Senior Tory MP Calls for “Brits Out of Iraq”

Michael Ancram is born and bred a Tory. The Honourable Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr, 13th Marquess of Lothian (a title he doesn't use), PC, QC, MP is a former shadow Foreign Secretary and once stood for leader of the Conservative Party. In today’s Daily Mail he writes, “It is time now for us to get out of Iraq with dignity and honour while we still can.” How much longer can Mr. Blair continue to participate in the Iraq debacle now that he is losing people like Mr. Ancram?

Like the rest of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, the member for Devizes voted in favor of the attack on Iraq. He was convinced, like multitudes, that the Saddamite regime had weapons of mass destruction and needed to be removed. He wrote, “On this I was wrong. So were many others.” With that, he established a credibility the White House can only envy. The Tory Party put a spokesman in front of the Fleet Street microphones to say that Mr. Ancram was “entitled to his views.” This is not the kind of slap-down language one would hear if there weren’t some sympathy for his statement in the highest reaches of the party.

Mr. Ancram also wrote, “Whatever word games Tony Blair, Jack Straw and John Reid may try to play, everyone knows that terrorism is rampant and that Iraq is effectively in a state of civil war . . . . We have no place in Iraq in a civil war. We cannot and must not take sides between Sunnis and Shias.” He further wrote, “having set out at the beginning to be part of the solution it is now sadly evident that we are in danger of becoming the problem.”

What is interesting here is that this is not an off-the-cuff remark, nor is it an ill-considered article that won’t be repeated. Mr. Ancram’s website has shown the transcript of a speech for two weeks now that contains much the same sentiments. This looks like a trial balloon that has garnered some degree of support. The question now is what the rest of the senior Tory leadership does about it.

The Liberal Democrats were the only major party in the last election that stood four-square against the war all along and did quite well as a result. However, if the Tories can find a formula that allows them to be the “troops out” party, Mr. Ancram may well be sitting in Prime Minister Cameron’s Cabinet before too long.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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