22 April 2015
Some describe the war in Syria and Iraq as the first war sparked, in part, by climate change as it followed a series of droughts leaving people hungry and hopeless and governments who could not or would not help. This led to protest then war. I think it is certainly a war of inequality, a global issue that drives many problems at home as well as elsewhere. So, in the midterm, I think the task is to work with partners wherever we can to tackle inequality and give people, especially young people, hope.This works at home too as a lack of meaningful opportunity and recognition by our society of young people leads readily to disaffection and amongst some groups, radicalisation and a search for meaning in an ideological war.
Now that it is happening then I think our effort should be on engagement with communities in the UK that have people that might be misled into joining IS, strong border controls, the work already being done by intelligence services to protect us in the UK, support for the countries on the border of the war looking after refugees and policing their borders, taking our fair share of refugees and our support for any efforts at peaceful solutions throughout the middle east that could lead to regional solutions to the situation.
Its tough with no easy answers. We need to learn to speak with people with very different views to ourselves, seek out peace, look after the victims and, when necessary, defend ourselves at home.