SNP conference 2015: Salmond warns against UK military action in Syria

Millions of Syrians have been displaced since civil war in their country

Scotland's former first minister has warned the UK against staging a "futile military intervention" in Syria.

Alex Salmond insisted that a "few more ageing Tornado sorties will have no military consequences whatsoever" in the war-torn country.

Mr Salmond spoke ahead of the SNP conference unanimously backing a motion opposing "UK participation in ongoing military action in Syria".

It also condemned any air strikes as being "militarily irrelevant".

Instead, the SNP called for "renewed diplomacy to resolve the conflict", saying only those initiatives backed by the United Nations would have the "international consensus required" to end the civil war and the resulting humanitarian crisis, which has seen millions of Syrians flee their country.

'Voice of clarity'

Mr Salmond, the SNP foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, said: "There is nobody in Syria who is not being bombed by somebody. That's why there are six-and-a-half million people displaced."

He added: "What should our reaction be to this carnage in this country? We need to be the voice of clarity, of sanity and of humanity.

"We have to have the clarity to put forward the vision that adding a few more ageing Tornado sorties will have no military consequences whatsoever but it will add to human suffering.

"We have to have the clarity to say we have a Prime Minister who is still smarting from being turned over in military action two years ago when he wanted to target Assad and is itching to reverse a Commons vote on military action."

And to cheers from the conference floor, Mr Salmond said: "There should be no more futile military interventions by the UK.

"No more Afghanistans with no exit strategies, no more Libyas where we spent 13 times as much bombing as we did reconstructing that country and no more illegal wars such as the one in Iraq.

"Above all, the path we should tread is that of humanity."