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Shadow Secretary of Defense John healey told MPs during a parliamentary debate today that government legislation relating to British troops serving abroad “creates the risk that the most serious crimes, including torture and other war crimes, will go unpunished”. Speaking of the Foreign Operations Bill, added that the legislation “calls into question Britain’s proud commitment to the Geneva Convention” and “our moral authority.” The bill aims make exemptions from the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to the personnel of the Armed Forces.
The invoice it passed with 331 MPs voting for and 77 against in the Commons tonight.
But Keir Starmer made sure the rebels faced the consequences of going against him as he fired Parliamentary Private Secretary and MP for Nottingham east Nadia Whittome after she voted against.
MPs Beth Winter and Olivia Blake have resigned as Parliamentary private secretaries.
Most of the 18 Labor MPs who voted against the bill are MPs.
This included Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Kate Osamor, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle.
Labor MPs will seek to amend the bill as it moves to the committee stage below.
Before the vote, Mr. Corbyn tweeted: “I am very concerned that, as is, the #OverseasOperationBill that the House of Commons is discussing today challenges and undermines international law. “
He was also praised by Momentum, the grassroots group created to support the former Labor Party leader.
READ MORE: Labor DESERVED the election beating, says Keir Starmer
This would include prosecution for alleged crimes committed more than five years ago.
Mr. Healey said: “The facts of this bill are that it now places torture and other war crimes on a different level than crimes of sexual violence.
“That is not shameful. That is inconceivable … Ministers must think again.”
Former shadow immigration minister Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who also voted against, introduced an amendment to scrap the bill.
He said: “There is nothing remotely patriotic about rejecting international law and decriminalizing torture.”
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace claimed that “illegal wars” instigated by Labor contributed to the legal “mess” British troops faced during the debate tonight.
He added that the government is introducing a “legal presumption against prosecution for torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity.”
He told the Commons: “This is the government of Great Britain saying that sexual crimes are so serious that they will be excluded from this presumption, but putting the crimes prohibited by the Geneva Convention at a less serious (level) and lowering our unequivocal commitment to uphold international law that we ourselves in Britain after World War II helped establish. “
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