Does the Prime Minister have to get Parliament’s authorisation for military action?
On January 12th 2024, Britain and the US launched a series of airt strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Britain’s involvement was taken unilaterally (on his own) by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. There was no vote in Parliament to provide authorisation. What is interesting about this is that between 2008 -2018 it had become a convention that the Prime Minister would ask for the authorisation of Parliament before ordering military action, including airstrikes.
This was the case under the Premiership of David Cameron who asked Parliament for the authorisation to launch air strikes against Syria. Cameron lost the vote in Parliament, 285-272, a humiliating defeat for the Prime Minister, and a rare weakening of the Prime Ministers ability to take unilateral decision on foreign policy.
Cameron asked Parliament for permission to target Syria once again in 2015. This time Parliament agreed and he won by a majority of 174, the difference this time was that the Labour Party allowed them MPs a free vote on the matter.
However, by 2018, Theresa May seemingly cast the convention aside, launching air strikes against Syria without the prior approval of Parliament. May did though seek Parliament’s approval, just after she had already launched the strikes. She duly won the vote comfortably. Had May broken the convention or had she amended it? As May argued, military action often needs to take place swiftly and without the prior knowledge of the target, as such, she felt she was still bound to ask for Parliament’s approval, but just after the event rather than before.
And what of Sunak’s decision to launch military action against Houthi rebels in 2024. The Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Layla Moran, said it was ‘shameful’ that the Prime Minister by passed Parliament. Sunak had however informed both the Labour leader Keir Starmer and the Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle prior to launching the attacks, so there was not a complete by passing of Parliament. It remains to be seen whether there will be any sort of vote in the Commons in the coming weeks to legitimise the action and if there is not then we can count this as a further amending of what has become a rather hazy convention.
