response must be followed up with clear justice procedures through international and national courts of justice that hold the Syrian regime accountable for the numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity it has committed over the past years - including the latest chemical attack - in order to more effectively deter the occurrence of such crimes.